Is a Slice of Your Life Worth Writing About?

Michael:  There are a few Patch bloggers who I constantly look for and read.  Unfortunately they are spread across different Patch papers. I wish the company would create something that would allow me to fill in the names of these bloggers and send me an Email whenever they post.

My taste in reads runs toward those slice of life experiences. If the author adds humor to it or shows a creative thought twist then all the better.  In regards to the later, the missives of Robert Marr draw my attention. His Local Voices addition in the Fenton Patch titled, “Restaurants Make Me Phat,” demonstrates a view from a different angle.

However, I feel there remains many unwritten good stories. The potential future authors have chosen to not write them for various reasons. There are many of these pieces of life stories out there. People often believe their lives to be boring. What they sometimes fail to realize is what is normal for them may not be for others.  Also life can change if you step back and look at it from a different view. Anger or frustration can turn to humor or insight when spun around. 

An example might be the lady who decided to help her health by joining yoga class. She spent considerable time shopping for just the correct yoga approved outfit only to show up at class and find everyone wearing inexpensive sweatshirts and sweatpants. Her story got published in a national magazine.

Graciela:  I was one of those people above who thought nothing in my life was worth mentioning. My husband changed my view. Just discussion of cultural differences opens my eyes to how things look to others. Now I am working on a book with the working title of, The Heaven and Hell of Living with a Gringo.

Michael:  Sí mi Amor. - I guess living with me can be good or bad depending upon how you look at things. But, that is the point; the way we see things. For instance my wife says that men can never find anything. But one time it was a case of how things are pronounced.

Graciela:  One day my husband was near the sink and I asked him to hand me the “ah-hocks” under the sink. He looked and told me it was not there. I insisted it was and he insisted it was not. So I went to the area, picked it up and put it in front of his face and said, “Here it is.”  He then took the product from me pointed the label towards me and said, “This is ‘eh-jacks.’”

Michael: Yes, we were looking at the American product of Ajax. But in Spanish the pronunciation is “ah-hocks”.  I believe it was my ego that made me say to her, “It’s an American company so it is ‘eh-jacks.’”

Graciela:  I politely pointed out to my husband that not only is he in Colombia now, but that if he goes to the store and asks for “eh-jacks” that no one will know what he is talking about therefore it is “ah-hocks.”

Michael:  At the time it was a point of contention, but now we laugh about that and many other things. The point being that we all have these incidents in our life that can be stories depending upon the point of view. I hope that Patch readers feel free to contribute theirs. Remember the Patch guidelines state for writing blogs: “A conversational, informal style is ideal.”

Graciela:  I always thought that I was not a writer. My husband and daughter showed me that all my experience writing in my job helped. One trick I learned is to choose a single person as the audience. I write like it is to my daughter.

Michael:  Stories can come from anywhere in your life. For example, dealing with almost any government agency is almost a surefire writing. If it is not the experience that causes you to scratch your head, it is often a cast of characters that leaves one wondering who is working in the human resource department. We have found that to be true regardless of which country you are in.

Relationships are often interesting. On one Patch site a lady described each of the dates she had from using an Internet dating service. She developed a very large following.

Graciela:  Reading is a part of the job of writing. You can get ideas from reading some of the professionals in your area of interest.

Michael:  For slice-of-life I recommend reading the likes of Mark Twain, Erma Bombeck and Dave Barry.

Graciela:  Of course for South America there are writers like Isabelle Allende, who take lives and put them into fiction.

Michael: As a former writing instructor for adult education I know that many people can write stories just as interesting. One of my students, Mary Witte, found that she enjoyed putting life into the Japanese poetry form of Haiku. That resulted in two books for her, Redneck Haiku and Redneck Haiku: Double-Wide Edition.

Why not start sharing your bits of life stories with fellow Patch readers.