I’m worried about art, what it’s for, whether what I do is any use to anyone, whether I’ve been kidding myself all these years that I’m any good at it, that I’ve got anything at all to offer the human race, whether I should just chuck it in and look for a job.
The only way I can keep a rhythm going is to keep off booze, go to bed early, and not drink too much coffee. 8.30–12.30 work on novel in office. 2.00–4.00 translate at home. 7.30–10.00 read Vogel Award manuscripts at home. Most of them are unbelievably terrible. One was like a black hole in space: …
I made a plan: in the mornings I’ll try to write my book, and in the afternoons I’ll work on the translations of the Malraux programs for SBS. I started this morning at 8 am. I loved it in my room, quiet all around, barely even properly light. I rewrote Vicki and Elizabeth, the very beginning of th…
I watched the beginning of La Règle du jeu on video. It’s marvellous but I’ve never been able to sit still long enough to get to the end. Renoir’s love of people, that unfashionable thing: the sense of a rich, three-dimensional, teeming life away there beyond the flat screen and spreading out from …
In the magazine the subs once again make me look an idiot. All my jokes cut out, the tone violated, the central argument truncated. I cry over it. I feel like resigning. I’ve felt like this a hundred times before and haven’t done it. Oh, if only I knew I had a grant I’d tell the National Times to c…
