Describe an event from your life that had a significant impact on your thinking

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I understand that this event you are writing about can be a true event, but does not need to be. If I were to complete this task, I would focus on a true event. Then I can be honest about what I know rather than having the additional responsibility of learning what this experience would be like to someone else. You can only be taken seriously as a writer if it sounds as if you know what you are writing about. For example, if you wanted to write about how learning to fly changed your life, you would need to know something about what is involved with the learning and the experience of flying your own airplane. The choice is yours, and it is essential that you feel comfortable with it, but I believe writing about what you know is much easier than creating it.

Let's assume you are going to write about something that actually took place in your life. It would be important first to start with some kind of outline. It can be a formal outline or simple notes that you put together as you recall the details. If this were my task, I would need to first identify the event that had the most impact on my life. It is more difficult than it seems: we have to initially recall the event and all the details possible in order to write about it. However, should we concentrate on something positive or something negative? For the things in life that have the most memorable impact are not always pleasant experiences: often the unhappy events we live through change us the most, many times in very positive ways. I would suggest, then, that you sift through your memories to find the one that changed the way you see the world?changed the way you think.

If you are having difficulty with this, you might want to look at your life in terms of growing up: was there something that occurred when you were a child, such as the death of a grandparent, or moving to a new neighborhood where you had no friends? Did something take place when you were in high school? Perhaps you took a class that opened your mind to concepts you had never considered before? Did you learn something significant in a college course of study that made you re-evaluate yourself and your place in the world? Perhaps your marriage dissolved, a parent died, or your parents divorced? On the other hand, perhaps as a child you moved to a wonderful new neighborhood and met your best friend, or your first boyfriend or girlfriend. You may have married or perhaps you became a parent when your thinking changed dramatically. These are only suggestions: unique experiences that prove to be particularly life-changing will be, I expect, very different from one person to the next.

Once you have decided on the subject, then I would suggest you brainstorm. If you are writing about a change, you need to list the ...