From time to time, I like to take a writing class that pulls me away from what and how I normally write. The last class I took was in 2020, pre-pandemic. It was called MindF*ck, a class where I would learn to write a psychological thriller. Wholly appropriate given that the last class was on March 7th. One week later, the world would be humming about a Coronavirus and the lockdowns would begin.
This month, I started a course called Getting into Crab Mode. I was attracted to the notion of learning how to write a hermit crab essay, especially since I had no clue what that even was.
On the first week, we learned this kind of writing mimics the hermit crab who makes its home in, well, virtually anything it can find. A hermit crab essay is a story—usually of the memoir or personal essay type—that presents itself in an unusual format, a narrative that finds its place in anything other than a linear format. Hermit crab essays can take the form of a to-do list, a ride up an elevator (Jason Reynolds’ Long Way Down is a masterful example of this), a how-to manual, a medical questionnaire…you get the drift.
When I understood the concept, I sat forward in my chair and exclaimed, “I’ve already done this!”, but I was on mute, my camera was off, and the class went on without my interruption.
In the very first draft of The Girl in the Gold Bikini, I had a short entry about what I called “the toddler diet”, a way of eating that would help you lose weight. It never made it into the final draft of the book, but this was my first stab at a hermit crab essay without even knowing that’s what I was doing. A story about what it’s like to feed toddlers, presented as instructions, but where you can still sense my frustration with both diet and parenthood. I was so clever without even knowing how clever I was.
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