Writer's notebook

Thank God for the notebook, on a day like this exhaustion sets in and inspiration disappears. I've never been able to keep a proper notebook, mostly because immediately after I wrote something I usually thought it was complete rubbish. The fragments that survived seemed so much better after a week or two, or months and years in some cases. Now nothing gets thrown away and it just sits there, waiting for me to take the odd 'diamond of the dustheap' as Virginia Woolf called them. I've been really trying to stick to the course and am going back again and again to the early chapters of the Big Red Book.

Last night, even though I haven't finished TMA01's commentary or TMA02, I started the poetry section. I sat up working on it for hours, completely drawn in. We had an exercise to do, looking at a photograph, and all sorts of images and phrases sprang to mind. The weird thing is, I found myself writing from a male character's point of view, and historical at that. Not to mention the character's romantic interest in the girl in the picture! So, after seven pages of the poetry section I'm writing erotic verse. I couldn't sleep for hours,wound up by words, then had to get up and find Chaucer again for the home educated group. Hopefully I can spend some quality time tomorrow to indulge my new poetical side!