Introducing the Secret Diary Club

This week: a trip to the theatre, a university crisis, Shakespeare scholars being awful

Welcome to the Secret Diary Club! This feature is for paid subscribers only, because I realised I *do* have to offer you something extra (beyond the Friday posts which I am committed to keep free) if I want to tempt you into supporting my writing life with your hard-earned spondoolicks. Duh!

This got me thinking, what can I give you that is exclusive, and hopefully interesting, but won’t cost more a lot more time, because I really need to be focused on writing books? Ask and it is given: MY DIARY!

I’ve been keeping a diary since 1974 and now journal every day. In the last five years I have written over 2.5 million words in journal entries. So here’s the idea. Every Sunday, if you’re a member of the Secret Diary Club (you are a paid subscriber), you get to read 3 extracts from my diary: two recent and one from the archives.

These extracts are rough and ready, edited only to correct typos (though I reserve the right to exchange names for initials if I’m getting personal).

One rule: What appears in The Secret Diary Club *stays* in The Secret Diary Club.

No sharing.

But paid members are welcome to discuss in the comments.

This week: a trip to the theatre, a university crisis, and my dip into the archives from 2014: Shakespeare scholars behaving badly (including me, if I’m honest) at the Shakespeare 450 Conference in Paris.

I swear a lot in my diary, so you’ll have to put up with that. Plus, as you’ll see, I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about iambic pentameter (which I type so often in my diary that it is nearly always reduced to IP).

The cost? About the same as buying me two cups of tea. If you don’t enjoy being a paid subscriber you can, of course, go back to being a free subscriber next month!