It’s ten years since I started an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, so I thought I’d post the diary I started that year. It was the first year  I’d written a diary, so it looks a bit sparse but it does cover a few important developments for me.

5^th January 2001

I started a Purple Notebook of ideas.

Elizabeth Garrett reviewed my painting poems. I was growing tired of rejections and disappointment, so I looked for encouragement. She suggested an entirely different approach, going on about “logical structure”.

I wrote a poem after seeing Billy Eliot, but it was laughed at in Thin Raft because it had a bit about my gran never having left the country, and {real name withheld} said, “So What!”

19^th January 2001

Worcester. I rewrote ‘the paintings’ poems. Then I edited them out of existence. I think Elizabeth Garrett was asking too much of them.

16^th February 2001

I met Maura Dooley at Goldsmiths regarding an MA in Creative and Life Writing. I decided to go with Goldsmiths because she didn’t destroy any of my work in the way Bath Spa did last year.

20^th April 2001

Well on with handwriting The Hardstanding while on holiday in Ford Cottage, Dorset.

Wrote the synopsis in third person and it developed beautifully.

I’m using first person present tense.

25^th May 2001

Another Bath Spa interview with Phil Gross. Phil was great, but the other guy again really started to get down on why I write, homing in on my poem BND 432Y. I found it negative and destructive. Anyway, they made an offer but I accepted Goldsmith’s.

13^th July 2001

I made a plan for writing The Hardstanding in a notebook, breaking down the chapter numbers into a target number of words of 110000 over 9 weeks. Up to Chapter 8, adding a character called Uncle Les at 27000.

20^th July 2001

Chapter 9 How to Fail 29000 words.

27^th July 2001

Chapter 10 Boredom 31500 words

3^rd August 2001

Chapter 11 Hurricane 36000 words

10^th August 2001

Chapter 12

17^th August 2001

Chapter 13

24^th August 2001

Chapter 14

31^st August 2001

Chapter 15

7^th September 2001

Chapter 16 Breaking Out 70000

24^th September 2001

Goldsmith’s enrolment day

Took my best poem Geordie’s Wet Hair to Thin Raft

3^rd October 2001

Opening seminar – working methods with James Kelman.

Started writing prose: ‘Sounds Good’, and ‘Here Goes Nothing’.

I converted The Hardstanding to third person, past tense, because there’s no sense of drama.

16^th October 2001

Saw poet Maurice Riordan and Maura for tutorials. The first tutorial with Maura. I showed her some new Life Writing poems about the caravan in Morecambe. She seemed uninspired.

22^nd October 2001

A nervous class today. It was never going to be easy.

23^rd October 2001

Lamb’s Conduit for drinks with the MA students.

24^th October 2001

Seminar ‘The Writer Today in Northern Ireland’ Conor Carville. Started poems about issues based on Geoffrey Hill.

31^st October 2001

Seminar/Workshop Writers and their readers – Selima Hill. Worked on adverb poems based on this.

17^th November 2001

On holiday, Devon, writing a story I called Happy Dummies.

20^th November 2001

Tutorial with Maura. I showed her stories Sounds Good and Here Goes Nothing. She seemed inspired by these, as did Maurice.