This March I will be participating in the mont
h-long Slice of Life Challenge. Each day I will be posting a ‘slice’ from my life. This year I am using Natalie Goldberg’s book Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir to provide my sparks for memoir writing. Each post will be a quick write using one of Natalie’s exercises to practice the skill of noticing and remembering.
Once I started I thought about dozens of alternative ‘entry points’ into this exercise as well as how deep or varied each card could be. Knowing in a postcard it is “just the basics” I tried to capture that format, without small moment details and description. We were in Paris when Notre Dame burned and it was one of the most surreal moments of my life (until this coronavirus pandemic). If I were to revise this I would have focused more on those days in Paris and not enter with our first day of the trip. And that is why revision is such a lovely thing!
Who would you write to? Where would you be? what would you like to say?
litcoachlady 
This is so fun. Have you learned anything about how you write from this challenge?
Yes, I’ll slice about that on the last day. It has been a great month of learning.
What an experience. I’ll be anxious to hear what you learned. I’ve been working on the prompts in that book. Very cool!
I really like this idea and see a lot of potential for kids, especially in this time. Thanks for sharing!
I love the idea of writing a post card! Might be another idea I add to our remote learning plans!
Yours are great mentor texts filled with wonderful – and sad – memories.
This reminds me of why I need to capture travel moments in writing. I wrote a poem last year about Notre Dame cathedral. I visited five years ago, also w/ a bunch of students. As I read a story about our evening trip down the Seine entered my mind. I love this exercise and it’s potential for teaching students revision.
Timing…yes, I know you probably weren’t the only tourist who happened to be there on that devastating day, but still. This is inspiring in so many ways and you have gotten me to a post. Thanks, yet again.
Yes, postcards are so fun, I’ve always loved sending them and receiving them from different places. I don’t think they’re so popular in this day and age, but always fun to get. I would send some if they made them here to our grandsons back in Australia, but they’re only available in the big cities. They are a great way to keep in touch with little people learning to read.
Although we won’t be doing much traveling these days, we can relive old vacations with this technique. Again, your notebook is a work of art!