Post #40 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing Prompt – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
By Promptly Portland
A Bike Ride Generates a Writing Prompt
Portland is finally seeing sunshine again. Since this is my first year in Oregon, I’m still adjusting to the seasons. I can’t believe how green it is and how bright are the colors of the flowers — passion pinks, royal purples, lemon yellows. Perhaps plants and trees were this bright in California, but they pop out here in the City of Roses.
Warmer weather also means I get to resume my bicycle rides, a favorite weekend activity. Of course, I enjoy my stops along the way–a cup of coffee at Stumptown’s flagship location or perhaps a lunch at the Oasis Cafe where they have an amazing gluten-free crust that makes a pizza taste better than your favorite wheat crust.
As I locked my bike to various racks this weekend, I noticed the number of times that riders have used the quick-release feature to remove one of the wheels when locking the bike. Later, as I continued my ride, I began thinking about the concept of quick release. By the time I returned home, I’d decided there could be a writing prompt using my observation.
I was somewhat hesitant because I thought my idea was too much of a stretch. So I searched the Internet to explore sites that talked about quick release. Here’s a quote from one site, talking about bicycle wheels, that persuaded me to continue with this writing prompt.
“By their very nature, it is almost impossible for a quick release to work itself open. Personally, I always disbelieve anyone who says ‘it just popped open.’ The way they are designed, it takes more force for the quick release to open than it does for it to remain securely shut. All the bumps in the world will not jar them open.”
How do we get a story to pop open?
So how does this become a prompt? I think we all carry around stories, small stories, that don’t pop open on their own. In fact, they are likely to be the ones that eat at us in various ways — a slight, a hurt, a bad judgment, an action not taken. Many of these are buried deeply and we can’t seem to easily get rid of them. They are little pieces that alter the larger narrative of our lives.
What if we had a regular quick-release session in which we’d write a vignette about a situation or event or person in no more than five minutes and then release it? Just as a tire can be quickly removed from a bicycle, we can release that story. How might we do that? Perhaps the page or pages could be burned (being careful to not set something else on fire), or tossed in the garbage can, or run it through the trusty paper shredder. Do something to quickly release a story that detracts from where you want to go.
500 Words (or more): Memoir Writing Prompt
1. Take five minutes to think of something that happened to you that burdens you. What story casts a shadow on your life that you’d like to release?
2. Write about it for a second five minutes, including the who, what, when, where, and why. Or as many of those as is appropriate. Don’t worry about sentence structure or punctuation or grammar. Just write it.
3. Use your personal quick-release method — burn the pages, tear them up, or shred them. Now, release the story from your burden.
Hope this works for you. If it does, consider having a regular quick-release writing session.
Until next time,
Promptly Portland
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