CAUTION -- Can't Write
You’ve seen it in the movies.
I saw it when the avalanche came down Mt. Timpanogos at Sundance and wiped out cabins.
Police tape.
“CAUTION” printed in black repeats itself across a bright yellow background warning everyone to stay out.
When they roped it across the road at Sundance after the avalanche, my neighbors (Dan, Jeannie, Mary, & Howard) and I ignored it. In fact, it was a bit silly sitting there strung across a mountain road. We crossed it.
Right now, I feel like there is a yellow CAUTION tape keeping me from writing.
Years ago, in an online UCLA writing class that focused on memoir, I learned that one should put distance, years, between an event and the time one writes it.
It’s a bit crazy that the Utah State Office of Education requires eighth graders to write a memoir since, at thirteen, they have no distance from the events.
For me, there’s so much to write. But, I have a CAUTION tape stopping me. Holding me back. Forcing me to get perspective.
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Raymond Mallette says:
Try this!
Julie,
It may not work, but at the risk of offering you a symbolic pair of scissors to remove the tape, try this:
Think of something. Anything. What does it remind you of? Now what does THAT remind you of? Keep following that until you have a subject that just feels like it should be put into words.
For example: I'm thinking of a snickers bar---reminding me of sweets---reminding me of maple syrup...reminding me of the time I ate a snickers bar before tasting the sap in my dad's sap buckets in vermont....reminding me of his not so pleased look when I told him all the sap buckets were full of rain water so I dumped them out...reminding me that after his reaction (due to the fact that it hadnt rained the night before)I had better shy away from eating sweets when helping to make maple syrup............
..... make sense?
Maybe it won't work, and it doesn't always, but it's just a technique I use when I want to write but cannot think of a topic.
Be well and be safe.
Raymond
Ron. Lavalette says:
There's no avalanche...
and there's no police tape. Sit down and write. It's work. Period. Now get busy, lady. Don't make me come over there. Sheesh.