Thoughts on ‘The Memex Method’

Today I noticed that the ridiculously prolific author and tech activist Cory Doctorow is commissioned to publish a book in 2027 on “The Memex Method”, which he described in a post of that name back in 2021. The basic idea is that he publishes continually in public by means of many, many blog posts, then collates it into books.

💬 “Traditionally, a writer identifies a subject of interest and researches it, then writes about it. In the (my) blogging method, the writer blogs about everything that seems interesting, until a subject gels out of all of those disparate, short pieces.”

I mentioned this post back in 2023, when I suggested: to build something big, start with small fragments.

Maybe Cory’s ‘Memex method’ was also in the back of my mind when I wrote my own version of the idea, Publish first, write later. This was a motto of the Argentinian writer Osvaldo Lamborghini, whose literary protégé, César Aira, seems to have adopted with gusto. In his fiction Aira appears not to be overly bothered by questions of plot coherence, continuity editing, or finding the right publisher — yet he’s still been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Doctorow’s blog posts, well written as they are, tend to be stand-alone pieces, always part of a larger ongoing thought process, indicated by deep links to similar ideas. They’re kinetic. They feel as though they’re written by someone who, like Aira, is all-in on ‘the constant flight forward’.

I’m deeply inspired by Doctorow’s process. It chimes with my claim that from fragments you can build a greater whole.

It also echoes and updates the approach of Henry Thoreau, who first jotted down field notes, then transferred them to his journal, and used these fragments to inform his many speeches and talks, which were then written up further into published essays and finally converted into the books, such as ‘Walden’, for which he’s now famous.

💬 “Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg – by the side of which more will be laid. Thoughts accidentally thrown together become a frame – in which more may be developed and exhibited.”

The advantage writers have now is that they can publish their nest-eggs directly, as they go. Perhaps this is what the likes of Thoreau and Emerson would have done, if only the technology had been available to them.

But Doctorow isn’t the only person who works like this. For example, Roy Peter Clark published a book by writing one blog post a week for fifty weeks. From tiny drops of writing, great rivers will flow.

Anyway, I look forward to reading a whole book on the Memex Method, though I’m not holding my breath, since the author apparently has four other book-length projects to deliver beforehand. If the process works, perhaps he’ll manage it.

Now read: Why not publish all your notes online?

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Cory Doctorow’s pace puts almost everyone to shame. All I’ve published is Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now.

Still, I keep on writing slowly, and if you found this article interesting you might like to sign up to the Writing Slowly weekly email digest. You’ll receive all the week’s posts in that handy email format you know and love.