Personal Note: It's 2025, and I'm Back!

Hello! It's been quite a few months since I posted anything on here. I just wanted to let you all know that I'm still here, and getting ready to become more active writing for The Memory Cache again.

You may recall that last spring (2024), I mentioned I was working on a sort of memoir, using a web site called Storyworth as a tool to write a year's worth of answers to weekly questions from the site about my life story. The end product of all these questions and answers will be a book.

 

It turned out to be a non-trivial project, which took most of my available time and energy for creative projects in 2024. On top of that, we lost several dear members of our family this past year, and had some of the other types of personal disruptions and distractions typical of normal life in this post-pandemic era.

 

Fortunately, my wife and I also had frequent grandparenting opportunities throughout the year, and a lovely trip to Europe and the UK in the fall, our first trip abroad in a long time. So the year was by no means a total waste. It just wasn't that productive for me in terms of making new music, and my blog writing.

 

Now it's a new year, and I'm hoping to refocus again on resuming songwriting and recording, and doing more writing for public consumption. Happily, my Storyworth memoir project is nearly finished. The rough draft is complete, and I just need to edit it, add some photos, and have it produced as a book, which I expect to complete by mid-year 2025.

 

As I'd said back in the spring, this book won't be for public consumption, but there will be a few copies available for close friends and family. In any event, I'm really proud to have completed writing it, and to have had the opportunity to share my life story with those who are nearest and dearest to me. It was also very rewarding to have a chance to time-travel back into my own past, and remember and reflect on so many of the things I've done, and different people I've known.

 

In any case, with 2024 behind me, my hopes for The Memory Cache are to resume writing occasional reviews and summaries of good books, movies and TV, and maybe also doing some commentary on other topics. Obviously there will be plenty of important topics out in the world for the next few years to think and write about. I won't commit to a fixed production schedule, but I do hope to share my thoughts and information regularly, at least a couple of times a month, beginning next week.

 

One other thing I'm hoping to do soon is to start using Substack as another way to distribute my writing for The Memory Cache. I will be establishing a presence there, and moving my mailing list there as well, so subscribers can have each article I post on this site emailed to them via Substack if they want. I don't currently have any plans to charge money for that, although perhaps in the future I might - who knows? Never say never, I suppose! But for now, it's just another way to share my writing efficiently, and distribute it to a wider audience.

 

One other detail to share. I haven't yet made a decision about leaving Meta social media apps, which a lot of people seem to be doing lately, but I have added an account on Bluesky. As with my Facebook and Instagram accounts, you can follow me on Bluesky at @wayneparkernotes. I won't post often, but when I do, you'll find me there for sure, even if I'm gone from Facebook and Instagram by then.

 

So, happy new year to you all! And I hope to have something new for you to read here very soon.