Writing forces us to peer into our past with a renewed purpose and a refined consideration for that which we already experienced. We begin to study the people, places, and things that we once skimmed over. This allows us to “see…with a new clarity and a new understanding and a new seriousness.” (Berry 7). Details that were once taken for granted are now grasped as significant. In a sense, writing drives metacognition, or thinking about our thinking.
How often do we go through life passively, while writing compels us to become active participants in life’s experiences? It is not until we reach a point of retelling our stories that our eyes are opened to new details, developments, and deductions. In pursuing this further, if we do not commit our stories to ink, they just become faded memories (Pagnucci 72); more often than not a missed opportunity to record results in a missed opportunity to remember. There is always the potential to share our stories, but it requires us to awaken our subconscious by pushing past the obvious and addressing the obscure.
In a way, we pretend to be “alive to [the story] as never before” (Berry 7). We begin to question and make observations. What did we really see? Are there things we overlooked? Do we hear the words of the conversation the same now as we did then? Are our beliefs the same? We start making mental footnotes of all that our senses encountered as if we were revisiting the memory physically. In essence, just in remembering, we explore the memory by exposing each layer – the characters, the climate, the conflict, and the conclusion – as a writer would.
Once again we are faced with the idea of metacognition. We are not done revisiting and rewriting our story until we have answered two critical questions: 1) Am I being true to myself? and 2) Am I being true to the memory? The first is answered by establishing and critiquing our “vantage point” (Pagnucci 77), while the second is answered by exploring and depicting the flashback. Ultimately, the answers to these questions are personal and debatable, yet it is our story so we are the ones who have the final say. Period, point blank, end of story!
How often do we go through life passively, while writing compels us to become active participants in life’s experiences? It is not until we reach a point of retelling our stories that our eyes are opened to new details, developments, and deductions. In pursuing this further, if we do not commit our stories to ink, they just become faded memories (Pagnucci 72); more often than not a missed opportunity to record results in a missed opportunity to remember. There is always the potential to share our stories, but it requires us to awaken our subconscious by pushing past the obvious and addressing the obscure.
In a way, we pretend to be “alive to [the story] as never before” (Berry 7). We begin to question and make observations. What did we really see? Are there things we overlooked? Do we hear the words of the conversation the same now as we did then? Are our beliefs the same? We start making mental footnotes of all that our senses encountered as if we were revisiting the memory physically. In essence, just in remembering, we explore the memory by exposing each layer – the characters, the climate, the conflict, and the conclusion – as a writer would.
Once again we are faced with the idea of metacognition. We are not done revisiting and rewriting our story until we have answered two critical questions: 1) Am I being true to myself? and 2) Am I being true to the memory? The first is answered by establishing and critiquing our “vantage point” (Pagnucci 77), while the second is answered by exploring and depicting the flashback. Ultimately, the answers to these questions are personal and debatable, yet it is our story so we are the ones who have the final say. Period, point blank, end of story!