Ideas brush past fleeting and insubstantial as moths. But I let them go, I don't want them. What I want is a voice.

Paradox: how do we know what we have failed to see because we have no language to express it, thus we cannot know that we have failed to see it.

celebrate while you can

I can't imagine a mental life, a spiritual existence, not inextricably bound up with language of a formal, mediated nature. Telling stories, choosing an appropriate language with which to tell the story: This seems to me quintessentially human, one of the great adventures of our species.

I haven't any formal schedule, but I love to write in the morning, before breakfast. Sometimes the writing goes so smoothly that I don't take a break for many hours - and consequently have breakfast at two or three in the afternoon on good days.

I write in longhand and assemble lots of notes, and then I try to collate them into a coherent chronology. It's like groping along in the dark. I like writing and find it challenging, but I don't find it easy.

Dear girl! Life is addictive. Yet we must live.