From Virginia Woolf’s beautiful garden studio in Sussex
I’m home after a week in London. I have already written a critique of Bill Viola in St Paul’s and of Marina Abramovic in Serpentine (non of the texts is hitherto published, so my judgement has to stay a secret). But the most difficult task for me, as a writer, is to make an essay on Virginia Woolf, related to the exhibition at NPG. The text is right now spinning somewhere in the ether between my mind and hand. But how is one to write well about someone like Virginia Woolf, such a self-opinionated woman, such a great master of words?! Is there at all anything new to contribute – .
I’m sort of beginning to feel the trueness of Gene Fowler’s words:
Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead
Journalists gather at the opening of the exhibition Virginia Woolf: Art, Life and Vision, at the National Portrait Gallery, London
.
sub rosa 
Procrastination helps.
NO – IT DOESN’T!
but you know what – sometimes it helps to tidy the desk – I will not admit to call it procrastination, rather some kind of three(4?)dimensional cleaning up … 🙂
34 new books on the bench, not yet opened …
I definitively need to organize myself!
hmm. sounds dangerously familiar! 😉
Ha! At least I’m not alone … 🙂
I usually rearrange the living room furniture. That clears my head. (how was the exhibit?)
It was good, very British, very conservative –
🙂
I was thinking of writing on the Woolf exhibition but have not been yet! I think summer makes it harder to write.
Oh, I agree! I can’t remember a summer as hot at this, even in the middle of night the temperature doesn’t drop below 20 C. I get up early and work from 7 am until lunch. Before my brain gets soft … then I try to get some reading done in the evening.
Hope you’ll get around to write, would love to hear your thoughts. My essay should be ca 1000 words, it’s a challenge to say something worth listening to in such a few words – . I really have to sharpen my pen (and keep my eraser close at hand).
Soft summer soggy brain does not help. Maybe if you go to your desk before breakfast , saying no breakfast before words on paper, you will find further motivation.
yes, that’s a good plan!
I concentrate on “showing up,” which has come to mean facing the screen, fingers on keyboard. It used to mean staring at the page with pen in hand. If I don’t show up, no writing will happen, which on some days, arguably, might be the best course. But what if, some day, I show up and a question arises that is so startling there is nothing for it except to write after it. Oh, and I am also given to organizing and re-organizing, clean slate and all that….
Karen