annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary

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Just Five

1. Back to being UNABLE TO BEAR being at home with Bloke, so out all day everyday, knackered as shit, in bed by ten, not writing, not editing, all going tits up. I did a big sneeze yesterday and my right lung hurt like fuck so I guess I still have pleurisy. Might have to go back to the GP. Meh


2. I went to Tate Britain with one of the recovery centre art groups, to see the Van Gogh in Britain exhibition, which was really inspiring. I hadn't known he was really into Charles Dickens for his attention to everyday life and had aspired to do the same. It made me want to do the same - to capture everyday scenes. Quite hard as I can't draw people, so I started with kitchen utensils, just a quick sketch as I am rushing about like a mad bastard


3. At the same time I've started a massive canvas that I was given - this is it after twenty minutes of hectic splashing about: which I just loved doing. I'm going to keep at it, in acrylics so if I fuck it up I can paint over it.  It's the same view of the city rooftops that I've painted several times - actually writing that has made me think I shall go and take a photo from the other side of the railway viaduct, from the hill I used to live on - it has a much better foreground - the real foreground for this is some ugly, modern, light industrial buildings - just brick boxes. This is the first time for ages I've really enjoyed the act of painting. I was very agitated when I arrived at the art group and had something else I had to do first (which I've now forgotten), but putting three big dollops of paint on a plate - red, yellow and orange - then getting a big brush and committing to covering the canvas in the time I had left was so liberating and exciting. Other people, who'd been engrossed in their own work as I was doing it, said they really liked the cheery colours, so that was cool too.


4. Politics is so fucking hard at the moment. What a bunch of fucking cunts. I can't completely turn my back on it as I'm scared I'll miss something that counts, but how can a person remain sane or even cheerful when there's Trump and Johnson being so vile, doing and saying such cruel, unspeakable things?


5. I am enjoying reading my old blog entries, but it is hard to face how fucked up I was, how cheery my writing was (on days when I wasn't in the pit) compared to now, and how much I wrote. I can submit up to 50,000 words to have edited and get detailed feedback on, but I was spewing out 1,000 words a day in 2008/9 - it's taken me days to read through December and January. I have till the end of July to select my submission and I need to get the fuck on with it. And I will. I blew it twenty years ago when I had that agent interested and didn't get back to her, and I will not do it again. Ya hear?

Sleep tight, dear peeps xxx

11:33 p.m. - 20.07.19

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