My NaNoWriMo Update

Starting With the Most Dangerous Writing App

The last few days, writing for NaNo has been a bit of a struggle. As I am reading my fellow freewritemadness writers post - that is what seems to happen right around this time. @byn seems to be the only one who is flying - actually, she is already finished with the official word count requirement of 50,000 words.

Even such a prolific writer like @felt.buzz has been feeling the writing slowing a bit. A long project is quite different from just writing what comes to mind.

For me, I set out to write a semi-personal story about a long bike trip. I was going to mix fiction and non-fiction and turn out a coming of age story.

Instead, I ended up writing about early childhood memories. No matter what I set out to write, boom, suddenly I was back to that theme.

So, I decided to go for it and right now, I am not even looking for a story but to just write what I can remember.

And here comes the shocker (for me). I don't remember. There are so many things I remember little glimpses and snippets, but so many big holes. Names, relations, who, where, why... All gone.

There is part of me that hopes that as I am writing, some of it will come back - but there is a much bigger part that feels that this is an incentive, a warning, a mandate to reach out to my siblings and get together and tell these stories to each other.

One of the things I am remembering and writing about is the regular visits of the old aunts. Many times, family relations were talked about and connections recounted but we, I, didn't pay attention. While they were still part of a tradition of passing on the stories, keeping history alive by telling the stories, we were already part of the generation that is not interested in the old. Or felt that it can be looked up later.

Now, we don't memorize things since we have the internet to find the information we need. In school, in the beginning, we still had to memorize poems. I have forgotten them all. But my father was able to recite whole poems at the drop of the hat.

At this point, I have written about 20,000 words and am even a little bit ahead of the NaNoWriMo count, yet I feel like I am falling behind.

Today, I will see if I can wrap my head around this again. I have to remind myself that I am can write whatever I want to. It is my story after all.

My Freewrite that never got around to the prompt I wanted to write about:

Today, I am going to start writing listening to some beats - something I have to look up but it is supposed to put you into a deep state of relaxation. And concentration. We will see. My attempt to write in a coffeehouse failed miserably yesterday. I couldn't tune out the voice of a German Woman sitting on the table close to where our group was sitting and really couldn't get into the writing. She kept calling me to her with her voice and the outrage in her voice.
Was it that I am drawn to that because I am writing about my childhood and the voices are coming up? Calling to me? Or is it that I always have been used to silence. I wasn't the one listening to Music all day. My sister had a tape recorder and she would splice tapes together to get the recording she wanted. I don't even know how she recorded. I am pretty sure it didn't have a radio build in. You had to do that separately. She also had some records? Or was that my brothers. I am a bit distressed to realize how little I remember. What the f....? How come we have so little in the memory bank. But that could be just me. Everything else in the world remembers LOL
I thought I had a good memory and then, I find that I don't. But I also stuffing this head of mine full of new things. Every day, I am learning. Every day, I am curious. So, I am curious where this NaNo WriMo is taking me. And now, I wrote a few hundred words that have nothing to do with my story...

This is the music:
Music for Deep Focus and Concentration with Binaural Beats, Brainwave Music for Studying

I found this thanks to this post by @ntowl

I will give writing with this a try today...

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@felt.buzz
@ntowl
@Botefarm
@KAERpediem
@Kipswolfe
@ireenchew

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