I'm sitting here

aproximately 51:25:30N 0:32:07W

Leicester - I finish work at three, writing before cooking - I've managed 115 words. I'm happy though as I know where the story is going, having planned it during my lunch hour.

5.21pm in office in Colchester 9 minutes away from going home for beer and stew

Sorry, 166 words. (And I had given up for a day.) Ahh, Colchester

Glad you haven't really given up Drew. It would be a travesty.

Well, it would be something. Gary once asked me to run a bath and I gave up writing. He often reminds me. But I have given up on the novel I was writing. And I only had about 50 words to go. It was too painful.

Just got home.. about to nail this essay which is due tomorrow morning. Been fighting with it all week, and it's been a real bitch. As have I.

What's the essay on? It's years since I've written a essay.

Keats and synaesthesia. *barfs* I hate the Romantic Poets.

I know, aren't they so transcendental? I don't even know what synaesthesia means.

Sense mixing... taste for sight, sight for sound etc. It *used* to be a subject that interested me, as I have it to a small degree myself. Now I don't care about it even remotely. That's the trouble with academia, it flogs and slaps every last interest that you ever had in something out of you completely.

But then Tom Paulin was my lecturer on Keats at uni.

It can do - we once had a lecture on tree imagery in The Faerie Queen. But the American Studies side to my degree was a lot more hip. The lectures used to have me buzzing.

Really? Lucky lucky you... My lecturer in 18th&19thC Lit is a man that would make fire eating whilst swinging naked on a trapeze seem tedious.

Did he dress like Tarzan?

Tom Paulin was a good lecturer but they were all a bit like a show. Thinking about it I have absolutely no clue what I wrote about for that part of my degree. On the other hand I can remember Pete bringing in a replica of The Maltese Falcon. Listing to Woody Allen talk about the teaching of Darwinism and many other things.

I wrote about representations of homosexuality in Californian detective fiction.

I always used to finish my essays on a joke. That's my best tip.

A joke? I always have to fight ending mine with a quote... its so weak I know, but I like to whip out a supporting quote at the end with a flourish, rabbit from hat stylie. Ending with a joke for my 18th & 19thC Lit bloke would be like dangling a pork chop in front of a vegetarian. I could write a limerick about how Keats' synaesthesia has an effect like anaesthesia.

If you've a broad mind and a wacky sense of humour, Drew's the person to read!