Some Memoir Prompts

Recently I finished a week-long workshop in memoir comics at the Center for Cartoon Studies, taught by Melanie Gillman.   They are an excellent teacher, and I had wonderful classmates, and so I learned a lot during the week.

One of the practices Melanie recommended was creating journal or diary comics every day or as often as possible and putting these on social media.  This keeps you practicing and gets you into self-publishing and hopefully building an audience for your work.

These comics are meant to be completed, start to finish, in 30-50 minutes or so (we had 50 minutes in class and it was amazing what people could do in that time).  For inspiration we looked at (among other things) a web comic called Deep Dark Fears and an anthology called Lies Grown-ups Told Me.

Here's an example of my comic (done in 50 minutes, remember!) for a prompt like "tell me about a lie a grown-up told you that you believed at the time."

For short comics like these, I don't want to spend time thinking up subjects, so it's a case where a writing prompt is really helpful to me.

But to really spark my imagination, I find I can't come up with the prompt myself.  It's best if it coms from outside of me, from something random, like pulling a paper out of a hat.

So where do I find such prompts?  Below are a few sources.  These are all prompts intended for prose, but I don't think it really matters that much in terms of prompting one's thinking.

 I think reshaping them to fit a daily journal comic, something you could do in 50 minutes, is probably most important.  For me, no matter how the prompt is written, I always try to rephrase it:  "Tell me about a time that..."  That helps me.

So a prompt like "How good are you at saying goodbye?" becomes "tell me about a time you said goodbye and felt really good about it (or really bad about it)."   Or "how comfortable are you with lying" becomes "Tell me about a time when it was the right thing to tell a lie."  That sort of thing.

Anyhow, my favorite book of prompts is Natalie Goldberg's Old Friend From Far Away.  I also love her classic book Writing Down the Bones, which has some prompts and also some thoughts about writing.

I also very much enjoy this huge list from the NYT.  It is intended as a list for teachers to use with students, but with a little revision as suggested above, I think it works well for one person.  And it's such a huge list you are bound to find something there to prompt you!

I find two other online collections valuable for inspiration as well: the essays collected at This I Believe and the work done at StoryCorps.  Both of these have huge online archives you can explore for ideas.

Also, if you haven't seen Lynda Barry's book SYLLABUS (also her book What It Is), check those out, as she has some excellent methods for helping you develop your own prompts.

On memoir as a genre, I love Mary Karr's book, The Art of Memoir, and Marion Roach Smith's book, The Memoir Project.  Notably, Marion Roach Smith is strongly against "prompts" and exercises as they distract you from writing your "real" memoir.

I think this is a terrific point.  Doing exercises without a clear intent can be a waste of time and energy.

This is why the idea of a daily comic which you SHARE in some way is so attractive (and perhaps terrifying).  You have a prompt, you have an hour, and you learn to focus and complete quickly and in a way meant for readers.  And then you pop it up on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or share with family and friends in some other way.   You can find me on Instagram:  @Elizabeth_Trembley .

The best writing book EVER is Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird.  No prompts, but just the best writing book ever.  :-)

Sketching a Bobblehead Batman

I have a Bobblehead Batman on my desk, right near my computer screen.  I really can't do anything on my computer without looking at him.

He reminds me to be fierce, undaunted, and work for justice, no matter what "the authorities" think. 

He looks better than this!  My proportions got a little off.

Still it was fun for me to work on the shadow shapes, something I don't think about often enough, and which really do help make a sketch come alive!

Sketchkon Sketches #16 The Los Angeles Zoo Part Six

Lions.

They were asleep in full view and no one was around.

These were my last sketches of a fantastic sketchcrawl!

Sketchkon Sketches #15 The Los Angeles Zoo Part Five

Gorillas. 

I struggled drawing these.  I tended to make them look too human.

The Roz Stendahl, our guide for our sketchcrawl, advised to study the shadow shapes, especially on the face.  That would help us see the real animal in front of us, and not fill in with human features.

This helped!  You can see the progress, I think.

SketchKon Sketches #14 The Los Angeles Zoo Part Four

The African Wild Dog.

I had the great pleasure of seeing a pack of these on a safari in South Africa in May of 2018.  The guides there told us such a sighting was quite rare.

There coloration reminds me of my own Dutch Shepherds.  Stripes and blotches designed to help them disappear in the shadows...

Sketchkon Sketches #13 The Los Angeles Zoo Part Three

Birds are so like dinosaurs.  I think of it every time I draw them.

Real Life on Valentine's Day

A little sketch I did around Valentine's Day last year.  The hilarious card, the water bottle, the coffee pods, the sticky notes, the family photo, the dog brush, the cleaning solution for puppy accidents...

real life.

Sketchkon Sketches #12 The Los Angeles Zoo Part Two

I spent a lot of time observing the double-wattled cassaway.

This is a bird I have never seen before.  Roz pointed it out as something she had seen as a child, but not since.

It was so strangely put together--a real treat to try to draw!!  Also, frustrating!  Because my brain didn't know what to make of it!

Sketchkon Sketches #11 The Los Angeles Zoo Part 1

When Sketchkon officially ended on Sunday at about noon, a bunch of us took a trip to the Los Angeles zoo to sketch.  Roz Stendahl served as our fearless leader.  She's a master at sketching live animals in places like zoos and local fairs.  Check out her blog for loads of great information on all things about keeping a sketchbook!

I had just purchased a uniquely shaped sketchbook at the Kon and I decided to take it along to the zoo.  I thought it's format would force me to think differently about what I was seeing and how I would place it on the page.  And it did!

Sometimes my sketchbook pages get messy.  You can't always stay neat when standing at a fence, in the sun, being jostled by crowds

Sometimes it was just so crowded I would sketch a shape and move on. 

Other times, I'd find myself with lots of elbow room and time to toss down some colors.

None of this sketchbook work is, for me, about creating beautiful pictures.  I want to observe, learn, and record the animals.

“Instructions for living a life. 
Pay attention. 
Be astonished. 
Tell about it.” 
― Mary Oliver

SketchKon Sketches #9 Learning Life Drawing

Veronica Lawlor did a terrific session basically designed to teach us new ways to approach life drawing.  You can see from the sketches I made during the workshop that it included things like blind contours, non-dominant hand sketches, one-line drawings, and so on.

She emphasized that getting rid of "normal" habits of seeing and drawing would open up our drawing skills.

After some warm-up lessons, we sketched poses.  The models from Dr. Sketchy's were great!

SketchKon Sketches #8 Jill Badonsky Workshops

Jill Badonsky, an artist and author whom I've admired for many years now (I love her book entitled The Awe-manac) did several workshops at SketchKon 2018.  Sketchnotes of one of the sessions and some of the sketches I drew from her instruction are below.

Next up, a one-line drawing of five different kinds of flowers in a base.  I think, in fact, we drew this with our eyes closed...  I added colors and the box around it later.

Then she had us draw all sorts of things with our eyes closed, from memory, from our imaginations.  This is just one page of dogs, technology, purses, and birds on a wire. 

The big-eyed puppy at the bottom was drawn upside down without looking at the paper.

Fun fun stuff.

SketchKon Sketches #7 Some More Sketchnotes

Some more sketchnotes from SketchKon 2018!  Really a great conference.  And there's one in the works for 2019!

SketchKon Sketches #6 Some Sketchnotes

While at SketchKon 2018, I sketchnoted every session I attended.

Here are a few.

Sketchnoting is a great way to help yourself pay attention, stay focused, and capture elements of a presentation or workshop that have the most meaning for you!

Check out the next few posts for more sketchnotes!

Sketchkon Sketches #5--Lawlor and Reim Workshop #3

Continuing with sketches from the Urban Sketching Boot Camp workshop I did at Sketchkon last November...

We sat in a garden and produced multiple sketches, focusing entirely on mark-making and texture.

This was fascinating and hard work for me.  I am not someone who enjoys making tons of tiny marks.  I know loads of people find it meditative and relaxing, but I always catch myself wanting to get on with the next thing.  There just seems always to be so much more to capture.

One of the last things we did in this workshop was go to the entry of the hotel and draw people.  We were assigned to do five people, full body, in motion, in fifteen minutes.  Thanks to all the practice I've had in Roz Stendahl's classes and in drawing at soccer games, I was able to sketch many more.  Plus, they move so fast.... I don't know how anyone could spend three minutes drawing someone in motion!

What a great day!  We were all exhausted and exhilarated at the end. 

If I ever had a chance to do a workshop with either of these teachers again, I would!

Sketchkon Sketches #4 -- Lawlor and Reim Workshop Part 2

Continuing with sketches from my full day Urban Sketching Boot Camp workshop with Veronica Lawlor and Melanie Reim...

After drawing 20 thumbnails in 20 minutes, we chose three of those thumbnails to explore further.  In each thumbnail we had to identify three specific objects.  Then we had to do a variation on each thumbnail moving each object through foreground, middleground, and background.  

I sort of screwed it up in the first example, but in the last one you can see I finally got the hang of it, with the person, the tree and the wall occupying different picture planes. 

This was, for me, a mind-bending exercise.  I LOVED IT.

A bit later we walked to a church and our assignment was to draw it in several ways, thinking about depicting emotional content.  How does this building--and all it signifies for you in your life--make you feel?

That was fun and really tapped into my storytelling impulses.

Sketchkon Sketches #3-- Lawlor and Reim Workshop Part 1

As part of Sketchkon, I signed up for a full day workshop with two of my sketching heroes, Veronica Lawlor and Melanie Reim.  We drew for hours in this Urban Sketching Boot Camp.

We started by learning about and practicing quick thumbnails.  We had to sketch twenty in twenty minutes.

What a great exercise for exploring ideas and space.  Twenty in twenty minutes meant you had to keep looking always for the next idea.  I'd be in the middle of drawing one and thinking about what would be next!  And you couldn't stop to criticize.  And you couldn't even attempt to draw more than just basic basic shapes because you didn't have time.  

Bonus:  what a great exercise to help you BE IN A MOMENT and in a space.  You pay such close attention to where you are when doing this.  It imprints the whole scene deeply into memory.

SketchKon Sketches #2

Travel from Detroit to Los Angeles.  

I confess I did not sketch on the plane.  I watched movies instead.  And napped.  Big days coming up!

Celebrating Goodness from 2017

On this happy New Year's Day, I want to start a series of posts sharing my sketches from one of the many great goodnesses of 2017:  SketchKon!!

SketchKon was a sketching "konvention" held by the folks who run Sketchbook Skool.  I've posted many times about what an amazing impact that program has had on my life!

I got to attend the workshops in Pasadena, California last November and I learned and experienced more than these will show.  

Packing art supplies was, of course, the hardest part!

Dark and Light

Almost a year ago I did this little study on darkness and light.  Seemed like an interesting subject for this time of year as well.

Literally and metaphorically, I guess we all have a lot of darkness and light in our lives.    Are they always made more beautiful by their juxtaposition with each other?

Favorite Sketches of Christmas Past

In honor of the Christmas holiday, I thought I'd share some of my favorite sketches from Christmases past...

From 2013:

From 2014:

It's fun to watch my style and my experiments change...