Slices of Life

Question: Have you ever used real-life experiences in your writing?

Answer: Often.

I have a very good imagination. I can write about experiences which have never crossed my path. I’ve had them published and I have received awards, but…

with my crazy life and even crazier family, there is no reason not to use the rich fodder which has happened to me our family  members.

One story which I have spoken of here before, is almost verbatim an evening that my niece and I experienced. We went about forty miles to a famous author’s book-signing and my niece’s car broke down just as we reached the parking lot of the bookstore. When we came out we were picked up by a very creepy tow truck driver. It was such an interesting evening that everyone I told about it, (and I told a lot of people), said me that I absolutely had to write the story.
It’s so rich, that I have to cut some of it. Now, whether to change the ending or not is the question. I had one rejection; I can try it again with the real ending to the evening, or with the change that some suggested. I probably need a couple more beta readers so that I can take a poll.

Decisions!

Another is a story that I have pieced together about my rogue uncle. It is a combination of a story he told at my house when I was a young teen, to another that my mother told me about him earlier and a third story that my cousin related to me about him, one that  her mother told to her. That one, which actually led to the other two and tied them in together, is some story!

 

I can’t find a good home for an early morning that happened to me at my bakery/restaurant. I can’t prove it, but there were a lot of supernatural happenings there, and this made me a believer in something that I never would have accepted before this experience.

Then we have a children’s story that I sent out ONCE, (and later found that the publication no longer accepts  rhyming stories). It is a tale of what happened with my granddaughter and her toy. I think it‘s a worthy Christmas tale.

Another is a tale about my mother and her friend when they were young girls. It’s a moral story about two good friends and the trouble that gossip and prejudice can  cause, but how true friendship can overcome  other people’s malice.

 

There are elements and experiences of mine and of family or friends’  in other stories, poems, songs, but the works above are the ones that are straight out of life. I’ve only had to put them into readable form.

(That isn’t cheating, is it?)

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