One Day

‘Live each day as if it’s your last’, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn’t practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at. . something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.

tongue-in-cheek, love-to-hate kind of way

ometimes, when it’s going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery.

‘If you’re scared of Ingrid—’

‘I’m not scared of her, I’m just not going to do it so that we can say that we’ve done it. And I’m not going to do it if the first thing you say afterwards is “please don’t tell anyone” or “let’s forget it ever happened”. If you have to keep something secret it’s because you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place!’

The city had defeated her, just like they said it would. Like some overcrowded party, no-one had noticed her arrival, and no-one would notice if she left.

t this stage in his life, his main criterion for choosing a career was that it should soun

think you’re right to give up acting though, not because you’re not good but because you so obviously hate it.

Besides, I’ve written this two-woman play about Virginia Woolf and Emily Dickinson called ‘Two Lives’ (either that or ‘Two Depressed Lesbians’).

‘But you’ve got a double-first! What happened to your double-first?’ her mother asked daily, as if Emma’s degree was a super-power that she stubbornly refused to use.

Besides, I’ve written this two-woman play about Virginia Woolf and Emily Dickinson called ‘Two Lives’ (either that or ‘Two Depressed Lesbians’).