on immortality, journals and Richard E. Grant

The urge to write in this diary of sorts so often dissipates when I get here - the difference between this and something more private is that I think I feel the need to perform no matter how unselfconscious i want to appear - were it not for my 'readers', I wouldn't need to go back and check what I'd written or correct those awful times I'd used 'your' instead of 'you're' (not that I would).

In the end I guess it comes down to the old idea that most of us artists do what we do because we want to be immortal - I mean, I think it was Robert Mckee who first spelled it out for me in one of his famous workshops - I read it later in his love-it-hate-it scriptwriting bible, 'Story'. The way I understand it, all art is created as a legacy of our being here - basically, it can all be reduced to various forms of 'I woz 'ere'.

In some ways I subscribe to that. I think I do this diary thing here on the mighty web because part of me believes it'll still be around in the lifetimes after I'm gone - if indeed humanity survives, let alone the internet. I think Jochen told me, to my horror (and, I'll admit, amazement) that a very very old blog entry about my burgeoning sexuality was still floating somewhere around the ether of the net, even after I'd deleted all the files of the site on my computer. As those cheesy US commercials say - think before you post.

Eh.

I also 'blog' and diarise (is that a word?) for my benefit as well. I want to remember what life was like when I lived it. Things change so fast, and my memory is so bad that I can take immense pleasure from reading old letters or notes to myself, or notes people have written me, or photos I don't remember taking, but am so thankful for when I find them in a corner of debris I haven't touched in what seems like decades. I love that feeling of reading through it all, and I get scared when I think what I might have lost had someone cleared it all away, or a fire had started. In many ways I'm keeping future writings here so I don't have to dig through the debris to get to them. Still, there's something to be said for paper.

It was at the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival a month ago that I was all aflutter over Richard E. Grant's eloquent and good-natured session - he mentioned that he had written something in a journal (which is so much more dignified than 'diary', don't you think?) every day since... well I forget when, but he had boxes of the stuff. I wonder if I should do that now. Maybe not here.. but.. maybe? I sometimes wonder whether Neil Gaiman does his blog for his benefit or for his fans'? I suspect it's a bit of both, but perhaps more for one than the other, with the answering of questions and news of readings and signings? Hell, I don't mind - after not being able to bring myself to speak to Richard E Grant, I've since embraced my tendency for being a giggling hopeless fangirl. But back to the journal thing. Hmm.. shall it be a mid-winter resolution, a new year's one, or a 30th birthday one? I always find reasons for me to procrastinate, as I am doing now when I should be writing my goddam script.

At least something's being written around here (nope, I haven't tired of that joke yet).

Breakfast:
leftover steamed salmon fishheads, cucumber with Japanese sesame dressing, and rice.
Verdict:
one day, I dream of Stephen being able to appreciate fishheads. But oh well.