Friday, April 11, 2008


ROGER HALL IS AMUSED............

Diane Miller, co-author with Di Haworth of Freda Stark : her extraordinary life, sent me a copy of The Writing Game by Rosemary Friedman. She did so because Friedman's novel, An Eligible Man is going into rehaarsal at Hampstead's New End Theatre (where my own Take a Chance on Me got a critical drubbing by some unkind folk, thus preventing it from transferring to the West End).

As the title suggests, The Writing Game is about how a writer goes about their work: how many hours a day to work, where ideas come from (a lovely poem by Wendy Cope to illustrate this), agents etc etc. It's not a "how to" book as such, more of a "how it is" book.
I'm enjoying it, and when Friedman talks about keeping notes, diaries etc this made me laugh out loud :
Although I am not a chronicler, I also keep a diary which, like Kafka’s----”Germany declared war on Russia. Swimming lesson in afternoon”—is more an aide-memoire than a document for posterity.
RH

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