Author’s Note

Planning Chatterton: A Self of My Own is a notebook which I kept while

planning, writing and polishing the novella, Chatterton: A Self of My Own. It

is an attempt to record, understand and organize the vast cluster of thoughts

which occur as one grapples with the various levels of organization which a

clear yet complex work of art demands. The writing of such a notebook is an

attempt to seek an ideal balance between the creative and the critical facultiesby accessing as much of the territory of the subconscious creative mind as is possible. It is the invisible idea-connections between the lists, the charts and the prose passages of reflection that move the creative project along towards its goal, which is to produce the text of the projected novel. The idea-narrative of the notebook is the force of a single idea seeking its ideal form as a multi-layered idea-pattern. A side-light of the notebook is the drama of the oscillating rhythm of puzzlement and certainty within the mind of the writer, which seems to be endemic to all creative endeavours. Taken all together, the three companion books – the novel: Chatterton: A Self of My Own; the journal: The Making of Chatterton: A Self of My Own; and this notebook: Planning Chatterton: A Self of My Own – are the record of an exploratory probe into the mysterious nature of creativity.

John Passfield

Cayuga, Ontario, Canada

Planning Chatterton: A Self of My Own

is available as a free download.

Copies of the notebooks may be downloaded and printed for personal use. The notebooks are copyrighted and are not to be copied for distribution or circulation by any means. Short quotations may be cited for review purposes or as attributed references in other works.