Monday
Well it's grey skies today. I suspect between David Miller, John Duffy, Alison & Mike I have had rather too much fun. I feel thoroughly worn out and miserable today. Just the right frame of mind to work on a manual for the super-duper workbook I created when I started my current temping assignment.
Many of my characters are defined almost entirely by the environment in which they find themselves. They are the shapeless entities that the world reaches around to make something of; the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle in Perec's Life: A User's Manual. That's often how I feel about myself - unable to really determine who I am or what I want out of life. Hence my being thirty-one and only the vaguest idea of what I should be doing. I hope against hope that somehow I will gain the freedom to sit at home for three weeks and belt out a novel that will gain me fame and notoriety. Instead I find myself trying to manage my urge to write, the domestic chores, and having to work for a living.
When the black dog is with me I'll reach for a pen. It's only then that I feel what I write escapes being laughably bad.
I've started making a map of Everbury to be used in a cycle of stories I want to write. It's a step into the void, really. I'm not sure there are any stories there to be told. We shall see. I find I want to make the place as real as I can, and know all that endeavour to make it real will merely sit in the background whilst I draw up characters that fall apart. I want the stories to end with a feeling of hope, but I don't know how I can do that convincingly. The best I can come up with are those few moments one gets when suddenly the world seems beautiful and to exist is all the power in the world anyone might need. I hope that will be enough.
Many of my characters are defined almost entirely by the environment in which they find themselves. They are the shapeless entities that the world reaches around to make something of; the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle in Perec's Life: A User's Manual. That's often how I feel about myself - unable to really determine who I am or what I want out of life. Hence my being thirty-one and only the vaguest idea of what I should be doing. I hope against hope that somehow I will gain the freedom to sit at home for three weeks and belt out a novel that will gain me fame and notoriety. Instead I find myself trying to manage my urge to write, the domestic chores, and having to work for a living.
When the black dog is with me I'll reach for a pen. It's only then that I feel what I write escapes being laughably bad.
I've started making a map of Everbury to be used in a cycle of stories I want to write. It's a step into the void, really. I'm not sure there are any stories there to be told. We shall see. I find I want to make the place as real as I can, and know all that endeavour to make it real will merely sit in the background whilst I draw up characters that fall apart. I want the stories to end with a feeling of hope, but I don't know how I can do that convincingly. The best I can come up with are those few moments one gets when suddenly the world seems beautiful and to exist is all the power in the world anyone might need. I hope that will be enough.
posted by Hamilton's Brain | 11:12 am
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