Keeping Diaries and Taking Notes
Bemoaning the fact that my novella's not going to turn into a novel by the end of the month (why do I set myself such tasks?), I find I'm reading lots of blogs that ask if I keep a diary or write notes . Perhaps the novella would have a better chance if I didn't wander the blogosphere, but that's a different tale. So, no. I don't keep a journal though I tried, many years ago. Somewhere hid away in a box upstairs there are lots of scarcely used diaries; I don't think there's much of a second hand market for them. January usually has a few entries. February less. There might be a shopping list or two in March, and some notes - yes, yes! I sometimes write notes - tucked in pages in June or July. The notes will be scraps of poetry, or a five-line story, a character study or two, written on a bus, or from a chair in a doctor's waiting room. As notes go, they weren't very effective, lost in a diary, lost in a long-lost cardboard box. But my theory is, and...