Memoir Fragments: Just The Ticket

To jumpstart creative writing, I’ve started experimenting with a technique advocated by songwriters writers like Jeff Tweedy and memoirist extraordinare Suleika Jaouad. Whether exploring Tweedy’s “word ladders” or Jaouad’s “memoir fragments” the prompt is to create lists of words, be they snippets of memories or other sources of inspiration, and match them to dissimilar words (Tweedy recommends gaze around the room or space you’re sitting in and quickly capture those objects or images) then match these words to the first list to create interesting and unexpected phrases or couplets.  My prompts (from memoir fragments: caterpillar, lunchbox, rotary phone, ticket stub, campfire) generated the following:

You’re on hold
twisting clockwise
a pulsing red light
no talking, just listen
wriggle and writhe to one glorious conclusion:
beauty will take flight

Cool night air presses down
Snuffing out each match
before it can do its work
But finally one spark takes,
Hands, faces feel heat
Soul on fire

Before you peak inside the tin box
custom hot rod comic on the lid
tricked out in dayglow red & yellow
screams for attention
A postmark smeared across continents
Blurred by age and time

Wrinkled paper stub buried inside your wallet
Artist, venue, date, time all but forgotten
Until that song comes on the radio
And once again you slip that talisman
Between thumb and forefinger
Not for luck, but for validation
You can love again

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While not ready for prime time, I plan to mine these phrases for later integration into songs lyrics.

Try it out and let me know your results.