"Rings a Bell"

Awaken

It’s possible for a sleeping memory to be awakened. In conversation, when memory is being teased into wakefulness we might say, “That rings a bell.” As artists, storytellers and writers we can ring our own bell. And we must. The concept of memory has played an important role in the arts since antiquity. In Greek mythology Mnemosyne, the mother of the nine muses of classical arts, is the goddess of memory. 

Nearly everything we use in our creativity, we pull from the storehouse of memory. To become more cognizant of and intentional about memory is to hone an artful skill. How can we seize on this, become more intentional about it and use it to our advantage as writers?

In her book The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life, Twyla Tharp shows us how. She runs through a litany of various kinds of memory. 

Sensual memory, the kind we associate with smell and taste among other senses, brings a sort of déjà vu. The now famous “madeleine moment” in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time was groundbreaking in connecting memory and perception. Tapping in to our sensual memory primes the pump that can open the floodgates of “in the moment” writing. When Natalie Goldberg encourages would be memoirists in her book, Old Friend From Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir, to write about the smell of oranges, she is releasing the power of sensual memory.

Muscle memory used by dancers and musicians is created through constant repetition of body motion. Tharp suggests that writers can benefit from this principle as well. She encourages us to copy the work of a writer we admire for practice, literally copying word for word. In doing so we will begin to get a feel for the writer’s structure and style that has magically transformed simple narrative into captivating story. If we do this repeatedly it becomes a form of muscle memory. The point here is not some attempt at plagiarism, its deeper than that, more philosophical. It touches on the spine or nerve center of a work, something intangible that seeps into our unseen places.

Actors may use virtual memory in their craft, calling up past emotions to lend authenticity to a scene. For writers this helps us develop our characters. As we attempt to get inside their skin, be where they are, feel what they feel and live through them or rather as they live through us, we are pulling from our own storehouse and in a sense reliving a virtual memory.

As storytellers we are inviting our audience into a world we’re creating, hoping that it will inspire toward a truth that has inspired us. We want our stories to resonate on a universal level. Tapping into ancient memory is a way to achieve that. In her book Tharp refers to ancient memory, the use of archetypes in her work as a choreographer to convey story to her audience. Literature’s enduring stories, like Homer’s Odyssey with its theme of coming home, circle back to us in contemporary form. How many coming home stories have you been invited into?

Tharp’s book is well worth reading. She has been recognized as one of the century’s most acclaimed artists in the field of dance. In The Creative Habit she reveals both the tools she has found helpful as well as some very practical “how to” exercises that artists from all fields can benefit from.

What “bell” do you want to ring in one of your next writing projects?

Writing Prompt For the Week: Homecoming