Monday: writing objects

I made myself look around the lounge room, settle on the first object I saw, then write whatever came into my head for 2 minutes. I did several, all as terrible as I expected. It was satisfying. New project whispered but didn’t come forward. Here are two objects.

Door handle

A circle holds a button holds a turn/ clicks an opening into place/ widens the world

All the hands that have held this exit/ wound: ghosts.

White dining chair

Small lighthouses bring you to table/ bring to food, bring to gather/ it hard underneath skin/ It holding the accumulation of sitting years/ it supporting your back so you can look your family in the eye

Tuesday: writing food

I tried to remember a meal from when I was under 8 years old. I wanted to pinpoint the most mundane meal I could remember and gave myself 10 minutes to find it. The new project said it was willing to speak with me but that’s as far as it went. Wrote about toast with condensed milk but also remembered the fig tree in the front yard in Nowra circa 198something :

A swing made of rope and wood, the seat dad made that would pop out of place if you weren’t careful. Always fruit bats in leaves, in tree top. Always fruit bats screeching into figs, dropping into the ground. Always half eaten fruit rotting in the sun, small seeds in red flesh. Insects. I always thought the seeds were insects. We never ate the figs. Probably didn’t know how. Probably thought they belonged to the bats. Probably didn’t see a good thing when it was at our feet…

Wednesday: random words, reading about Virgin hermits

Woke up with a very strong sense of characters that want their own project. Told them to settle down, that I was still waking up. But I wrote their list of words and statements to quiet the noise:

Shame/love/inability to control everything / I have died and risen my whole life/ my jaw aches/ flea/ music music music/ superstition

Thursday: Worked on an issue I’m having with Blue Hour. Can’t reveal what I wrote. New project cracked the shits. Very jealous. Good.

Friday: read articles from 1900. Took notes, got bored

‘The woman who married her grandson their… a grandfather who had a daughter married a widower with grownup sons…’

‘Kate took a fancy to someone and would invite him to manage her affairs… then in a short amount of time she’d begin to fight with him and imagine him guilty of a whole bunch of offences’ [1924]

Saturday: rode bike to Melbourne general cemetery and spoke to the dead. I questioned what is a good life, what is a good death. Found Diane’s love and grief for her young parents and wondered when and why they had been taken. Fictional ideas started to form, took mental note. Went home and wrote. Project coming along. Too many projects coming along. Possible I now have too many things in my head. Absolutely itching to work on Blue Hour again so I can let it leave my body.