I always used to say it takes longer not to write a play than to write one. The same goes for a screenplay. I’m nearing the end, now, that is, the end of the first draft. I have two scenes and a conclusion to go. Today I wrote two emotional scenes, sort of emotional because I have to hold back and let the sub-text do the talking. Anyway, after that I spent the rest of the day thinking and taking notes on my thinking. I thought I might write some more tonight but I didn’t.

I hope to finish it tomorrow, do a print-out and tweak it on ‘Wednesday and give a copy of the draft to my partner, who wrote the book I’m basing the screenplay on.

There. Having reported that, now I must do it. I have always tried to follow through, to do what I say I’m going to do – though sometimes it takes quite a while. As soon as I “finish” this, I can get busy preparing for my April/May travels. I hope I can walk by the end of the week.. I have a few errands I must run (walk).

Walk before you run.

It’s still today. It was supposed to be shorter because of jumping forward an hour. I found it quite long, with no interruptions or visitors and nothing special to cook. I wrote or read all day until I hit a blank wall and wondered what I was doing. So I actually went out, first time in a week. Lovely air. Mailed a letter. Is that why my wound started leaking again? I don’t want to think about it.

The world is so full of a number of things I’m sure I can find something to mull over for a few minutes….

It’s funny how things lose their importance as you go along (while other things gain of course). I can remember a couplet from a women’s magazine years ago. You’ll know how many years when you see it. It was about a teenage daughter trying to fit in:

“Her social standing is in danger

Without the latest record changer”

(Why do I remember something like that?)

I guess we all yearned for things, things that gave substance and meaning to our lives, or so we thought. I can remember wanting (briefly) a silver-backed dresser set: comb, brush and mirror. I didn’t even have a dressing table to put them on. My practical side trumped that desire when I realized that the soft bristles on such a brush would never manage my thick, long hair.

I did own a lot of the things that we, young women of my vintage, were expected to want and to cherish. (Remember heavy glass ashtrays?) After Bill died, I carried on for a while pretending I was still a member of the middle class, having people for dinner and using my china, silver and crystal wedding presents. But as my writing life got busier and busier I lost most of my middle class friends and when I moved north to a (semi-) winterized cottage on a lake, I divested myself of those possessions. I sold my sterling silver flatware and bought a new hot line to keep the water pipes from freezing the water on its way to the house from the lake. In fact, I sold and gave away almost everything, except for my books. I wrote a book about my downsizing; it’s called Enough.

Of course, I still own too much. As long as we live we keep on accumulating. I remember when the Art Gallery exhibited things from Peking Man’s collection, I came away realizing that as soon as people had a pot to pee in, they wanted another one and they decorated them.

We go on we go on, no matter what time it is.