Some time ago, when I read about the shooting in Ottawa’s parliament, it reminded me of a trip my husband and I took to that city a few years ago. When most people think of Eastern Canada’s major cities, cosmopolitan Montreal and culturally diverse Toronto come to mind. Rarely do they think of Ottawa, Canada’s capital. But it has many charms, as interesting a place to visit as the country’s more popular destinations. Dignified with old world qualities, Ottawa is a handsome, stately place that also has a dual personality. It resides across the river from Hull, Quebec, its sister city, highlighting Canada’s bilingual nature of English and French. For me, a Canadian by birth, I’m grateful to have that heritage. (more…)
I’m grieving the loss of dictionaries, thick, massive volumes that I used to get lost in. I would open a page and find hundreds of words, all of them demanding my attention, each a miniature world to explore. But now I’ve become a victim of on-line lexicons because they are handier than putting aside my laptop computer and marching into the other room to unload the Oxford from a bookshelf where it resides. 
I’m thinking this morning of when my husband and I returned from a couple of nights in Calistoga, a charming town in California’s Napa Valley. Yes, it has its share of upwardly mobile types who go there to visit the many wineries. But there also are others who need to be replenished by the pastoral setting and many opportunities to take walks in the surrounding hills. I need that uplift today. 
For everybody except those hiding under a rock, it’s impossible to avoid AI these days. 
I’m grateful to Al Sirois, a fellow Regal House author, for sharing with us his writing journey. 
Since my late 20s, I’ve recorded my dreams every morning, curious about the wonderful dramas that unfold each night in the subterranean depths. During a trip we took a while back to Osoyoos, B.C., I got a better understanding of dreams and the role they play in our lives. 
I recall returning home a while back after spending time at a recently built rental home on the Oxnard, California, beach. It had a wonderful view overlooking the harbor and ocean. You might think I would miss the incredible views and location, as well as the house, brimming with technological toys. But I didn’t. It was a relief to return to our simple Richmond abode, built in the 1940s. 
As a young woman in the 50s growing up in Canada, I was intrigued by hockey and football. Baseball didn’t exist for me then. It hadn’t entered Canadian consciousness, and it would take some years before it did. But I didn’t feel deprived. Hockey and football had much to offer at that time, including handsome, vigorous guys. 
Being part of an on-line writing group for several years provided me with many benefits. But the positives also produced a few negatives.Method Writing: Stimulating Memory Is a Gateway
September 1, 2025
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Thanks to Suzanne Sherman for sharing this post on memoir writing:
There were many standout messages in a webinar I attended this week by bestselling author Janet Fitch, hosted by Memoir Nation (www.memoirnation.com/about-memoir-nation).
This is one of my favorites.
Fitch spoke about stimulating memory to recreate time and place. How to do that?
A clue: Stimulating memory stimulates something inside you as well. It is, as Fitch calls it, “a gateway to memory.”
In my memoir, which publishes in fall 2026, I needed to recreate time and place as far back as 1964, when I was four years old. Important events in the arc of my narrative occurred at that time. Fortunately, I have vivid glimpses of memory to draw from. Still, to build context I needed to write a fuller scene. I had to drop down and find sensory details to go beyond the facts I knew. Depending on facts alone would have resulted in a narrative telling about instead of a recreation of to take readers there with me.
That is where stimulating the gateway to memory comes in. The key to the gateway is sense impression.
To get sense impressions, you have to go “back there” and open to the information your senses have for you. This is particularly helpful if memory is absent for the time you’re writing about.
You may have heard of method acting. Method acting is an emotion-oriented technique in acting used instead of action-based acting. With method acting, an actor aspires to encourage sincere and emotionally expressive performances by fully inhabiting the role of the character.
Here, we have “method writing.” You need to fully inhabit the role of the character you’re writing about (yourself in an earlier time). If, for example, you’re writing a scene that takes place in a car on a hot day in an era before air-conditioning was common in cars, go take a ride in yours with the air-conditioning turned off to get a sense of being in that car you drove in. Roll down the window and get a feeling for that, get some language for it. This is a felt sense of the experience, or method writing.
In my memoir there is a scene in 1964 that takes place in a forest. There is a second scene in a forest in 1974, also important in the story. To recreate time and place for both, I went to a forest when I was writing the book—nearly 50 and 60 years later—to get details for the scenes and stimulate memory of the times I was writing about. Sure, I know what a forest is, but what does morning light do inside of one? What scents come up on a summer breeze? How does pine duff sound underfoot?
Go to the gateway to memory as often as you need by visiting a similar scene in current time. And remember: the key to get in is the senses.
About Suzanne
I’m dedicated to helping writers put their good words into the world.
– Suzanne Sherman
Writing Coach & Book Consultant
Memoir Workshops
