November 2, 2006
Thursday

Who knew? Wikipedia’s article on NaNoWriMo now has a reference to NaBloPoMo! Eden said today that she had received several hundred more requests to be listed. She managed to work through the queue that my request was in, and now I’m getting hits from the NaBloPoMo randomizer. (If you go there, a blue screen will appear – hit the “view next blog” bar to be taken . . . somewhere.)

Yesterday I did manage to post in all three sections of this journal and write more than 2700 words for the novel I’ve evidently begun. I’m also working on a presentation to be given Sunday to a church group on cemeteries, a subject close to my heart. Not only do I have to write the presentation, I have to put together a slide show from the hundreds of photos I’ve taken over the last few years of weeping angels and elaborate headstones. This is more productivity than I have achieved in the last several months put together. I don’t know where the energy and the concentration are coming from.

Some people are saying that they don’t have the energy for NaBloPoMo, that it will sap all their ideas for Holidailies (assuming, of course, that the generous hosts of that activity have the energy to do it again this year). Others, however, have all their posts planned out like a collection of prompts.

Word about NaBloPoMo has spread faster than any other Internet phenomenon I’ve ever heard about, and the number of people signing on to participate more than any other group effort I know of has had in the first year. (And, Eden says, there will be a second year. She’s registered the name nablopomo.com.)

About a week ago, while I was thinking about how I might do this, while I was trying to talk myself out of the almost-November funk I was wobbling toward, I thought, you know, I could start something. One of the things that keeps pushing at me is the desire to write down my memories for some future audience, the grandchildren I might never know (and definitely the great-grandchildren). I am drawn to the autobiographical narratives of others. I’m thinking maybe March, the month of my birthday, could be NaMeWriMo, National Memoir Writing Month.

It could happen.

To be included on the notify list, e-mail me:
margaretdeangelis [at] gmail [dot] com (replace the brackets with @ and a period)