Memories

(Note: I stupidly left two posts as drafts rather than hitting the ‘schedule’ button, but I’m going to leave the original dates intended.)

The August theme for 2025 is Memories.

Earlier this decade, probably not long after I turned fifty, I went through a period where every time I remembered something out loud or passed on a family story, my oldest daughter would say something like, “You’re writing this down, right?” She still does that occasionally, sometimes with the reminder that once I’m gone, all that will be too. If she gives that reminder, it comes with the forceful addition that I’d better not be gone for many decades yet. My response to both points is the same, some variant on, “I’ll do my best.”

The Memory project is something I originally conceived of several months before she was born. It’s evolved a lot in the intervening time, and I’m not going to go into all the details here, though I may later this month, but I’ve essentially broken my life up by certain key transition points and have at least sketched out a volume for each of memories I consider important, either to who I was at the time or to who I am now. Many of them qualify as both.

I’m currently working on both Volume 3, “The University Student”, covering my original trip to university, and Volume 7, “Starting Over”, intended to cover the day after I got sent home from work due to COVID until the end of my second academic career. The objectives for 2025 on this project are to finish Volume 3 and to get as close to current on Volume 7 as I can.

Coming back to the monthly theme, my objective for August is to get as close to complete on the draft of Volume 3 as possible. The month began with that volume about 75% drafted which, at a little less than 60,000 words means I’ve probably got about 20,000 words to go. This seems like an entirely reasonable goal for the month.

As I side note, I’m just about at the end of Fall Term for Fourth year in Volume 7. If August goes really well, I’ll do a little more catching up there, too.

But it’s a non-fiction month, and I’m not expecting to make a ton of progress on the fiction drafting at the moment, not that I’ve made a lot while I’m focused on songwriting in July. And that’s just fine. There are other important things.

Be well, everyone.