Don's Diary: First published in the Times Higher Education Supplement on 5 February 2004.
MYSTERY OF THE MISSING FILOFAX
MONDAY
I'm three hours into the first draft of a new crime novel. My literary
historian and sleuth, Cassandra James, is in trouble. She is stuck in a
traffic jam in pouring rain and she's late collecting her daughter from
nursery. I suddenly realise that the same fate is about to befall me. I
dash off to collect our daughter.
After lunch my husband works in his study, our daughter sleeps in her cot,
and I leave to teach a module on art and gender on the Nineteenth Century
Studies M.A. I come out into torrential rain, just like Cassandra. If life
goes on imitating art, it won't be long before I find a body in the library.
TUESDAY
Back to the novel, FOOTFALL. Once I've begun a draft it's important to keep going. I'm aiming at 4000 words a week spread over four mornings. After lunch I answer e-mails and do paperwork. Today I've got queries from MA students writing essays on the governess in Victorian art and literature. My current research project is on the stepfamily in Victorian and Edwardian fiction: I dredge my memory for governesses in some of the lesser known novels. When I'm writing fiction, nothing seems more alluring than my research project – and vice versa. I promise myself that I'll get back to the stepfamily when I've finished the first draft of FOOTFALL
WEDNESDAY
This morning nothing goes right. I type a sentence. I delete it and try
again. I delete that and reinstate the first sentence. It's still no good.
I seem to have forgotten how to do this. By one o'clock I've written less
than 300 words.
A friend comes for lunch. Whether it's the conversation or the glass of
wine, I don't know, but when my daughter falls asleep, I write 700 words.
THURSDAY
Peter leaves for Germay to give a conference paper. He won't be back until late tomorrow when I need to be in London. Grandma steps into the breach and on
FRIDAY
I'm on the 12.50 train to Pancras. The fictional library in which my novel
is set is based partly on the London Library and I spend a happy hour there.
When I get to the Issue desk at closing time, I find that I've lost my Filofax.
I dash round the stacks as the lights are turned off behind me, but fail
to find it. Disconsolate, I leave to meet a friend at the BELOW STAIRS exhibition
at National Portrait Gallery. There is only one governess picture, but it's
a good one with a haughty mama and pouting children.
SATURDAY
After staying overnight at a friend's, I catch the tube to Hammersmith
to chair a meeting of the committee of the William Morris Society. In the
afternoon I return to the London Library. My filofax has been found in Biography
N-P. Funny, I don't remember going there. I feel a plot coming on. What
if this were to happen to Cassandra? I nearly miss the train, but once I
am safely on the 3.25 to Chesterfield I write the first draft of a sinister
encounter among the stacks.
Back home there is nothing like the rapturous welcome of a two-year old
and Peter has cooked supper. Bliss.
Christine Poulson is a Research Fellow in the English Department at the University of Sheffield and the author of DEAD LETTERS and STAGE FRIGHT.
Published with kind permission from the Times Higher Education Supplement.