Writing by numbers
An approach to memoir and other writing
In her book One Hundred Twenty-One Days, Michèle Audin includes a list of numbers. For example:
The Numbers
The numbers, in order, starting with the negatives:
-25, the temperature (in degrees Celsius) in Upper Silesia in January 1945 during the evacuation of Auschwitz
0.577215…, Euler’s constant
…
1.414213.... , the square root of 2, the length of the diagonal of a square with a side of 1
2, grenadiers returning to France in a poem by Heine
3, croissants for a breakfast at the Hotel Raphael
I quite like this list because it is eclectic to the point of being bonkers. For example, a reference to Heine1 is followed by the number of croissants eaten in a hotel.
It strikes me that the nunbers approach could be a great way of sparking off some writing ideas. For instance, my part-memoir might include:
2, beautiful pens given to me by my mother
8, the age at which I knew I wanted to be a writer
12, the number of years it took from meeting the girl with long hair to asking her for a date.
There are numbers everywhere:



I can think of at least four articles I could write inspired by those photographs, and I’ve hardly even started!
Famous, perhaps, for saying that where they burn books they will soon burn people.



Terry I am way behind. How many days? Probably 30 ish. 125 unread emails 1067 deleted unread emails. 54 years, 4 months since I first saw my version of your girl with the long hair. I know he’s still alive but his wife doesn’t fancy us renewing a friendship. I Always enjoy your writing!
Loved this, Terry!
Twice in the past couple of weeks I've stopped to take a photograph of a random number in the wild. Seems I'm not the only one. It hadn't yet occurred to me to write about such a thing, but gosh.......... *reaches for notebook*