Cooking with Annie Dote

The submission point in time to an compendium is looming and I want to write an essay for it. I take a seat at my room table, and begin flipping through my journals for inspiration.

"What are you looking for," my husband asks. An innocent enough question.

"An anecdote," I reply.

"An Annie who?" he says, raising his eyebrows and casting a sideways glance at our immature son. Our son grins and chuckles softly, knowing his dad likes to tease me just about writers and their mysterious words and ways. I should have known.

"Not Annie, anec, an-ec-dote," I repeat. "Something I can build on to do a story."

"Uh-huh," he replies, "like a prescription or something?"

"No, not like a prescription. Well . . . kind of like a prescription, to that degree as it relieves the alarming symptoms ensuant from staring at a blank page."

He and my son sigh in unison and grab a soda from the fridge. Thankfully, I'm saved-by-the-whistle. They disappear into the living room to watch the game, wherever they wish discuss words and route they can relate to, like "rebound" and "three second rule," (or is it five seconds? I don't know.)

What is an anecdote?

An account is a short, amusive account of an incident. Metaphorically speaking: an account is life. Life that contains laughter and tears, and most importantly, an account is a moment in life worth remembering.

When being says, "I had a actually great day," it doesn't mean everything just about the day was actually great. But a few moments were. A great moment does an entire day fun. A few shining moments over a period of months can prompt us to say, "this is a great year" even as tho' we've encountered losses, sadness, anger and all kinds of different unpleasant circumstances.

A way to identify a nice account is to pay attention to another person's reaction once you are telling them a story. For example, a few months ago I denote a little story on my mom's group list just about a really frustrating but bantering moment I had with my toddler. My e-mail inbox filled up quickly with responses from different moms in the group who could relate to my heroic tale and enjoyed the description of the incident.

"Aha," I thought, "that writes."

That evening, I sat down at my computer. I derived the message I posted, additional an introduction, a little much background, a couple much related anecdotes and a conclusion. Then I e-mailed it to the editor of an anthology. Less than twenty-four hours later, I received an e-mail response.

At 1st I was a little worried. I thought a response that speedy could only mean I forgot to attach the manuscript. Or mayhap she did obtain it, and was promptly rejecting it.

I clicked on the e-mail and was happy to learn I received an acceptance. It's the 1st and last time I've received such a quick response, but if I hadn't been perceptive just about how pleasant the little account was, I would-be have forgotten the incident all and lost the story.

Keeping a personal journal is as well a really effective way to capture your anecdotes until you can get back to them. Find a journal that is small enough to carry in your purse or pocket, and take it with you everywhere.

Record every engrossing thing you hear, church sermons, funny things folk say, lyrics to songs on the radio. Pretty soon, it wish become second nature, and folk wish begin to peer at you curiously and say, "um, what are you writing in that little book?" They're distressed you're taking notes just about them, of course.

Journals are the writer's cookbook. We store our delicious morsels of words in them until it's time to write thing nourishing. We may have lots of ideas, but if we don't record them, they are before long forgotten. Don't allow your writing to suffer from malnutrition. Take notes just about your life!

May God bless you with the right account to cure your blank page. And enough journals to support you well fed. Happy writing.

About The Author

This article is accessible for free reprint provided that the author’s bionote is left intact and the article is publicised complete and unaltered. If you are mistreatment this article on a website or e-book, please do sure that the link in the author’s bionote is live or clickable. Email notice of intent to publish is required: bcarrphillips@yahoo.com.

Bionote: Barbara Carr Phillips believes you can meet any goal by journaling to it. To schedule an online or in-person journaling workshop for you or your organization, visit her website at: http://www.journalworkshops.com.

This article was denote on Jan 19, 2005