Wednesday 17th December 2008 (p4378)

I went to London for an Esio Trot gig at the Betsey Trotwood in London. Wrote the below entry in a café before the gig.

Tuesday 9th - Tuesday 16th December 2008 (no pages written)

All but given up here but wasn't really giving up because I felt I had written what I wanted to write. She went back to Iceland for a little while. I watched snooker, enjoyed the freedom.

Monday 8th December 2008 (pp4376-7)

I do vaguely remember writing this poem late at night on the sofa on which I was to sleep. It's meant to be about the girl with whom the island man is embroiled.

Sunday 7th December 2008 (no pages written)

I sit and try and remember these times, what I would have been doing on the 7th December 2008. It's an impossible task most of the time, so I try to remember something about that general time and it can be like staring into a dark house.

I used to do cryptic crosswords. I used to stare at them for hours rarely solving any clues, whilst she watched TV.

Saturday 6th December 2008 (p4375)

'Very busy and stressed and depressed at the moment.' That's sad. Maybe it would have helped to continue writing.

Thursday 4th - Friday 5th December 2008 (no pages written)

For a few years I didn't have internet, then around this time I got it again. Can you imagine not having internet? What a smaller world it would be.

Wednesday 3rd December 2008 (pp4373-4)

By now certainly I didn't mind that I was slipping further and further behind. And it was such a relief. After a year and a half of forcing myself to write, of feeling guilty when I didn't write enough, it was a divine gift to have that burden lifted. I thought that maybe having the pressure lifted like that would inspire a time of great productivity.

Tuesday 2nd December 2008 (pp4368-72)

I don't know whether I was aware that the story was drawing to an end. The narrative certainly seems to have an air of conclusion about it.

Monday 1st December 2008 (pp4364-7)

Did we have advent calendars? My mum usually brought me one. I don't remember seeing her very often around this time. We didn't have a Christmas tree.

Sunday 30th November 2008 (pp4360-3)

There was the feeling that the task had run its course, that I couldn't do it anymore. For her sake? Because I wasn't able to spend enough time with her? Perhaps. But also for the sake of the book; it wasn't productive anymore; I wanted to actually put together a good final book and I couldn't do that when I was forcing myself to write something, anything every day, when I couldn't ever go back over what I had written.

Thursday 27th - Saturday 29th November 2008 (no pages written)

I think it was on this Saturday that I expressed excitement at the coming of Christmas. I had been into town and there were decorations in the shops, etc. and I got home and had all these childlike feelings bubbling over and she just scorned it all, just poured wilful scorn over it all and we spent the day in argument. Couldn't bring myself to write anything evidently. Three days of no writing was probably the longest stretch of no writing at that point. Can't remember how I felt about it. Resigned, content or self-hating?

Wednesday 26th November 2008 (p4359)

Apparent thoughts of Christmas here (see drawings). When I was young I would draw endless trees and stars and hollies on cards and wherever I could, at Christmas.

Tuesday 25th November 2008 (pp4352-8)

The pages are also thin and you can see the writing on the other side, but there is a satisfaction in coming closer than normal to destroying and saturating the page material, feeling it crumple.

Sunday 23rd-24th November 2008 (no pages written)

Now with the internet and Facebook it will be easy to look back on your life and see what you were doing every day. And twitter, because you will be writing down all the little things you are doing. But no one does it for posterity, they do it for conversation. People narrate their lives to each other to mark the passing time, to continually place themselves in the timestream, in the flowing present, continually recontextualising themselves. Writing a diary is a similar process but is more concerned with the past and the future.

Saturday 22nd November 2008 (pp4349-51)

Sex! Here there is some sex in the story, a description of the sexual act in all its awkwardness and ecstasy. 

Friday 21st November 2008 (no pages written)

New notebook and I swore this would be a new start. It's a flimsy notebook where all before have been hardback. In hindsight this was a bad sign, surely? Perhaps I thought it didn't matter what the notebook is like, that you can write masterpieces on the back of receipts.

Thursday 20th November 2008 (p4348)

There was a reverend in America in the sixties who kept a diary for years in which he wrote down everything he did, including trips to the toilet. I wonder if it stopped him sinning, stopped him masturbating for instance, because he knew he would have to write it down if he did, or maybe he lied to himself and thought 'I'll just do this, but I won't write it down.' What would your relationship with the everpresent diary be? Would it be a tool of self-improvement or a limiting factor because you are always aware that will be judged for what you do you? And then is it just a God symbol?

Wednesday 19th November 2008 (pp4328-47)

Quite an awful lot written today. An end of notebook burst of productivity. Also see my ardent attempts at learning Icelandic Grammar, with the Spirited Away type friendly monster overlooking. I tried to say 'you are very beautiful' to her in Icelandic but she had no idea what I was saying, or she pretending she didn't. 

This was Dad's birthday. I wonder if I sent anything. I have my suspicions there was a time when I neglected to send any birthday things for a while.