Great writers have left behind their share of cigarette butts, empty reels of typewriter tape, crumpled pages, and empty gin bottles.
While I am not a great writer (someday, I hope) I too leave behind a trail when trying to produce work. At the moment it is the apex of assessment period and I am teetering on the edge, the threat of the blank page and unmet deadline driving me on to set my fingers on the keyboard and work like mad until hours of the morning that I have not seen for a very long time.
When I rouse from my trance-like assignment production period, I flounder in the detritus that has become a signature of wherever I plonk myself down to work.
No gin bottles and cigarette butts for me; rather, I find dried up teabags, pencil shavings, cheese crumbs and half scribbled notes on the backs of library receipts. Their meanings are lost in time, I have no idea which book these page numbers are referring to, no recollection of how I ate that many apples over the course of the day, the cores piled up like the skeletons of soldiers sacrificed to the war of academia.
I apologise for my absence over the next ten days. I promise I shall return from the dark halls and twisted stairways of essays and portfolios. Right now I must burn the candle at both ends in the pursuit of perfect phrase, tone and pitch.
And pray not to drown my poor kidneys in green tea.
Until we meet again my friends, take care.
