i did it!

and to think, those 51,921 words are but the TIP OF THE ICEBERG. lots more to write, and lots to edit and clarify. right now it's a huge mishmash of this 'n' that, or as jami puts it, "puking on the page" !! i prefer the more refined phrase: word dump ;-)

it's NANO time!

it's November again and time for another month of NaNoWriMo! i had originally planned to work on the Harry story again. i'd even worked on character profiles and descriptions, site and layout information, etc. the weekend of oct 28-29 i was full prepared to continue with the pre-planning of that story. my friend jami had even given me "Ready, Set, Novel!", the new NaNo writer's workbook, as an early birthday gift to help get me going.

but then during that weekend i received an email and some tweets about memoir writing that got me really jazzed about returned to that genre. so, once again, i'll be working on my life story. i've done a prelim outline and made some chicken-scratching notes of things i want to be sure to include, memories of events that have been brought forward by some of my other writing. i dusted them off and cleared out the cobwebs. i even gathered up all my fabulous books about memoir writing and placed them right next to my desk so they're handy when i need to look something up or to get additional motivation.

and now i'm ready to put pen to paper, digitally-speaking.

i've been participating in NaNo since 2005, and only achieved the 50k mark once, in 2008. let's see what i can do this year. as always, if i make 50k it's icing on the cake. the important thing is that the whole NaNo project really pushes me to write, write, write. so however many words i manage to churn out is that many words more than if i don't participate at all. keep your fingers and toes crossed for me that i manage to sprint, or hurtle, or at least crawl across the finish line this year!

memoirs: fiction or non-fiction

this is a good piece by Michael Larson about writing memoirs. i love the concept of writing your own history with some fiction thrown in for good measure. at my age, i certainly can't remember "exactly" what happened and when, i can only estimate some of the events based on the context of approximate periods in my life. aside from specific events that had a big impact on me, like November 22, 1963 and September 11, 2001, most life events tend to blur together. about 3-4 years ago, i was writing a story about our family Christmas morning tradition for an OASIS writing class. my description of the events was a conglomeration of many Christmases rolled into one, with some fictionalized descriptive passages thrown in for good measure. you know, the kind of verbiage that gives you a better sense of the surroundings. early, early in the morning on Christmas day, when the air is still frigid and it's still dark, how does snow sound when you're trudging thru it to get to the car to go to Christmas mass? what does your breath look like in the frosty air? are your nostrils frozen together yet?

there, do you feel cold yet? go have a cup of tea to warm up. Earl Grey. Hot.