Currently, I'm working on a creative non-fiction memoir. I'll be working on this piece at VONA this summer in San Francisco. I'm excited about being accepted to VONA and I'm looking forward to the structure and support this space will provide me.
My memoir is about five generations of Puerto Rican women in my family that have traveled from Puerto Rico to Hawaii to San Francisco and now to New York. In preparation for this process, I'm will be writing non-stop for the next week. Today, I did this great writing exercise that really got my memories and the writing muse flowing. So, I'll share it with you.
Create a word portrait of yourself.
Using as much descriptive language as possible, draw a picture of yourself, including physical attributes but also the things that have given your face character— what you inherited from your parents, what life and time have done to alter it.
Given that I'm writing a memoir spanning five generations, I gathered portraits of my great great grandmother, my great grandmother, my grandmother, my mother and I. I created a visual collage portrait of each woman and then I did the written exercise above.
We all develop our ideas and characters differently. I often think in pictures first. So, to touch their faces and create something visual inspired my words to flow.
You can use this exercise to journal, as a writing prompt or as a tool for character development.
Good Luck and let me know how it works.
Five Generations...All close in age in these pictures +/- five years. This was not easy to find. Below are the women who have allowed me to become Elisha. My sheroes!
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