Journal 21: Place a child in a room during an afternoon. Make the child find something--an object--that leads to a realization. Maybe it's a life-shattering realization. Reimagine or recover the story without using any irony or sentiment.

Journal 22: Write from the point of view of a disturbed child who is telling a story--not the version that the reader understands; the reader realizes something else. It must be written in such a subtle way that we believe the child is actually telling rather than hiding. The child must be the unreliable narrator.

Journal 23: What is your reason for writing a memoir? Use an event, a term, or a structural contrast for writing. What is your structure going to be? What is your motivation? Your relationship with your audience and with your past? What is your formal challenge? What are you trying to accomplish? What story are you telling and why?

Journal 24: Go to some new place where you've never been and describe it as the house you grew up in.

-or-

Take a trip home to the house you actually grew up in and reimagine being there as a child.

Reading Assignments:

Read through "Shaman" in Warrior Woman.