inspiring music

I have my inspiring music (see earlier post about the Henry and June soundtrack), and now I have my inspirational pictures…. I managed to get hold of a fabulous still from the film about Anaïs and June last week! It’s a close-up of their faces together. Their eyes are smudged with heavy black eyeliner, their mouths painted red, their hair is 1920s wavy, and you can catch a glimpse of Anais’s crimson velvet dress. Oh, it’s just marvellous! I’ve pinned it to my pinboard above my desk, next to my picture of Colette in drag (the cover from ‘Le pur et l’impure’), scraps of gorgeous material (a square of shiny black, beaded gauze and a few inches of green and gold beads – it would look great as a choker but is probably meant for curtains), some pearl pins that came with flowers, my favourite 1920s Steinlen postcards, Kiki de Montparnasse, the picture of the legs from my story, a picture of a bottle of Mitsouko… oh my goodness, I really AM a magpie. I collect bits and scraps of nothing, which for me are essential, sentimental treasures.

Another thing I annoy myself with – I am incapable of spending less than an hour in the library. I go in simply to return some books (right, I’m going in and coming straight out, I will be only 5 minutes) but when I step through the doors I go into some kind of trance, or time warp. I’ll just flick through this book on Isadora Duncan, that could provide some useful background info, oh look, Sarah Bernhardt, same thing, while I’m here I’ll just photocopy that page from one of Anais’s diaries that I forgot to copy last time, some idiot has taken the book out, I’ll have a quick though her other diaries in case I find something else….. what a great photo of her, I need that, can’t find my photocopy card… got no change… there’s a queue at the change machine… and on it goes, before I know it the library is closing. I have to face it – it really is time I had a watch.

On the bright side, Colette is continuing to grow nicely! I’ve written the bit about when she meets Missy, and now I’m onto her and Willy’s open marriage, and how she created an illusion of naturalness – natural beauty and effortless prose – which was not quite true. The more I write about Anais and Colette, the more similar their personal issues are – and yet they are very distinct personalities – Anais created an opposite illusion, one of sophistication and exoticism. And also, the more I write about them, the more I identify with them. I found the wonderful photo of Anais in a biography of her, but I got cross with the biographer when I flicked through it, as it’s very judgmental and moralistic. That seems so wrong to me (now it’s my turn to be judgmental) – I can’t imagine writing a book about someone I don’t greatly admire, or at least have a great sympathy for, and even, across the centuries, love. Maybe I’m becoming over-protective about my characters – but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. They both had their faults, but to me the dramas and intrigues of their personal lives only make their writing all the more remarkable and fascinating.