Whoa - busy! I finished my tax report, as you know, and I had time to change the sheets and clear a space in my closet for my daughter Kate who arrived from Boston that evening. I had invited her to come and visit and see the Georgia O'Keeffe show at the Art Gallery (here in Toronto). We enjoyed it - more than that! Rich and absorbing, this dazzling woman's work is versatile, passionate, perceptive, accurate and - well - artistic? It leaves one (me) buoyant and fulfilled with longing. Actually, my Kate leaves me like that, too. She's smart and acute, too.

I told her the story of the screenplay I am working on during this six-month course I am taking and she has helped me with astute and constructive comments. I must take notes now, in fact.

Yesterday morning I was wound up tight with tax tension; now I am high with creation. No, I am not bipolar, just...moving on. I'll do some homework now. With any luck I'll check in tomorrow.

Don't hold your breath.

I saw my tax guy today and got the news. The good news is Ii don't owe much tax, In fact I owe more to my accountant than to the Feds. the bad news, of corse, is hat I made so little money last year and that's why I owe so little tax. It's not that I'm not writing. I's just that I'm not selling.

i'm like Baujtista; I'm having a dry spell. I hope his doesn't last as long as mine has.

I'm still not daunted, not totally. As a writer I have been trained all my life to tolerate delayed gratification. I just hope it's not too delayed this time round. I may be short of time. I am not short of paper. I just ordered more. I don't buy green bananas but I still buy a whole box of copy paper (white) plus a package each of pink yellow and blue, for second third and fourth drafts. The paperless society may work for other people but not for writers. We not only use a lot, we love it a lot, too. And use it. And save it.

I remember the American writer Joan Didion once compared the little bits of writing that she saved on stray bits of paper to string. You save it and store it/wrap it until you have a ball of it (string) - and then what?

I don't know. None of it is deathless, none of it means anything to anyone but me. Yet I save it Perhaps I'll tell myself something I needed to know. The University Of Manitoba Archives houses my files, tear sheets, early drafts, correspondence and so on. No balls of string though. I wonder if I could sell them? Then I'd have to pay more tax.