Store Your Happy Memories Here:

[Croix]

Dear All~

What this place is for:
This thread is a tool, a resource, and also I guess a dash of entertainment.

I’ve found that when life is grim that sometimes thoughts of past happiness can create a chink of light in the grey overwhelming press of down. They can help occupy the mind with lighter reflections.

With that in view I invite people to set down a brief passage describing some happy event they look back to with fondness and peace.

They - and others too - can then return to it when they feel the need to glean a little warmth.

It is not a place for gloomy or dire tales, those can go elsewhere.

What to do:
Just set out, as simply as you like, your recollection of some past experience that means something good to you, something you enjoyed, something from safe times.

It can be, like my story below, anything – from an account of visiting grandparents to simply cooking and eating a melted-cheese sandwich in a favorite kitchen – you get to choose.

How to do it:
Write. Write enough so someone else can feel the mood, know what happened, find the goodness. (stop at 2,500 characters please!)

Grammar, syntax, spelling, punctuation are not compulsory, just write as you can – the only important thing is the content - not literary merit. Short or long - it does not matter.


I hope you enjoy, contribute and find a little distraction here when you need it.

Croix

[Mozette]

Hi Croix,

Thank you for your insight about grief... and how to see the flipside of how to deal with it. But I still feel at a loss at times. I mean, I've been out at my social art group and for no particular reason, my mind will just stop me from doing what I'm doing and I'll come a block. When you're an artist that's difficult to deal with. I'm also a writer. And this month is National Novel Writing Month; and I got up to 15,000 words and have simply stopped right there... I'm not sure why. It'll come back to me, I hope it does.

As for my friend's birthday? Well, I'm not sure. I was hoping to spend it down the coast at Brunswick Heads, NSW, but my folks don't want me there then. Even when I've said it's better for me - they want my Mum's sister there instead. So, I think I'll go out and have an ice coffee for her in a really nice coffee shop, read a book and enjoy time away from my house. It's what she'd want me to do. It's on a Sunday, I might even go to a local church and just be quiet for a moment or two... see what happens.

Mozette

[Croix]

Dear Mozette~

Having a plan for that birthday is very wise, it is so easy to be taken by surprise and become overwhelmed with grief. When my first partner died I had that problem and frankly I ran away, did anything to be a distraction. It did work though and over time the necessity vanished.

Writer's/Artist's block is a curse and I've no answer anymore than anyone else, it simply strikes. I'm told 'free-writing' may be a help. Quercus and I occasionally give each other a keyword and hope that triggers a happy memory - often does work. Even a prosaic word like "chair" helped me remember meals with grandparents and rice pudding complete with skin:)

How many words do you have to write for that Month?

Croix

[Mozette]

Croix,

Yeah, Writer's Block is a curse in itself. I relate it to Brain Fog (which, as a person who suffers with Epilepsy, I get quite often and hate like nothing else!) and I often blame my muse. Yes, us writers have muses. For a lot of us, we picture them in different ways... for me, mine is a middle-aged dude in a pair of jeans, white single and old loafers smoking a dank cigar. He's always sitting in my Reading Chair in the corner laughing at me when I really need his help; and the only time he does help me is in the editing part of a book. There's no name for him, just call him 'The Muse'.

NaNoWriMo goes for the whole month of November every year - and has done for some years now - and we're challenged to write 50,000 words. Yesterday, I wrote a little over 3,000 words and added to my total of 15,000 words. I've nearly broken through the 20,000 word mark. I'm pretty pleased with myself. I'm hoping to get in and work on it more when I go to the coast on Mum's laptop. If not, I'll do some on my tablet or in longhand (notes really to be expanded when I get home) and flesh out everything once home.

When I get blocked with writing, though, I do have books to help me out with it all to push past it and get myself working again. It's better to not force the inspiration though.

Mozette

[demonblaster]

MR Croixy and all hey ☺

Mozette hi ☺ I'm far from a writer. A couple of thoughts
At bb I've for various reasons been dabbling in fantasy which takes us to another place away from daily stress and pretty much I guess a safe place. Using depression as an example that closes our minds I'm thinking fantasy could be a way of opening them to lateral thinking as well as many other benefits. It's delving into unexplored territory with no restraints pressure or timeline. A particular time I was in a terribly dark place and it helped quite a lot to lift me enough too get through, maybe distraction but It felt good. With fantasy anything goes as opposed to your writing you're following a whatever 😆word block must be catchy. Theme or storyline. While fluffing around in it nothing else like pain problems tension timeline etc we're aware of cause the focus is in the unknown without limitations or guidelines, and especially pressure which maybe subconsciously create writers block I don't know.

The other thing is so often we get stuck on a name or word in general conversation and the more we try and think of it the harder it is. ? similar to writers block. When we think less about it, it seems to pop into our head later so could be when trying to think when the minds out of juice it creates pressure causing block. Fantasy potentially could get the flow happening again because although writers block its a different type of writing with no set regime or guidelines. All the best to you☺

Had a dose of beautiful memories yesterday from childhood.
Waiting for a friend to come back I was looking at nature, love the tiniest little weeds in the ground, perfect little various coloured flowers some barely larger than a pin head. Looking around I saw now comes the tricky part, not sure what they're called, think a nicknames fairy something and you blow them and all these little parts of the flower gently disperse in all directions and float in the wind. They're very light and straight ?petals (like soft slender spikes but not sharp) Theres a little seed on the end of the whatevers again 😆 They grow on a thin stem around a foot high, the flowers about the size and shape of a table tennis ball.

When we were kids it was said when you blow them you make a wish and it'll come true.

🦄

[Mozette]

Aaah demonblaster,

You're thinking of a Dandelion. A horror of a weed to have in your yard, yet they are used to make Dandelion Wine (yep there's such a thing!), quite a strong thing - well as my folks have told me - and very sweet.

Yeah, I write fantasy novels and enjoy getting away from the real world a lot. Actually, I'm not one to write non-fiction, it's too difficult to stick to the facts; and people have always pulled me up on what's right and what's wrong. I have been trying to write my life story for some years now, and my Mum keeps telling me 'But that's not how it happened.' then she came to meet Hugh Lunn (a great Aussie writer) and he told her that because it wasn't the way it happened to her doesn't mean it the same thing didn't happen in a different way to me. We all have different takes/memories of something which happens in life. She has just had to read my memory of things and realise it's always different for everyone. There's been once or twice my brother and I had the same story word for word; and it's been funny... we had the same thoughts on things.

I'm also a painter, so when I do get stuck for something in my writing, painting does work a different part of my brain and I paint until my brain works out the book again. Most of the best ideas I get either happen while I'm washing up or watching television - weird right?

Mozette

[demonblaster]

Hi everyone ☺

Another beautiful childhood memory was again Mozette I'm unsure of what they're called in NZ at the train station there was a bush with maybe Yellowy flowers. In the inside of the open flower which weren't large more dainty there was a kind of stalk and we'd gently pull it and taste a lovely sweet tiny drop on the end of it, not honey much nicer.

Cool thanks Mozette about Dandelion I know a few plant and tree names & that name but was thinking of a different flower.

😅 Well fantasies not going to be much help then 😄 Good luck hope it's not too long. Interesting about the painting.

Yes I wander off often watching TV.

Interesting too about memories of situations. Heard that here and real life (rl) as well.

[Croix]

Dear All~

I remember dandelion wine, my parents used to make wine from elderberries, dandelions, sloe and blackberry. There used to be a row of wooden casks in the cellar, each with a curly glass air-lock in the top. The wines produced were strong. I don't remember any except the blackberry being sweet, I guess my faster preferred dry.

I do remember dandelion leaves in salads. It was not all that long after the war and everything was in short supply, so salads contained these leaves which were very bitter, as a child I'd do my best to shovel them off the plate (and look innocent)

Croix

[Moonstruck]

"Your father was a hamster, and your mother smelled of elderberries"!!!!!!!!

sorry Croix...when you mentioned elderberry wine, I got carried away with a Happy Memory of Monty Pythons Holy Grail.....when the French were hurling insults at the British....."be gone, or I will taunt you again!".........

[Croix]

Sir Galahad: What a strange person.

-C

[Moonstruck]

"fetch me a shrubbery!!"...

well Croix, at least I guess this intellectual exchange has reminded me fleetingly of a "happy memory" - the various dvds my young boys and I enjoyed together (and still quote from to each other occasionally to the bewilderment of anyone listening)....other movies that come to mind are Murder By Death...(a wonderful send-up of famous detectives e.g. Poirot, Marple etc) with a list of famous stars;

and watching two little boys enjoying the first Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (Gene Wilder) with their beloved Grandad...