Post #45 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing Prompt – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
By Promptly Portland
Writing Your Life Story Through the Lens of Technology
I’m not a true techie, but I do confess to liking much of what technology offers. Where would I be without my cell phone, my Mac computer, my Internet access, my Kindle, my Flip Video, and other such toys? Perhaps more germaine, who would I be without these devices? The real me, of course, would actually have an iPhone and the iPad. I just don’t have the financial resources to become that person.
I’m joking. Well, I’m partly joking. The technologies we use each day partially represent the people we are, partially influence the people we are becoming, and partially influence our interactions with other people.
I use my Mac to write papers for my Ph.D. classes. I’ve set up a FaceBook page that’s open only to others in my graduate school cohort. I also regularly text those in my study group via my cell phone. I’ve just purchased Major League Baseball for Internet access since I don’t own a television set. Technology lets me express myself as well as get my work done.
But technology is more than hi tech gadgets. My bicycle is also technology and lets me explore Portland and get exercise. My car makes it reasonably easy to get to my teaching at multiple community colleges. Electricity lets me get up early in the winter hours to study and grade papers. The list goes on and on.
None of these musings are new. They have all been said before. But I think a slightly different twist on this makes an interesting writing prompt.
500 Words (or more): Memoir Writing Prompt
1. Think of the technology you use that you like the most. Then describe how it facilitates your life, what your life would be like without it, how you’ve been changed by it, how it enables you to be the person you want to be. In other words, the “it” may be a device but you have an emotional attachment to it. Express that emotion in your writing.
2. After a couple of paragraphs about the technology and your relationship with it, write about how you use that technology in a typical day. You might write about a 12-hour day from the perspective of the technology.
3. If you are having fun with this prompt, then write about a 12-hour day in which you can’t use the technology. It is broken, it is lost, it is stolen, etc. How does your day change? What do you do differently? How do you feel?
My hope is that this writing prompt concept will start you down a different path than you usually take with your writing. Then at the end, maybe you’ll take some aspect of your life you are writing about and morph this exercise so that you are looking at other people or events, or places in your story much as you have thought about technology here. How has a person/event/place enabled or prevented you from being the person you want to be? How do you (or did you) interact with that person/event/place in a 12-hour day? What would your life be like without the person/event/place? What do you feel emotionally about the person/event/place?
Until next time,
Promptly Portland
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