Chained to the Computer

I’m still busy working away at my memories for National Novel Writing Month, and the word count is mounting up. This year feels very different from writing a novel last year. In one way its easier mining my memories for source material. Things I’d forgotten keep flooding back, and sometimes it’s difficult to type fast enough to get them all down. On the other hand,  childhood memories don’t have a structure like a novel has. I’ve no real concept of how many of my memories are ordered in time, so I’m not writing a continuous narrative. Rather I’m writing in short bursts, which are themes almost, but don’t join together.  At least not yet.

This isn’t a problem though, as I never intended my NaNO exercise to be viewed by anyone else. It’s more of a place to record things that might come in useful later. I’m also taking the opportunity to write blog posts, so I have a stock for the next couple of months. 

This week, on Friday, I’ll be publishing an article on what I’m calling the Spanning The Years project – an ambitious long-term project to record my family history and the world around me today. I’m very excited by my project: there’s so much to do, but it will satisfy my curiosity about my family’s past and provide material for this blog. 

For the meantime, it’s back to memoir writing. Nine more days to go to reach my fifty thousand word target!