TUESDAY 6/6/22

An overcast day. Lawrence spends the morning writing most of section #4, MS pp 34-51 (about 3800 words), starting with chapter ii "Neighbours", and recording the events of the first Sunday - the excursion to Manly and Narrabeen, and the car trip back to town. It is his habit, as he indicates in Kangaroo, to write in the morning, after his breakfast chores. [...He always got up in the morning, made the fire, swept the room, and tidied roughly. Then he brought in coal and wood, made the breakfast, and did any little out-door job. After breakfast he helped to wash up, and settled the fire. Then he considered himself free to his own devices...] This usually meant going into the front garden of "Wyewurk", leaning against the wall of the verandah, and filling one of the exercise books he bought in Ceylon with his easy, fluent script (as if, as one observer had earlier noted, he were taking dictation). No hint yet in chapter ii of any secret army plot, though this must be already fermenting in his consciousness. However, he has plenty earlier to write about before he reaches Jack Scott's secret-army revelations the previous Sunday or Monday.

WEDNESDAY 7/6/22

Another busy writing day. In the morning between 9am and noon he probably writes section #5 of his text - about 3000 words (MS pp 52-66), from the trip back to town in chapter ii, to the start of chapter iii, "Larbord Watch Ahoy!". He has written about 12,000 words in two, or perhaps three, days. (He has a lot to "catch up", for he is still some distance "behind the action".) Throughout the novel he averages between 3500 and 4500 words per writing session. After lunch he probably spends the rest of the day pottering around, and perhaps going for walks along McCauley's Beach, below "Wyewurk", with Frieda.

THURSDAY 8/6/22

(A crucial day.) Lawrence travels up to Sydney today to rendezvous with Jack Scott at his office in Pitt Street, then walks with him up Hoskins Place to Rosenthal's chambers at 8 Mendes Chambers in Castlereagh Street. He has lunch with Rosenthal and Scott. Before or after lunch, he probably picks up his mail at Cooks. He returns to Thirroul by the late commuter-train. However, he must have fitted in some writing today (maybe in the early morning), for it is likely he writes section #4 - ie, most of chapter iii, "Larboard Watch Ahoy!" (section #4 - MS pp 67-86: about 4000 words). The purpose of the lunch is to sound Lawrence out about a possible writing or editing job on the K&E Alliance's monthly journal, following the departure for overseas of their main propagandist, George Augustine Taylor. […"I hope you are going to write something for us." …] For Lawrence, however, the object of the meeting is to continue gathering material for the novel they do not realise he has decided to write about them. By now - just over a week after he started writing, and three chapters already written - Lawrence decides to call the novel "Kangaroo", and for its principal Australian character to be Benjamin Cooley (based on Charles Rosenthal).

FRIDAY 9/6/22

Lawrence probably writes about 3500 words today (section #5: MS pp 87-104), from the start of chapter iv "Jack and Jaz", to the chat opposite Mosman wharf. He also writes a number of letters (in response to the mail he picked up in Sydney yesterday). He tells his agent Mountsier that his new novel is going well […at a great rate…], and will be finished by August (however, he has only £31 left - so he might indeed have been tempted by a job-offer from Scott and Rosenthal). He tells his mother-in-law that it's […a weird novel of Australia...]. He tells his U.S. publisher Seltzer it's going well […but no sex…]. He tells his future hostess in Taos, Mable Dodge, that it's […a queer novel…] and that he might do something similar in America. (He probably writes his five letters in the evening.) The weather is still balmy (66 degrees at midday).