NaNoWriMo Day 1 – A Life Lived Through Stories: Introduction

If I’m honest, I was a little disappointed to the response I received when I announced my intention to share my book project for NaNoWriMo on my blog here. considering the huge numbers of people who regularly follow, many of whom are good friends, and the thousands of visits this blog receives I expected a little more engagement. This is not to knock those who did respond but merely to say I hoped more would come on board. Perhaps I was wrong to do so.

Whatever, from this I’ve decided that I will post each day’s work on my writing blog – Writeoutloud – which is the more appropriate medium for the book anyway. This blog is meant to be more reflexive and focus on specific subjects. It is the other blog where I try to keep a record of my published work (some of it, at least).

I will write updates and summaries here as well as share my thoughts on the process as NanoWriMo kicks in. I’ll also post the occasional story here as well as on the other blog. However, you might want to consider signing up at Writeoutloud so you receive the daily notifications or click like on my Sonali Facebook page, if you’re an avid Facebook user like me, where I will also post notifications each day. Assuming you want to read my little creation and be a part of the creative process, commenting and helping me craft the work.

Today I have written my introduction to the book which explains a little about what it is, what it isn’t and, perhaps, what it might be. Here’s a taster (click the link below to read the whole):

A Life Lived through Stories: Introduction to the blog version

This is a book, but it is not a book. This is an autobiography, yet it isn’t. This is a novel, except that I can’t call it that because it is a collection of unrelated short stories. In short, I really don’t know what it is even though I have a very definite plan in mind and, though the parts are not yet written, the choreography of this little dance has been well and truly rehearsed.

To be fair, some parts are more rehearsed than others. Some have been virtually written for years just waiting for the right moment to unveil them. Others aren’t written, yet have pretty much written themselves – it’s just that the words are currently scribbled in my head, filling nooks and crannies and waiting like sweets bulging in a sweet machine, straining against the dispenser and ready to gush out into eagerly accepting hands, rather than fixed and static on a piece of paper.

This is a book about me. Only…that’s not at all true. Not one word of it is about me. Basically, I’m about to tell you a whole stack of lies. Whopping great humongous ones; outrageous ones; stories which would I would be ashamed to bring up in front of my mother because she would ‘wash my mouth out with soap and water for telling such falsehoods’. Despite this, to the discerning reader – and certainly to those of you who have the misfortune to know me personally – my life will be mapped out in these pages.

Sometimes the best kind of lie is the truth.

To continue reading on Writeoutloud click here.