Tag Archives: memoir

Sometimes we’re friends (a love letter to my body)

Posted on by vgemmell

The clue is in the title for today’s writing prompt. A personal post I wasn’t sure how to write, or how personal to get with it! But here’s the attempt below. The above image is by Adina Voicu (free for use on Pixabay)

We’ve had good times when we danced all night, walked for miles across cities that made me feel alive and connected. Dressed up, grew up, threw up, got tired, felt alive, felt self-conscious, felt betrayed, felt loved, understood what we wanted, asked for what we wanted, dressed up for them… then for us, only for us, to feel good.

You taught me that the millions of ‘miracle’ cosmetics trying to sell magic are garbage. With me and you, it’s hormones and genetics, and some decades I’m lucky and we’re balanced and in harmony, and sometimes things go off kilter and I don’t like you, because it feels like you’re fighting against me.

These days sometimes we’re definitely not friends – you seem to enjoy showing me any indulgent meal or snacks I’ve eaten, like you’re lecturing me, even although I’ve just given you salad and other healthy stuff for breakfast and lunch. You used to accept that pay- off but now you like to add on every chocolate bar to another wobble in my ass, and I take you on longer walks to try and placate you. Don’t get me started on the mornings when I look in the mirror and see the work you’ve done on my face overnight, spots erupting from nowhere. Seriously, what are we, seventeen again? At least now, I’m more in tune with what’s going on and I know this week you’re going to mess with me, but by next week we should be on track again. Maybe.

This year you really did a number on me, on the run-up to a day where the whole world (or so it felt) was waiting to see how beautiful we might be. Giving me skin allergies where my eyes puffed up so bad I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror. When a doctor told me, not once, but twice (during a standard appointment) that I was overweight. And I looked at you objectively, critically, and the curves I’d accepted as something new, no longer looked so pretty.

But here’s what you’ve taught me – to be sure of myself, even when I’m really not. Sometimes it feels like I’m back being seventeen, but at least now, me and you, we’ve been through so much, and you’ve taught me my worth. It really is deeper than skin.

You take me where I need to go. We can still dance all night, and walk for miles across cities that make me feel alive.

And when I look at you I see all of the imperfections but I also see the power and the beauty of being me.

Recipe for life

Posted on by vgemmell

Stayed curious about life, loved greatly

A short post tonight, as the writing prompt for today is to write a 6 word memoir. My words above I think are the perfect recipe for life. Staying curious encourages me to seek out interesting things – interesting people, conversations, books, films, places, theories. Staying curious keeps ideas spinning in my head, and keeps me motivated to form them into stories in an attempt to make sense of them. And I don’t think I need to explain the importance of love (and I mean in the wider sense, not just romantic love). What would any experience be, without having people you love be part of them.

I’ve used the image of a pendant I was gifted as it fits into the short memoir theme, though of course is 7 words, not 6, but good words to also live life by: she believed she could, so she did

A big chunk of self belief can take you places…

November Creative Challenge

Posted on by vgemmell

Last month I mentioned taking part in the #writetoctober23 challenge over on Instagram which was a great way of making time to do short posts about my writing life and keeping my head focused on creative things. I didn’t take part some of the days when I was on my abroad honeymoon, but managed to keep up with the challenge for most of the month.

Since this ended I’ve missed having this fun creative focus, as often I’m so bogged down during the week with work brain I often find myself not having the headspace to work on longer novel projects. Then I get frustrated with myself because I’m not devoting any time during my week to anything creative at all.

Lots of people take part in NaNoWrimo (National Novel Writing Month) every November, where they commit to writing a certain amount of words per day, usually with the aim to accumulate 50,000 words of a novel by the end of the month.

I thought it would be fun to set myself the challenge of writing a blog post a day (hopefully!) throughout November instead, with no word count goal imposed; the goal is just to get some words down every day. (Obviously a bit late to the party as we’re 5 days in to November, but I will make up for lost time).

So I went searching online for themes and prompts to inspire me and came across this great post here on the See Jane Write by Javacia site which contains a whole year’s worth of blog prompts. I also flicked through my helpful little book of creative prompts, The Pocket Muse by Moncia Wood and found there was actually an overlap in some of the themes.

I made a selection of ones I found most interesting, and I’ve listed them below so that anyone reading this can maybe join in or find your own inspiration from this. Even although I have made myself this list below there is probably going to be some variation on it (for one, I probably won’t do them in order as I feel some will be quicker posts than others, so this may be my deciding factor for which one I land on for a particular day).

I am also going to give myself permission to use the ‘prompt’ loosely as I know it may spark off alternative ideas.

I’ve listed 30 prompts and obviously we don’t have 30 days left in November – so this allows for space to skip past any I feel stuck with. I might duplicate some posts (interviews, cities I love) so again if you are using the prompts, don’t feel confined by them.

I plan to put the prompt I’ve selected for the day on my Instagram account so you can follow me over there for reminders: @victoriagemmellauthor

PROMPTS:

  1. Why do you Blog?
  2. Write about an outfit you associate with an important memory
  3. Use an image as a prompt
  4. Write about a City you love (I might use this prompt more than once)
  5. Write a 6 word memoir
  6. Take a negative comment and flip it into an essay or post
  7. Write a love letter to your body
  8. Write a letter to your younger self
  9. What do you love most about writing
  10. Write about a time you had to speak to a large crowd
  11. Write a 6 word story
  12. What songs would be included in a soundtrack of your life?
  13. What is the opposite of cake?
  14. Interview people who inspire you (I plan to make this a recurring post, interviewing writers/creatives)
  15. Write about a milestone birthday (or birthdays)
  16. Write a commencement address for girls graduating high school/college
  17. Look out a window. What do you see?
  18. Write an essay/poem with the title ‘This is what I say, but this is what I mean’
  19. Write a 6 word poem
  20. Take a notebook to a gallery or museum and write about something you see there
  21. Write a post about an hour that changed your life
  22. Write a thank you note to your readers
  23. A high point or low point (or both) of your day/week/month/year
  24. Imagine the day living as someone else (I’m going to use prompts alongside this from an exercise I did in the Artists Way)
  25. Write about the best trip you’ve ever taken
  26. Share your goals and how you plan to achieve them
  27. Write about the 5 things you know for sure
  28. Write a post celebrating winter
  29. Explain what self-care means to you
  30. Write a poem, essay or story inspired by the Emily Dickinson quote, “I dwell in possibility”

You’ll see number 1 is Why do you blog? I started seriously blogging on the blogger platform back in 2010. I flew out to Vancouver to visit my friend Jane who was living there and during this trip I realised I wanted to properly document my experience (as I was spending some days exploring the city alone when my friend was at work). I also wanted a platform where I could experiment with creative posts. I remember when I was staring at an Alice in Wonderland themed shop-front (photo below) on Commercial Drive I came up with the name of my blog ‘Through the Looking Glass’ and I started writing posts as soon as I returned home.

I stayed on blogger until 2017, which overlapped with the creation of this website here on WordPress (which I created during the launch of my first YA book). I switched to soley using this blog platform since I found it hard to maintain two separate sites, and this one has my writing domain name so I use it on contact cards/promotional materials.

I feel on this blog I’ve not been quite as creative and experimental as I used to be on Blogger so I guess this opens the door to try something new and return to the core of what I wanted to achieve through my blogging; to keep my creativity flowing, sparking off a more creative life in general and keeping the fun in the day-to-day when developing work. And also maybe daring to be a bit more personal in my posts again, not being so super-conscious of my audience and expressing opinions or writing about things I feel passionate about.

I was also much better at connecting with other bloggers through the Blogger platform and used to enjoy reading about other writers’ journeys, so if anyone decides to do a similar creative challenge for November leave your blog link/social media handle in my comments and I will give you a follow!