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A CHILDHOOD MEMORY OF MY MOTHER EXERCISE.    Recall a childhood memory from your early school days, something that you can’t get    out of your mind even though years have passed, something that’s still somewhat unresolved, something that you regret, something that changed you, something that helped shape the person you are today. An object may help you recall such a moment:   a jar of paste,  the braids of a girl in your class,  a pair of scissors, etc.  a kashmiri shawl   Write some opening lines that use the object to set a narrative or a meditation into motion while at the same time beginning to create a persona on the page.   An example from “Chop Suey”: “My mother was a champion bowler in Thailand. This was not what I knew of her.” 2.     Write a few lines that further establish who you were at that period of your life. Begin, if you wish, with the words, “I was. . . .” Fill in the blank in a way that gives you and the readers an idea of who you were within the moment that you’r

The filtering of tragedy through a child’s eyes is always an effective ploy.ETGAR KERET : fly already

 T he innocence of the child contrasted with the serious events of the story is a nice combination. And that’s quite a trick on Keret’s part. Can use it also as a template for a child and woman looking at an incident happening to a girl. Child Reacting/ mis-interpreting. Mother's emotional reaction. Flashback of why that emotional reaction. The need to tell the girl that P.T. sees him first. We’re on our way to the park to play ball when he suddenly says, “Daddy, look!” His head is tilted back and he’s squinting hard to see something far above me, and before I can even begin to imagine an alien spaceship or a piano about to fall on our heads my gut tells me that something really bad is happening. But, when I turn to see what P.T. is looking at, all I notice is an ugly, four-story building covered in plaster and dotted with air-conditioners, as if it had some kind of skin disease. The sun is hanging directly above it, blinding me, and as I’m trying to get a better angle I hear P.T.