Activity

Is this ‘the artist’s’ fate? Always to be loved less than I need; or somehow to repel love, or what is seen in the myth or dream of our society as normal marital love? I feel I’m reaching my strength, in my work, but there’s a corresponding falling-away…It’s terribly sad.

I typed THE END. I rushed home ‘dizzy with unconsumed excitement’. Could not seem to get much of a response from the people present. ‘I’ve finished. I’ve typed the words THE END.’ ‘What—again?’ ‘Guess what, I typed THE END.’ ‘You’ll have more to do.’ But then someone went out to get champagne and t…

Spectacular dawns I see from my bedroom window. Sometimes I look out at this richness of sky—layer after layer of colour rising from a bed of dove-grey cloud—and I think, This is a rich person’s view, or an adult’s view. As if I were not entitled to it, or had it only temporarily, or on sufferance.

At Castlemaine it was very warm. Even the night was milder than I’d expected. Discouraging memories presented themselves as I roved about the slopes picking up firewood. What does this almost-finished book say about men and women? There doesn’t seem to be a way of planning this. My attitude emerges…

To Paul Crossley’s piano masterclass at the Con. After three hours of intense concentration I was completely exhausted. His teaching was very challenging. He was not a giver of praise or even of encouragement, except to one girl who played Ravel; everyone else played Debussy. I loved the language h…