‘I need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we don’t really exist if you don’t.’ — Vladimir Nabokov
At the moment I spend half my days at a scratched antique table, the chair beneath me creaking with age. On my left is a pile of books and papers including about eight literary journals I’ve intended to blog on for weeks. There’s a book for which I’m interviewing the author; the one on top I’m reviewing for a newspaper. In front of them are multicoloured post-its with good intentions. I look at the top one and think about the email that bounced back this morning. I so badly want to ask him what he reads.
On the right is my manuscript, sprawled-out. I’m editing the second draft before finally letting some people read it. I need to know if I’m getting somewhere with this one. I know it still has a long way to go – needs to be richer. But I’m enjoying writing it, so much. On top of it sits a couple of scrunched-up chocolate wrappers, my phone, a bottle of water. Right beside me is a diary. I flip five pages and suddenly G and I are in Paris. The next ten pages from there promise adventure. It is coming up so soon now.
In this room is the uncomfortable futon where I also spend much time, curled up, scribbling notes and dog-earing books. This is, amazingly, work. I’m reading: Iris Murdoch, a book on institutions, Bright and Distant Shores by Dominic Smith and a big hardcover book on Marilyn Monroe. Last week I was reading eight books at once. As long as they’re all pretty different, there’s no chance of getting mixed up. There’s always a chance, though, of despairing over how far you have to go until you can write a passage like this, a line like that, a character like this, a story like that. The form, the details, the mood. I am learning.
Besides book reviews and the manuscript, work lately has been an academic paper, on The Hours. It’s my second, and it’s taking a while. Its starts out as an idea, an angle. I revisit the text a few times, I read all around it, I write out a plan, I write a convoluted draft (slowly), I rewrite and rewrite. Sometimes work, too, is speaking with and to people – workshops, interviews, festival panels.
Outside of work life is my partner, family and friends, exercise, movies, drinking, planning – I’m a serial planner. Or maybe a dreamer.
And there is LiteraryMinded. My companion for these past four years; vehicle for thoughts, analysis, comments on books, culture and my place in it all. The blog created a place for me in it all. It has helped me in all the endeavours above – to write reviews professionally, to teach and speak, to get my scholarship so I can work on a book. You have helped with it all, by reading, by encouraging me. You are always there, when I am sitting alone at home in my creaky chair. Thank you.
Happy Blog Birthday Angela. LiteraryMinded is just as rewarding for its readers as it is for its writer, so thanks!
Still my favourite blog about reading, writing and all things words! I’ve forgotten when I started reading, but that doesn’t matter. Happy birthday.
Congratulations, long may you run! Happy Birthday LM!!
Thanks Mark, Troy and Genevieve ❤
Amazing. You don’t look a day over three, Angela.
(Happy birthday, and thanks for all the words.)