Writing this paper: pleased at a sentence, frustrated at a page; gratified when a point comes clear, dismayed when it blows up into something aggressive and nonsensical.
Read what I had for V–, and was surprised at how mad and rambling and repetitive and polemical and... well, you get the idea – how overdone, how Adornoesque, it all sounded.
Fixing it now, to the best of my ability. But this is the mania of the writer – I know, for my audience in Liverpool tomorrow, it's just this thing, and it's either amusing or not. (As in Hitchhiker's Guide, the recurrent joke about Zaphod Beeblebrox: "He's just this guy, you know...".)
But for me it's identity, it's universe, it's either a disaster or a vast success: which means the world of the narcissist and the world of the writer are perhaps the same thing....
***
Having turned a mess of notes into about ten pages of text (pages 8 and 9 still messy, but I'll rewrite on the train, then print at the other end), I'm pleased. Maybe it's not perfect, maybe it's in process, but: when I have my first paragraph, and my last, and they create a sort of symmetrical hat-trick of rhetoric, I'm happy.
Because, after all, I'm kind of a performer at these presentations – somewhat like the magician in a traveling carnival, a bit cheap perhaps, a little greasy, but suave and confident in his effects. If I can make magic happen, if I can manage, perhaps unexpectedly, perhaps even against their will, to ensorcel my audience: then, I'm satisfied....
***
A couple of days later: back home, tired, had fun, wore myself out a bit. Presentation was good. Still doubtful as to the validity of certain kinds of research writing; as I put myself together in the next day or two might comment on it.
Nice to just lie about for a bit, though... oh oops I have to buy my brother's gift on the Internet... later today, tomorrow, soon....
***
And the next day, after being out at celebratory dinner, which, for me, is partly celebrating an end – since I'm no longer the head of the HIV patient group (I've handed it on), this was the last of their Xmas dinners I'll be invited to. A sense of being done, a sense of moving on.
So: okay, I did it this week, the paper, it wasn't hard. And another separate article was due today, but they said they'd "keep the door open as long as they could" – I need to crank it out in the next few weeks.
And I can do it. I have to do it, after all: it would be the height of absurdity for me to not be in this book – they're waiting for me.
And after that, I can actually do the whole book, the one I'm so identified with: whatever thousands of words a week, I know where to go. Hearing The Fray's 'How to Save a Life' ringing in my ears. Past broken promises to myself, past inability to fathom large works, I can walk right past my past bullshit – this is no big deal: and I can do it.
And I will.
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