D i a r y A r c h i v e : S e p / O c t 0 6
'PANTALOONS' - Wednesday 18th October 2006
The Great Novel hasn't had any greatness added to it during the last week. I tell myself the reason is that I've had a nasty cold, but I suspect it's also because I haven't had a clue what to write. I spent most of my writing time of yesterday reading other people's entries for the One Day In History project. Most of them were far more interesting than the idea I've got for my novel. This was encouraging. I heard an extract on Radio 4 today from Claire Tomalin's new biography of Thomas Hardy. Apparently he had the same thing for breakfast every day: bacon sprinkled with brown sugar. Might be worth trying that...
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'NIGHT BREEZES' - Wednesday 27th September 2006
I'm not sure it helped me unleash anything other than very poor, crack-of-dawn handwriting. To be fair, though, I didn't give it much of a chance and now, having re-read my bleary-eyed scribbles, I'm beginning to wonder if I was too hastily dismissive. The entries are all very brief but they make absorbing reading and, most interestingly, they describe dreams of which I have absolutely not the slightest wisp of a memory. So maybe the whole thing's worth giving another go? Who knows, it might even lead to a Shelly-esque moment of nocturnal inspiration. Oh, and in case you're interested, one of the strangest entries was about a dream in which I created an alternative cover for the CD single of The Feeling's Sewn. My design featured a picture not of the band, but of Jamie Cullum posing beneath the words: 'Sewn - The new single from Tom Jones'. How does that Mrs Ritchie song go? "Sigmund Freud, analyse this."
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'THOUGHTS, TOO MANY' - Tuesday 19th September 2006 Manic (but enjoyable) 'summer life' finally gave way to 'rest of the year' life this weekend, which meant that yesterday I sat down and tried to write. Usually when I'm faced with a blank sheet/screen, one of two things happens: 1) my mind goes blank and I can't think of anything to write about OR 2) my mind gets filled with so many thoughts, it's impossible to select just one or two and push the others aside. At the moment, I seem to be suffering from Malaise #2. Here's something currently vying for supremacy in my addled psyche. It's a series of statistics published in order to mark Racial Justice Sunday, which was 10th September: -- There were an estimated 400,000 racially-motivated attacks/incidents in the UK in 2005. Half of these were carried out by school children or young people. -- There has been a marked increase in racial attacks on Muslims (and presumed Muslims) since July 2005. -- Fictitious responses to job advertisements with the names 'Jenny Hughes' and 'John Andrews' secured 25% of interviews. 'Fatima Khan' and 'Nasser Hanif' secured 9%. 'Abu Olasemi' and 'Yinka Olatunde' secured 13%. -- People who move into the UK provide 10% more in tax revenue than they take out in public services. They come because the economy is relatively successful and there is a demand for workers in jobs which existing residents do not fill. I watched The Road To Guantanamo on Saturday. Putting aside the issue of whether its subjects' testimony is true, I thought it made very troubling viewing because it served as yet another reflection of the very deep and unspoken rifts which exist between sectors of UK society. But will I write about all this? Who knows. Perhaps this evening I'll just chicken out and go to the cinema.
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'TODDLER' - Monday 4th September 2006 Modern parenting techniques never cease to shock me. I recently heard about some parents of a two-year-old who are currently very pleased with themselves because they've bought their child a TV and DVD player for his room. Now, instead of waking up Mummy and Daddy first thing in the morning, he can switch on and watch his favourite cartoons all by himself. I suppose the silver lining in this utterly depressing piece of news - albeit an extremely dull and tarnished one - is that it reminded me that a writer isn't a writer unless he or she writes. I haven't been a writer since around the middle of May... for very good reasons, mind you. However, each of those reasons has now been dealt with, so to speak, and now there is nothing to stop me from stuffing ear plugs into my ears, turning my notebook to a fresh page and giving my old fountain pen a good shake. And I'd like to think the story above is the world's way of reminding me that my favourite subject - the way parents mess up their kids - is alive and (dys)functioning... so I just need to get my act together (not for the first time) and find a way to make the words flow again. Keep watching this space for news of any developments and/or successes.
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If only writing a novel were as easy as choosing colours for a new kitchen. Mind you, I don't find choosing colours for a kitchen that easy. What started off as a Moroccan marriage of blues and yellows is starting to look more like a jester's pantaloons. No permanent damage has been done yet, thank goodness: we're still at the planning stages. But the kitchen wall is currently a patchwork of different shades of blue surrounded by different shades of yellow and I confess - because, yes, I AM at the stage where my metaphors really ARE that desperate - I'm beginning to see it as a reflection of what's happening inside my Writer's Head: I know roughly what I'm trying to get at, but I haven't decided on the exact tones and hues and I have an awful feeling that, when I do decide, it'll simply be for the sake of making a decision.
Yesterday I spent a couple of minutes re-reading my 'dreams book'. Notice I wrote a 'couple' of minutes: the tome in question is not exactly the fattest in my collection. It was a discipline I tried to establish several months ago. The idea is that you keep a notebook by your bedside and use it to record as many details as you can recall about your dreams. I think the ultimate point of the exercise is that it helps you - if you'll excuse the jargon of creative writing courses - unleash your latent creativity.