Writing from History - final instalment!
Today marked the last gathering of our intrepid troupe of writers at Writers Victoria. Some time to share and write, reflect and evaluate. An opportunity to gather some final gems from our illustrious leader, Christine Balint. At day's end we are released, primed apprentices prepared to fly solo on our respective projects. With NaNoWriMo already having dawned I have already begun this journey in earnest, adding to my daily word count for this historical fiction project, resurrecting the wartime memories of the small child who survived the Nazi torment that altered forever the landscape of her home, family and country - who emerged somehow from a childhood lost - who eventually left that life behind, leaving her homeland behind to make a new life in Australia. The child who grew up and became my mother.
Ahhhhh.... NaNoWriMo has finally arrived and I am writing into the small hours on this challenge. A wonderful opportunity to make some real progress on this historical fiction novel. I've been gathering information on this one for a long time, and had to overcome some serious obstacles to get this back on track. But I have done so now, in part thanks to Writers Victoria's short course on Writing from History, which has been instrumental in providing research and structural pathways as well as renewed momentum. I have scaffolded the entire work now and begun in earnest this journey back in time, to an era before my own time, when the little girl who would become my mother faced the onslaught of war in her beloved village of Helmond in the south of Holland, when this tiny country found itself in the crossfire between Germany and England.