Saturday, July 17, 2010
Nearly 5:30 AM. An idea [for another novel], finally — the one character begins as black-and-white and learns that everything is relative, every judgment can always be nuanced. I woke up to that idea, but don’t remember anything else, or any specifics. Perhaps influenced by having watched “Witness” with Larry [a visiting TMI friend] last night.
So here we are again. I re-read that material from yesterday to a friend who had found it hard going, and I saw that if you didn’t already know where it was going, it was hard to grasp, for it combined two themes — what it was trying to say in itself, and what it was trying to say about the process of saying it. Again evidence that I will need to apply my skills at writing and editing. I can’t just take dictation.
Papa, you will have seen “Witness” with me, I suppose — or anyway can see what I know about my having seen it. (Which is it?) I wonder if you share my feelings about what it says of our loss of community.