In my writing mind, I find the poem is a valuable tool. As an writer, try examining your life for the stories you have experienced and the stories you could have experienced.
Of course, I don't remember being an infant, but my mother does. Right now we are going through old papers that she has collected over the years, and she is ready, willing, and able to tell the stories of my childhood and her childhood. Some of it is the stuff good stories are based on.
In our second stage, we go to school. What lessons did I learn? What did I do? Several years ago, I was taking a college course that dealt with administration and society. The professor asked us to write our autobiography and examine why we are the person we are today. I was amazed at the experiences I unearthed about my school years. They are now recorded in that 30+ page document.
The third stage somewhat overlaps the second stage and continues, for many of us, into the sixth stage and for some into the seventh stage. It's the relationship stage. Who was your first crush? Your first boyfriend? And in looking at relationships, we can include the organizations we belong to, our best friends, and even the relationships with those with whom we work.
The fourth stage seems to me to address the world of work. What jobs have you held? I think the strangest job I had was posing as a victim for lifesaving classes. I had to pretend I was actively drowning and the aquatics student had to save me; then, I had to pretend I was the unconscious victim, near death, hoping to be saved before I died.
As the justice in the fifth and sixth stages of life, we are the parents and grandparents who look at the world with a different vision than we did as just a student or young adult. My mother who is in her 80s says that she has lived enough years to be able to say just exactly what she thinks. She's quite the spunky senior citizen.
Although by the time we reach the seventh stage, we have probably lived a full life, as writers we can harvest the ideas of the the experiences we share with people who have reached this stage.
Take some time and read Shakespeare's poem pasted below. Then, start to mind-map your life. What personal experiences can you identify as inspiration for a fictional story?
Let me know how this poem fits your life.
The Seven Ages of Man
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
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