Timed Writing Exercise: Continuing my book - Professor Zimmerman's Diaries

 Wednesday

Yesterday, rudely interrupted when writing by the stupid telephone, the Dean had called me, at home!  Unbelievable!  There is no peace from that man he wanted to know what I would be contributing to the termly staff meeting and how it would be interactive so that the staff would engage, he let the word linger for what seemed like hours.  I lit a cigarette and considered the best possible ways of killing him.  Death my lawnmower, falling out of the staff room window (while have an experiential moment with tears welling up in his eyes!), he has actually cried in a staff meeting and then 'shared' some painful illness that his son had suffered, and his terrible time in the hospital.   In a staff meeting, really, God, I hate oversharing! I really don't need to know the inner feelings of my work colleagues. 

Well, rant over, I will calm myself to tell you, my imaginary reader, more about my young student, Honey Devlin.  This boy, this scruffy urchin, is a most important find, I would go as far to say THE most important find.  There he was in the tutorial chair (it is a special chair, purple, worsted, and has housed the bottoms of students for decades)  picking nervously at the threadbare arm when suddenly, as if the courage has just entered him like a spirit, he leans forward and says: 'I need to tell you a true story of a miracle, and how we must pursue an investigation into the proving the miraculous without delay.  I have proof, this is not a joke and I am not a spiritual person.  This miracle will change the course of everything.' Of course, at first I laughed, he's eccentric, I liked him.  But he appeared deadly serious and not a religious nut at all.  In fact by the end of his story I understood why he wanted to pursue this academic path, as he truly believed in academia itself. I was so taken aback I agreed to a strange meeting with him, which was to take place at Best Buy the local electrical store on its last legs on the edge of town. I was to meet him there at 7pm, well the day just took a far more interesting turn that expected!  

Simon Gray: The Smoking Diaries

 I read The Smoking Diaries many years ago and I was very taken with them, I did not know Simon Gray but a friend had recommended the book and it really was a joy to read.  Gray was an English playwright and, wrote around 30 plays in his lifetime, was born in Hampshire in 1936 and died in 2008, not long after these diaries were published. He also taught English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. He loved to smoke, drink, and to write.

Simon Gray 

 The Smoking Diaries, Diski states that you can; 'take Simon Gray's diaries for just what they seem to be: a grouchy-hearted, grimly comic rant against the world by a playwright in his mid-60s who finds himself neglected by the modern theatre' (Diski, 2004).  It is a man getting older and as all of us get older the world becomes a place we less and less understand as it moves forward and we are still stuck in our youth (in our head).  the book begins with Gray lamenting how he hates Christmas as this seems to be now the time that those he loves die.  This is the other thing with age you begin going to more funerals than weddings or christenings. 

Grays's diaries are obviously highly edited and written with a reader in mind, Diski argues that; 'I'm inclined to reject the innocence of the diary form, especially this elegant and carefully crafted version of it. There are those who say that all fiction is autobiography. I'm of another party, the one that says all autobiography is fiction.'  (Diski, 2004).  This is a highly crafted book that uses the diary form well and the reason I wanted to discuss it here.  Gray has elevated this with a fine balance where the reader feels that they are intimately involved (as one should in a diry) however it is clear that Gray is also not giving anything away that he has not as Diski states fictionised to an extent.  This has been beautifully done here.  There is a pace to the writing that moves the reader with the sentence here is an example; 

'The rehearsal room is in a church hall off Kensington Church Street and actually within walking distance of here - not that I actually walked it, Victoria drives me, or I take a taxi.  It's a large handsome room on the first floor and I can smoke in it.  I sit on a chair beside another chair with an ashtray on it, and watch the actors, watch Harold [Pinter] at a long table directing the actors, watch and watch, sometimes saying something, but often not.' (Gary S. 2006:139)

Here I am transported immediately to the kind of rehearsal room that all actors are used, the community hall in the church, when I was younger I loved to write and direct plays, I acted in some but I think I much preferred directing.  I imagine here being in Kensington in London and walking the street, getting a taxi through the streets of London a good hansom cab.  the joy here of smoking inside is terribly bad now but I also used to enjoy this pleasure.  I can imagine the wooden chairs lined up to watch the rehearsal, quietly.  With writing you must make the reader connect to the scene and Gray does this perfectly here, it brings back to me my own memories and that is possibly why I enjoyed this, like sitting in your favourite chair, the familiarity, the comfort, is always a joy.  The use of commas gives the pace to sentences, they help you breathe and pause within the text, which gives you time to ruminate on the scene presented and the feeling of the moment he describes.

My lesson is about to begin but I will be returning to this post!

References

Diski, J. (2004) Review: The smoking diaries by Simon Gray, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/apr/10/highereducation.biography (Accessed: May 4, 2023). 

Gray S. (2006) The Smoking Diaries, Granta, London

Gray, S. (2014) Playwright, diarist, novelist and screenwriter, Simon Gray. Available at: https://simongray.org.uk/ (Accessed: May 4, 2023). 

Timed Writing: Beginning my book...

 Monday 

Oh the misery! another day seeing my dreadful students in the Philosophy 101.  These students, I don't think they have ever had a single thought about anything that is outside of themselves.  I could cry thinking about the future of Philosophy itself!  Aside from it being Monday and having the worst class ever, my stomach is still playing up and Doctor Smallback is sending me for 'further tests'.  There should be dignity and grace in old age but it seems there is only humiliation, indignity and memory loss!

I did not think the memory was that bad, and I can recite Hegel at will and consider deeply his idea of the actualization of the will, but I can never find my glasses, the book I was reading yesterday or where I left my keys.  I wish Hegel could explain these things to me, I think I would be better here at thinking of the philosophy of Montaigne, I remember clearly he said; ‘to learn that we have said or done a stupid thing is nothing, we must learn a more ample and important lesson: that we are but blockheads… On the highest throne in the world, we are seated, still, upon our arses.’ And, lest we forget: ‘Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies.’ - he was not afraid to face our bodily functions and I am starting to think we should focus more on how our bodily functions really affect our thoughts..

Damn it all, I also met with Dean today, he is a new appointment and is a pompous ass!  He obviously has been educated at one of these new universities and kept talking about meetings and how they should be more 'experiential' worse, so much worse than that, he started going on about a 'team building day trip', I would rather eats maggots...why in the world do I need to get know people I work with better!  I frankly see quite enough of them each week and I really don't want to know or see anymore of them, or listen to them, or have to interact with them 'socially' - my god, what a bore! 

Tuesday

Had a terrible dream/nightmare that I was stuck in a lift with my work colleagues, the Dean and the student that smells of garlic constantly.  I was screaming to get out in the end, the lift got hotter and hotter, the phone was broken in the lift and the smelly kid had started to touch me.  I woke up sweating and hyperventilating.  I think my blood pressure is too high, I need to see Doctor Smallback again, I am afraid he thinks I am a hypochondriac and I hate the smell of his rooms they remind me of death.

A small pleasure I have in life is smoking - I do love a cigarette, the post-prandial cigarette is truly a joy, the meal of course has to be good for the cigarette to be perfect.  I digress after my terrible dream I went outside onto the porch and sat on the steps it was early and it was quiet, then I look over to my neighbour across the road (another single man) and he appeared to be digging in his garden, I could only see the spade moving back and forth and the earth flying about, the small fence covered the area itself.  Very odd man, 

The Chapbook: Planning

 

The Smoking Diaries (2008) By Simon Gray

• What is your final idea?  Please explain in two sentences the theme and the form your writing will take.

I will create the diaries of Professor Zimmerman, a character from The Story of Honey. The diaries will work on characterisation, a narrative that brings pace and there will be remarks related to 'Honey' to bring this piece together with my two previous works.

• Considering the form, how do you intend to layout your book pages?

This will be in the form of a diary with a short introduction. I may do this over months or it could be snapshots from different years..

• How many pages do you expect there will be?

30-40 pages

• Are you going to use images?  Are these your own images (illustrations/photographs) or copyright free images that you will source? 

I want to use images like in Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald where they relate to the event or a memory

• What is the plan of your time and how much you will need to spend on this?

Remember writing is something that you will need time and concentration without disturbance - you must make sure that you plan time to do this.

I will spend 8-10 hours, writing, drafting, rewriting and proofing this book and with additional hours spent on image sourcing, front cover and completing publication

• What do you imagine the final book will look like?  

I am hoping it will look a little like The Smoking Diaries or Austerlitz.  Beautiful wring ad images that excite the senses and the memory and create connections for the reader. 

• Have you considered the cover page/contents page/back cover with blurb?

I will create this on Blurb and I will source a suitable cover image or I will take it myself - at the moment I am nort sure what that will be.

• Drafting and redrafting will need to be done?  Who would you get to proofread your work?

I will ask my partner to proofread this work

Write down any other thoughts or comments related to your plan on your blog post.

I will be working on researching other diary forms to consider how I will structure my own to make sure that this will make sense to the reader and will really get the elements I discussed earlier through to the reader.

Creative Writing: Introduction to the Chapbook and Ideas

 Another term and I will be creating another chapbook.  This small book of joy could follow on from my previous two books or could be something entirely new!

Alain de Botton (2005) On Seeing and Noticing

My last two books were the story of milk and honey but there was a character I created called Professor Zimmerman who I really wanted to explore more.

I want to write his story this term and I thought about maybe the diaries of Zimmerman or it could just be a chapter of his life.  While I was think of this I thought of Nabokov's Pnin - this book of the professor who is always out of place is a beautiful characterisation of a man that is touching, deep, funny and engaging. 

Vladimir Nabokov (1957) Pnin

Charles Poore of the New York Times described Pnin as; 'a comedy of academic manners in a romantically disenchanted world.' (Poore, 1957) This would explain why I am drawn to this book, written in 1957, however that same disenchantment comes to every academic's life.  But this is a book about the society that produced him and through his eccentricities, you come to love this character.

Evelyn Waugh (1928) Decline and Fall

Also I thought of Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall - again a comment on academia, society and a very British class system exposed.  The idea as well that failure leads to teaching...

References

Poore, C. (1957) Books of the Times: Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov, The New York Times. The New York Times. Available at: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02/lifetimes/nab-r-pnin.html (Accessed: May 1, 2023). 

Creative Writing Exercise One: Disgust

 Lydia scanned the dank, damp and flea ridden kitchen that she shared with her two housemates; Ron and Emma. The fleas had come in after Emma had started to feed the stray tomcat, who they called Ginge with left overs and gone off milk.  The place stunk of old food and rotting vegetables and eggs in the overflowing bin.  Lydia threw herself onto one of the broken wooden chairs that sat with their equally horrible table that they used for house meals.  Lydia wished to God, prayed to God, that one day she would be freed from the hell of house sharing but with cost of living crisis and the fact that she had no savings and no family that could support her she knew that the chances of every getting out of this vile hole were slim to none. Lydia scoured the room to see if there was any chance that there might be a relatively clean bowl to eat some breakfast cereal out of then she realised there would not be any milk and anyway she had suddenly lost her appetite. Lydia pulled her old green cardigan close around her and closed her eyes, perhaps if I just imagine hard enough a miracle will save me, she thought.  She imagined a clean white modern kitchen with shiny marble tops, an American two door fridge that smelled fresh and clean and had beautiful fresh food inside.  She imagined the sun shining through french doors and her walking out into the beautiful warm sunlight.

Reflection: Solace in the City

 This term I was considering the work of Wim Wenders and Atget when completing my urban landscape image.  I found the quiet and strange places of Wenders photography emboldened me to create more colour images as otherwise I am always tempted to complete everything in Black and White.

I was pleased with the colour here on Revolution Red, the colours are rich and deep and the triangular shapes and arched windows really do make this image work.

With my other images in black and white I was thinking of Atget and wanted my images to exude some of that poetic beauty however here I don't think I quite got that, there are some abandoned places and I like the idea that they are just awaiting for human touch again 

Final Destination has a rugged grimy city feel to the scene but I would not say it was poetic, perhaps I do need to work in the dusk light and create a little more atmospheric shots.  However, I do like how this image works with the shadow play of the trees on the ground which does draw your eye to the wall and then you glance over to see the abandoned trolley.  There is always a sort of sadness for abandoned shopping trollies.