I’m writing a memoir at the moment. It’s not something I ever thought of doing until recently; I don’t know why. Maybe I thought my life would be dull, I don’t know. But now I’ve started I’ve found so much to say that it’s already getting up to the requisite 50,000 words – and it’s only Wednesday.
LOL. I actually started it a few months ago and it’s going in for a Mslexia competition in September. It was my aim to write 5000 words a week and I’ve surpassed that by quite a bit – just as well as there will be a fair bit of revision to do.
Oh! We interrupt this broadcast to point out that I am in the Mercury again. Actually it’s quite hard to spot me as I’m little more than a blur in the background of a picture featuring Kenneth Cranham, Joe Orton’s sister and other people who took part in the Joe Orton day on Sunday. Here it is:
I’m in the top left hand corner looking fed up (I wasn’t – it was a great day).
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand – we’re back. The memoir started off as an ironic twist on the whole genre as it was about memory loss. It’s called ‘I am the Anti-Proust’ as it does the opposite of what Proust did. Proust remembered everything; I forgot everything, and that’s the story.
I started a new poem this morning which was a sort of opposite of the poem ‘The Sick Rose’. It’s about a flourishing rose – the one in my garden in fact which has done brilliantly since I pruned it.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172938
What else have I done? Worked on the novel which is about as far from being finished as it ever was; and then started a review of the Alan Bennett book I bought with my birthday book token. It’s called ‘Four Stories’ and it features ‘The Clothes they Stood up In’ (originally a play) ‘Father! Father! Burning Bright!’ (also originally a play) and ‘The Lady in the Van’ which is strictly speaking memoir and not fiction. Still, it’s all good and all worth reading.
And that was today. I am now awaiting a Sainsbury’s order.
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 