What Sarrie is reading and listening to at this moment

This post is dedicated to the writer Patricia Highsmith, in whose biography, Beautiful Shadow- A Life of Patricia Highsmith, by Andrew Wilson, I am currently immersed. My friend Annie gave it to me two Christmases ago, and I’ve only just got around to reading it.
There’s nothing I love more than a good biography, especially one about a writer. PH has a special place in my heart, because I wrote my honours thesis on her in 2001. Or rather, on a series of films based on her work. Back then, she had only been dead for six years, and there wasn’t much written about her, which made discussing her work both difficult and strangely liberating.
There was one copy of a book about her written work, strangely enough, in the military library at Duntroon in Canberra. Obviously, I did not hold a membership in this library, so I spent many an afternoon there, pouring over this book among the heavy tomes on warfare and, like, weaponry and stuff.
Anyway, it’s all coming back to me, reading this biography, which is only two years old. I’m actually terribly glad it had not been written while I was struggling through my thesis, because I would have just had to give up right there. The book is that good.
Plus, PH was one crazy messed-up lady. I would have felt pathetic and presumptuous, not to mention a little afraid, analysing her work.
As it was, the semester I spend writing that thesis remains one of my happiest academic memories. There were two albums I played over and over again in that time, as I was churning out 500 words a day. One of them was called A Camp, by Nina Persson, the lead singer of the band the Cardigans. I am listening to it right now to get me inspired.
PH was very disciplined when she was writing, which has inspired me in the past week. But she was also crazy.
Maybe that's what you need to be a writer- batshit crazy.
When she died in 1995, she left a vast archive of personal papers- diaries, letters, manuscripts- that nobody had ever seen before. She wrote all the time, everyday, stuff she never expected anyone to read, at least not while she was alive.
Maybe this is my problem- I haven’t kept a diary since I was a teenager, because I can’t bear to write stuff that no one will read. I write with someone looking over my shoulder constantly. I have a pretty organised mind- I no longer need to analyse myself on paper.
Whereas PH was constantly asking Who Am I? Her work was an existentialist dream of self-awareness and nihilism.
And while Who Am I? is a question is rarely feel the need to ask myself anymore, I recognised her themes pretty quickly, and wrote about her work in exactly those terms, and dammit, I got a High Distinction for my efforts.