8.05 am. From the study window:

The promise of the first light failed within the next half an hour. Never put your trust in signs; the distance between expectation and realisation can be considerable. 9.00 am. Two references to write, the weekend’s incoming email to deal with, further slots in my diary to fill, and postgraduates to contact.

10.00 am. On with the conspectus. Once writing had begun, the notes coalesced and spawned further ideas and connections. By 11.00 am, some of the early morning’s prospect had edged its way through previously impenetrable grey ceiling over the landscape, only to be edged out again an hour later. Like foul and fair weather, good and bad providence, sanity and distemper, clarity and confusion, success and failure, and esteem and shame, come and go — inconstant, unsummoned, and unreliable:

1.40 pm. A little adjustment to equipment in the studio before settling again to the conspectus. The more one does the less there is to do. A momentum gathered; parts fell into place and a sense of perspective emerged (distance, depth, and breadth in reciprocity). A shape, a logic, and sense of progression pressed towards me.

6.15 pm. Practise session 1. 7.15 pm. Into the studio to make a tentative start on section 6. Perhaps this is the section that begins with aerial static … of the fiercest sort. John: ‘Let the sound become something that you’d not anticipated!’, he urged, testily. A static loop ensued — crackling and menacing, like a cable that had broken loose from an overhead pylon. A bass pulse and a sustained sine wave were added and, then, something began to stir. (Note to self: the pulse is racing ahead; it must be slowed down.) This was a good point at which to break off. When I return to the composition, I’ll have something positive to review, and know where to take up.

8.40 pm. I returned to the conspectus, and developed notes towards the next section of the account, to which I’ll return tomorrow evening.