Editing

Thursday morning, early, with work to complete before I leave for Whitireia. Still dark outside, this feels fine, peaceful.

This week, finished the editing of a filmed interview with a Holocaust survivor from last year, after a fashion. I had hoped the professional help would clear the remaining faults, but some of them slipped through in spite of my efforts. Never mind, it is now shorter and sharper. The editing skills are the same, cut, cut, less is more. A last effort to obtain funding for this edit. People have been generous. But it took me away from reading and writing.

Bought a copy of Maxine Hong King's Fifth Book of Peace at Arty Bee's. I thought, I could do with some of that.

Always I go back to prose. I think of my book, quiet in the cupboard behind me. I think now that I'll be able to cut and delete from it, when I return to it at the end of the year. Turn it into a slim volume.

Someone lent me a book entitled The People of the Book, about the Sarajevo Haggadah (A Haggadah is the text for the ritual around the Passover meal, a Jewish family celebration of the escape from Pharaoh's persecution. Haggadah means story or legend in Hebrew.) A great big tome. I have hidden it from myself for the mean time, until the short course is finished. Last week to go, portfolio to be prepared. Things will be easier when that is done, dead-line the 23rd. Eleven days to go.

I am spending too much time on this.