NaNoWrimo : Day 1

Had a Ghostwalk tonight (well, last night, now) that was particularly well attended despite the appalling weather simply due to the fact that it was Halloween. I was a little nervous because a couple of friends were in the audience (friends always seem to rock up to the Ghostwalk exclusively on the nights that the weather is bad), but it all seemed to go pretty well, people seemed to enjoy themselves, and there were enough skull shaped lollipops to go around. 

It being Halloween, the Ghostwalk was later than I usually do it, and by the time I got home, it was already past the witching hour - in other words, November 1st. While this meant that there was no immediate need for me to start shaving (more about that another time), it meant that before I was going to go to sleep, I could already get started on my NaNoWriMo novel. To have any chance of completing 50,000 words by the end of November, I need to be logging about 1,700 words on a daily basis, which I'm already fairly confident that I'm going to fail miserably at. But it's only the start of NaNoWriMo right now, which should mean that I'm more able to hack out a few hundred words than I will be ale to in, say, two weeks time, even if those words make absolutely no sense whatsoever. 

While I have a rough idea of what's going to happen when in my story, I haven't really thought about it too much in advance, preferring to write it out almost as free form association. Tonight, that was the right thing to do, although obviously it may not work that easily for the rest of the project. I'm already aware that in the 2 or 3 pages I hacked out tonight, there are some terrible turns of phrase, and occasionally (on more than one occasion, in a piece of prose that lasts less than 4 pages), I'm jumping rather too suddenly from one subject to the next in order to make a point. 

Refreshingly, however, none of this seems to matter. All the prep and pep talks on twitter right now, which are mainly on USA time (where NaNoWriMo won't kick in for a couple more hours) cheerfully remind you that whatever you've written in a month's time, won't be ready in any way for publication. This month is just to get the damn thing (in this case, the damn thing being a very first draft) down on paper. I'm fairly confident that there will be at least 200 times in November where I'll really regret signing up for NaNoWriMo, and that anything I write is truly dreadful. What's comforting, though, is that by hacking out a thousand words tonight, I've already had that reaction twice already. Which means I've only got to go through it 198 times more. 

NaNoWriMo Wordcount: 1,177.  

In A Galaxy Far Far Away, In Three Years Time ..

As you might have heard, and indeed maybe even care, the Star Wars franchise has been sold to the Disney corporation, and almost immediately, plans for a further trilogy (or at least, an Episode VII) have been announced. Reaction from fanboys seems to be mixed, ranging from concern that the Death Star will now be run by the House Of Mouse - until very recently, they hadn't done The Muppets any favours - to cautious relief (George Lucas is only on as a 'creative consultant', which is as comestic a job description as anyone could hope for). I give it a week before some kids on YouTube provide us with some decent mash-ups where Lelia is singing Belle's song from Beauty And The Beast, while The Lion King's Scar can have a go at playing Vader.

What I have noticed is that people are already saying that it will only work if Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford are brought back to reprise their iconic roles. I can't help thinking that that would be a massive mistake, and a prime example of why you should never let the fanboys write their sci-fi, outside maybe Buffy slash fiction. Which obviously I know nothing about. Any future Star Wars movie that decides to concentrate on Han Solo and the gang is missing a massive trick. If Disney pull this off, they've got a franchise to match Bond for many years to come: the Star Wars mythos has the potential to be huge, infinite, even - countless planets, worlds, and even time - now that we've had three (admittedly poor) prequels, there's nothing to say that any of these films can't be set whenever or wherever in George Lucas' universe that you want. A new Star Wars film every four years or so can tangent off in many different directions, free of the constraints of having to follow the direct passage of the Skywalker saga. True, that might mean that you'd have to lose the iconic 'crawl' at the top of each film (the bit where you get a 'story so far' type of typeface), but that would be a small price to pay for the chance of creating a modern fairy story world of infinite adventures. And after the major bruising of Episodes 1, 2 and 3, it's a chance for fanboys to fall in love with Star Wars again.

I'm not the most rabid Star Wars fan in the world (I've only seen the movies), but I am aware that there's already a great deal of TV series and cartoons that already deal with the adventures of a multitude of characters and adventures that have nothing to do with the crew of the Falcon. I imagine that it's this approach that will serve the Disney Star Wars movies best. There's a chance, then, that each Star Wars movie can have an entirely different approach, director, location - and even cast. By sheer coincidence, about a hour before I heard the news, I was remembering that the trailer for Episode 1 attracted so much interest that it had to be shunted to after the films they were being screened with. It's great to think that - just possibly - the Star Wars films might finally be exciting again.

As long as they don't keep Jar Jar Binks.

The Last 200

I've come out to a coffee shop with the specific intention of finishing  up a short story that I'm working on, since I tend to work a bit better if I've got myself out of the house where there's too much temptation to stay in bed and re-watch box sets of '24' (currently re-working my way through season 4). This is important, because I've got a deadline to meet before Wednesday. The short story that I'm working on - In The Middle Of The Night - I would have been working on anyway, since I'm hoping to put together a collection of short stories on the kindle. My hope was to have them all finished by January 2013, and while that's certainly still possible,  I don't just want to rush and hack them out. After all, no-one knows who the hell I am - it's not like anyone is eagerly awaiting this book. 

The reason, therefore, that this particular story finds itself with a deadline in to days time is because I hope to enter it for a short story competition. The reasoning behind this is three fold. The first is fairly prosaic: if the story actually gets anywhere, then I can assume that it's got a chance of finding a larger audience outside those who feel contractually and emotionally obliged to tell me that they like it. Secondly, of course, if it does really well, it will have some financial reward. And if I can't get flattery, then I'm happy to take the money. Thirdly, of course, if it does really really well - ie, if it is a runner-up or even a winner, then that's obviously something that I can plaster on the promo material for the book.

So, this is why I'm here in the coffee shop. It's a 3,000 word story (not actually that long), and I've completed about 2,800 words. It isn't, as you might have thought, simply a matter of just if providing the missing 200 words. There's still a bit of shifting around in tone and texture, and, at the moment, the resolution to the story just jumps out a bit suddenly, without a great deal of lead-in, so I need to fix that. I think it's probably a relatively easy fix, however, and I'm not overly concerned about it. 

And that's why I'm in this coffee shop. With some ideas and a laptop. But not, as I've only just discovered, without the external hard drive on which I've saved the latest draft of the story. That, I've left back at home (probably on the bed, next to the 24 box set). Which means that I'm not likely to be able to finish the story today. Again, though, I'm not overly concerned, since the deadline isn't til Wednesday, and luckily I've managed to remember to bring out a hard copy of the short story collection. This, luckily enough, chimes in with the way I very often write: printing out a hard copy (or seven) as I go along, and reading it as I would if it was finished, all the while scrawling notes and annotations over the text. There's still something very alluring and persuasive about seeing the words on a page of foolscap. It makes the whole thing a great deal more accessible and - 'real' than just seeing the words on a screen. All of which, I guess, means that even though I don't have the hard drive with me, I don't really have any excuse to stop writing the story today. Which in addition means  I'm really using some delaying tactics in writing this blog. 

Despite the fact that I was paranoid that nobody was going to turn up to my first improv class, there was actually a nice little turn out. Of course, I'll need a few more on a regular basis in order for me to break even after hire costs and everything, but it's a promising start. We played a few short-form improv games, and it was a very decent evening. I'll go on about this a lot, but the main bulk of what I'll be saying is that the improv classes will be held every Sunday at the DukeBox Theatre, at the back of the Iron Duke pub on Waterloo Street, 7.00 - 9.00pm. It's £5 per workshop, and there's loyalty cards available. 

By the way, I'm going to be doing a couple of Ghostwalks this week. Because it's Halloween this week, there's a special late night one (well, at 9.00pm) on the night itself, which is on Wednesday. There's no need to book, and you can just rock up to outside the Druids Head pub (not the Druids pub, which is something else) at 9.00 on Halloween. For those of you who have been saying for the past year that you're definitely going to come one time, this would seem to be a perfect opportunity. Just saying. 

NaNoWriMo - Before The Start

This week, then, I'm going to attempt something stupid and pointless. Well, more so than any other week, in any case. As November begins to kick in, and the nights get darker and colder, I find, for about the first time this year, less things to occupy my time than at any other point in the last twelve months. Of course, now that we all live in the future, and that, there are various things to conquer and destroy any feelings of boredom I may have been considering having. There is, of course, the whole growing a moustache thing for a month, which isn't so much a boredom-thrashing activity (you'd have to be pretty damn bored, wouldn't you?) but a charity awareness thing, which I'll be coming back to later in the week. 

I'm holding some improv workshops, the first of which is tonight (Sunday 28th). I'm a bit nervous that nobody's going to turn up, if I'm honest. Facebook has long ago ceased being a reliable indicator of how many people are actually going to turn up to your event. I have had a few people saying that they'll be there, and I think it will be the sort of thing that simply needs to be going for a few weeks before it catches fire. Not literally, I hope. 

But none of this is the stupid and pointless thing. Every November, thousands of people around the world attempt something called NaNoWriMo. In case you're not already familiar with the concept, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The aim is to do - to achieve - exactly what that name suggests: to hack out a novel in 30 days. The novel is a reasonably short one - the suggested aim for a word count is 50,000, which is - very roughly - the size of The HitchHikers Guide To The Galaxy, for instance, or Of Mice And Men. The real aim behind the whole enterprise is to get those people who are constantly telling themselves that one day they'll actually get around to writing a book .. to actually get around to writing a book. It doesn't even really matter about the quality, just getting the word count down. It averages out at about 1,500 words a day. This, I figure, should be just about manageable,even if we include the inevitable couple of days throughout the month where I only produce 500 words, or don't even get around to writing anything at all.

I'm deliberately only starting on November 1st, which is Thursday. Obviously, I could try and get a head start by starting now, but somehow it doesn't seem in the spirit of the whole adventure. I rather like the idea of starting this fool's errand at the same time as thousands of others all across the planet. I haven't even made any planning notes.

What I do have is a title and a vague plot line. A couple of years ago, a local publishing company was asking for submissions to an imprint they had, called Pulp Press. The stories they wanted were exactly that - pulp fiction, the sort of grimy 5 cent paperbacks you might have had in your back pocket in the 1940s or 50s. When men were bastards and women all wore Bettie Page bangs. Sex, violence and six inch heels. Needless to say, it's not exactly the sort of writing I normally do, but nonetheless, an idea did present itself. I was doing some stand up at the time (more than I do these days,anyway), and the stand up scene in Brighton, where I live, is sometimes quite insular. I began to have these ideas about various comics on the scene being bumped off in Brighton (it may have even been inspired by the old line about 'dying on stage'). However, as with many projects, I never actually got round to writing it, particularly as - even though I roughly knew who was going to die, and how (the last two deaths have been fairly fixed in my head now for the past two years), I've never really been able to work out why these deaths are occurring. Not being able to work out the reason for the catalyst has stopped me starting. Now, however: I'm going to put faith in the expectation that if I write enough of the story, a solution will eventually present itself. And even if it doesn't, it didn't stop other classic pulp writers. I think it was someone like Raymond Chandler - he'd finished The High Window, or maybe even The Maltease Falcon, which starts with a body being discovered. It's that death that's the catalyst for the entire story. But when the story ends, the murderer isn't revealed. It's the ultimate Macguffin. When asked by a fan what the deal was with the dead body, Chandler reportedly repiled: 'Oh, him. I forgot about him .. '

So, hopefully, as long as I can get a fairly entertaining story down, then logic can go hang. For the first draft, anyway. The story is going to be called Set Up, Punch by the way. I'll try to post a daily report on how it's all going, with a wordcount. Obviously, at the moment, the wordcount is exactly zero. I'm hoping it won't stay that way .. 

Your Number's Up

They've changed the lock on the bike shed at work. Well, I say bike shed. In reality, it serves all manner of purposes, including housing the snow plough that they finally invested in a couple of years ago to ensure the place never again had to be shut down because of a particularly heavy snow fall. And, of  course, it's worked like a charm: the place has indeed not had to be shut down because of heavy snowfall. But that's mainly because we haven't had any. 

They've changed the padlock, but not the code. This should be a good thing - the padlock will no longer get rusty in rain, or do whatever it did in very cold weather which meant that it just gave up and refused to move like a sulky teenager who's locked themselves in the bedroom with a bag of Doritos and a box set of Girls. Now that the padlock has been changed, everything should be shiny, new and effortless, and the whole putting my bike away thing at the start of the day, and the retrieving my bike at the end of the day thing (both very similar things) should be events that are so mundane that they don't really deserve to be called events. 

If I'm honest, they still are mundane that they don't need to be called events, and certainly not of enough interest to be written about on any public forum (such as this blog, for instance), but at the start and end of each day, I find myself getting needled, rattled and frustrated. These are three feelings you really don't want to be having at either end of the day. You kind of expect them during the day, that's part of the deal, that's why you have endless cups of tea and migraines as coping mechanisms, but the simple act of getting or leaving your bike shouldn't be a source of frustration. 

It's particularly annoying at the end of the day. I have exactly nine minutes to get out of work and catch the train. If I miss that train, it's nearly always impossible to get the following train, because that one is stacked with excitable college kids and gently glowering building site workers. There's not even enough space to claim 'standing room only', and even when there is, most of the kids elect to do this curious thing where they're going to stand in the doorways of the train for the entire journey, even if they're on the train for fifteen stops and forty minutes. Even if, after a while, entire carriages have eventually become empty. It becomes difficult to get on such a train if the doors are blocked in such a fashion, and downright impossible if you've got a bike in tow. People who are needlessly blocking train doors get curiously uptight about letting you on with a bike. 

All of this becomes of paramount importance when I'm trying to get my bike out of the shed. If I can make the nine minute journey to get the earlier train, I manage to get the connection that's pretty much empty. It feels like I'm getting a train in the middle of the afternoon, only used by mothers on their way back from toddler group, and youngsters on their way to sign on to the dole. It's a different world. It still depresses me that it took me the best part of five years to discover that it was possible for me to make this connection. But in order to get to this train on time, I need to simply - get - my bike. No fussing, no messing about. Certainly no enraged tumbling around of the numbers for the twentieth time as I attempt to unlock the padlock from the bike shed door. 

Because the problem with the new padlock is that it doesn't quite work. I should be clear here. If we judge a lock purely and solely in its effectiveness as just that - a lock - then it's a fine lock. A dandy, there are very few locks that are more secure than this lock. The cast of Ocean's Eleven would be befuddled, confused, and finally exasperated by this lock. It wouldn't be as great a film, but it might certainly be on par with Twelve and Thirteen. The aspect in which the lock fundamentally fails is the whole un-locking part. It just doesn't. It refuses. It doesn't refuse entirely, of course, but confusingly, you have to wriggle the numbers around slightly so they don't quite match up in the correct order. Once you've managed to guide all the numbers in exactly the correct position (by which I mean the slightly wrong one), the lock will effortlessly and easily slide open. Like it was meant to in the first place. I don't have time for this sort of thing. Literally, I don't have time. I have a thirteen minute journey to cycle in nine minutes. The amount of time I've got for screwing around with this padlock is one minute, tops. 

But here's the thing. The really frustrating thing. Because, being me, the frustrating thing can't just be the frustrating thing - there has to be another frustrating thing on top of the original frustrating thing, just to put a highlighter pen to the whole, general frustration of the thing. Because, despite the fact that the new padlock is stupid, ridiculous, and unhelpful, despite the fact that it only works if you nuance the tumblers in some secret way that is only clear after doing ten years of mystical chanting and Zen like meditation - despite all that: I'm the only one who has a problem with it. Everyone else who uses the bike shed on a regular basis - and there's at least six of us - have no problem with the padlock whatsoever. 'You just have to wraggle it about a bit,' they declare, cheerfully. WRAGGLE IT ABOUT A BIT?!? I rage, in my head. This is supposed to be a security measure, this is supposed to be the thing we rely on to ensure our bikes don't get nicked. Surely it can't all depend on things being wraggled about a bit? 

I don't have time to say any of this, of course. I have a train to catch. In less than seven minutes.

Calm Between The Storms

Last night was the final performance of Three Kinds Of Me, and it was a great performance. A different show, certainly, due to a quieter audience and a louder air conditioning system, which at one point began to sound like someone was emptying cups of water into an empty toilet, but still a great show. It's been a intriguing journey for a play that started life as a series of short stories, but now looks like it will have a life (and a set of your dates) after this weekend. 

This is good, since this run was only two performances long. Sarah was still finding new things to do with the text, new nuances and discoveries within the narrative. This sort of thing happens with actors  often in productions, but it's normally a few performances in- last night was both only the second performance and the last performance - and it's interesting that she was discovering things about the story when it was she herself who actually wrote it. 

You're quite often told to regard with caution anyone who directs their own work. The concern is that they'll be too fixed in their own ideas, that they won't be able to move on a certain concept that might tell their story more easily: 'but she was wearing a red jumper, not a blue jumper!'/'I thought that this wasn't based on real life?'/'it isn't .. but the jumper was definitely red!'. This problem can remain if you're directing someone who is acting in their own work. While all fiction is - well, fiction, it's standing on the shoulders of reality, of our opinions, of, yes, things that actually happened to us. I'm finishing off a story at the moment that I need to send off by next weekend (deadlines are so concentrating for the mind), and while it's pretty much a fairy story, rooted entirely in fantasy and the ridiculous, I'm confident that there's a great deal in there that is only there because I have written it; if someone else was the author of exactly the same story, it would have an entirely different feel and tone. 

Luckily enough, there were no such obstacles when directing Sarah. She's a very hard worker, an intelligent actor, and - this being something that I've really only identified as a rare gift in the past few months - a genuinely trusting performer. I don't mean that she'll blindly and unquestioningly carry out whatever  instruction you deliver to her, but I do mean that she will display faith in what you're suggesting, and at least give it a shot: she'll trust that you're considering all the angles, or, at the very least, you simply want to try something to see if it works. For someone who I consider to be shy offstage - or at the very least, a woman who appears not to draw too much attention to herself - she was remarkably able to be unselfconscious as a character. No matter if she didn't actually feel like that on the inside. I had a number of her previous directors come up to me afterward, waxing lyrical about how good she was to work with. I couldn't help but agree. Whatever she decides to do as her next project, she's going to have a long list of wiling volunteers. 

As for my next project - well, I don't know. I would say nothing, but the last time I said that, I found myself cast in two plays one after the other. But it would be refreshing to have the occasional evening off. Most immediately, however, I know that I don't have Sundays off: from next Sunday (the 28th) I start holding improvisation workshops at the Dukebox Theatre on Waterloo Street in Hove. It's the inaugural workshop this Sunday, so, if I'm honest, I'm slightly nervous that no one will turn up. But, I suppose, if that's the case, it will mean that I get another night off. Every cloud. 

 The link for more information about the workshops is here.

Moran And More

Went to see Caitlin Moran this week, at the Old Market in Hove. She's just published her new book, and is doing the whole chat/Q & A/book signing tour thing.

I met her afterward - by which I mean I lined up with everyone else to get my book signed - when we chatted very briefly, and she said flattering things. I'm reasonably convinced that she has a whole list of well rehearsed flattering things to say to people at these sorts of events, but, hell, if she's going to put the spadework in to lie so sweetly, it would be impolite not to take her at face value.

She's a great talker, effortlessly charming and engaging, and has the rare raconteur's skill of managing to spin out what could be a reasonably tissue thin story about a chance encounter on a train into a much more  more  of a brilliant anecdote. In person, she's what you hope every columnist will be in real life: someone you can just prop a bar with for a few hours, line up the G&Ts, and just natter with into the small hours. As opposed to the rest of us, who manage to pummel potentially good anecdotes into over-long bits of dirge. Which I hope to demonstrate daily, with this blog, here.

But despite the fact that Caitlin Moran is quite garrulous, she made a couple of allusions to being quite shy. This was met with some derision by her interviewer, and indeed, those members of the audience who had already read How To Be A Woman, that suggested people didn't quite believe that shyness was something that could be always listed in her top 10 of characteristics.  But to me, it made absolute sense. I think it makes sense to anyone who uses words as some kind of transaction in their career. Obviously, most of us talk from day to day in our lives, but equally obviously, for some of us, words are our currency, whether that be as a writer, an actor, or any kind of public speaker. I think it's entirely possible - and indeed, logical - for someone who spends so much of their lives performing on stage to not want to be even looked at when they're off it. Even if you're appearing behind a microphone 'as yourself', it's not really an accurate version of yourself. At least when everyone's paid nine quid to see you, and is sitting in neatly ordered rows, you know that that's a, if not falsified, then certainly rarified atmosphere. You have an 'in' - these people, you know, are here to see you. If you find yourself chatting at length at the local bar, then the chances are you'll suddenly find yourself panicking that everyone around you is simply waiting for you to shut the hell up. 

Someone who doesn't always want you to look at her when she's offstage, but is magnetic when on it, is Sarah Charsley, whose show, Three Kinds Of Me, ends tonight (and they told me I couldn't segue). It's actually sold out - the last seven tickets have gone in the past hour, as I'm writing this - and last night was extraordinary. The atmosphere in the studio at the New Venture Theatre was electric, and managed to indulge in all those cliches of a roller coaster of emotions - you'll laugh, you'll cry, etc, etc. If you manage to see it tonight, you're very lucky, at least as lucky as I have been to have been involved in the production. The mood in the bar afterward was buzzingly excited, with so many people really insistent that these shouldn't be the only performances of the show. Now, I'm fully aware that this runs the risk of tottering over into hyperbole, and that similar things are often said whenever there's a particularly good production going on, but I honestly think that there's truth in there them statements. We're beginning to think about reviving the production already, with at least the Brighton Fringe in our sights, so if your venue has a few spare performance spots, you know where to get in touch. 

(If you don't know where to get in touch - I mean here. Here is where you can get in touch. I was hoping that I didn't have to spell it out to you)

Music To My Ears

Earlier this week, I tuned onto Radio 2. It’s something I almost never do. I’m aware of Radio 2 as something in the background, even if it is not something that’s literally on, in the background. When I was younger, it was Radio 1, and I’m not entirely sure why, since I’ve always found it almost nail-plucking annoying. There was a time when I used to wake up to Radio 2, when it felt like being nudged to wakefulness by somebody with a freshly brewed cup of coffee (maybe it still does; I haven’t listened to it in the morning for years), but most recently, my radio has been dialled to Radio 4.

There’s something very liberating and almost empowering to discover that you don’t give enough of a damn to worry about the fact that you’re old enough to listen to Radio 4. I’m not sure exactly when the change kicked in; I’ve been listening to 4 for quite some years now – but I’m pretty sure that at some point I must have considered 4 to be outside my realm of interest, with its wall to wall talk, chatter, debate and opinion. But the fact of the matter is that I’ve never been much of a muso, and so it’s unsurprising that I never really found much of a grove going on with a radio station that just played the most popular track of the charts. And then again, fifty minutes later. Then twice more before the 6 O’clock drivetime news.

The reason I pulled up to Radio 2 this week (it was on iplayer; I wasn’t able to listen as the programme went out) was because an old friend, Louise Cookman, was featuring as a guest on http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006wr7s The Big Band Special. Now, I should acknowledge that my use of the term ‘friend’ is somewhat elastic: I didn’t really have the balls to talk to her whilst at college, which is where I first met her, spending more of my time instead with a woman who was a lot more spritely brightly Laura Ashley. This is intriguing, as the 39 year old me would always choose to spend time with someone more obviously arch and playfully cynical than the person I actually did spend my college time with. In fact, I’ve only seen Louise once since – all thanks to facebook – after what must have been pretty much a twenty year gap (and since when did any of us have lives long enough to squeeze a twenty year gap of anything into them?). It what felt like a scene straight out of a rigidly scripted Richard Curtis movie, I found her singing with a live band on a stage on the South Bank of the River Thames. She was an absolute pleasure to watch perform; and to speak with; somewhat disquietingly, I think we spoke more in the twenty minutes between sets than we did during our entire time at college. I’d like to think it’s because I’ve become less shy as I’ve gotten older, but we all know that’s not the case.

Hearing her on the Big Band programme was a glorious moment. I can’t sing at all (and have no patience for those who declare, with no patience, that ‘everyone can sing’), and am always slightly in awe of those who are particularly skilled at delivering a song. Obviously, many people can do the basics of carrying a tune (I can’t, my carrying of a tune sounds more like I’m dragging the corpse of a tune over a war-ravaged roadside as blood gluts out of its throat), but there are certain singers whose voice occasionally defy your understanding: you’re unable to work out quite how their voice can lock into place that way, that can jump, seemingly effortlessly from one sound to the next, can sound so perfect. It is, I guess, why there’s been such a rise in voice-correction software in music over the past few years. It’s an effort to create the seamless – and –makes-it-sound-so-easiness – voice that a few singers have in abundance. Hearing certain voices is to witness – and I don’t use the word lightly – a thing of beauty.

That’s pretty much how I reacted listening to the programme on Tuesday, and I’m fairly sure I would have reacted in the same way had I not had some tenuous connection to the singer. There was something very pleasing in hearing someone I know personally appear on national Radio and sing a few big band classics, even though I was mildly disappointed that she didn’t go for the obvious gag during her rendition of a song from Calamity Jane.

This sort of thing actually happens a reasonable amount, because a lot of my experience and training is in the performing arts, but because I myself haven’t had much discernible professional success. It’s always slightly startling to see someone you’ve spent time with begin to turn up on panel shows, for instance. I remember one morning waking to my alarm clock radio (which at this point was tuned to 4), and being startlingly presented with the voice of a woman I hadn’t spoken to for about ten years, talking about the major adaptation she’d just written for the London stage. Since my writing credits at that point largely consisted of a shopping list – and even that was incomplete – it was an alarm clock in more ways than one. Another friend of mine has started doing a lot of extra work, and although I’ve not yet seen him on screen, it’s very pleasing to know that at least one person I’ve acted with is actually getting paid for being on a film set.

Later tonight, we’ll be having the next rehearsal for Three Kinds Of Me, which opens this Friday. It’ll be nice to get a good crowd there, so do make sure you book your tickets as soon as you like. At the very least, it would be good to have an audience that outnumbers the cast, and as it’s a one-woman show, that shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. We’re pretty much through the worst of the technical stuff by now (although the crew may well have something to say about that statement), and it’s a show that I’m very proud of. Not necessarily because of any negible contribution I might have brought to it as director, but simply for the chance to have worked with such a talented writer and performer. Yes, I know it’s pretty much a contractual obligation to say such things about the people you work with, but I have worked with people who have made me want to drag a cheese grater over my own eyeballs. Or, even better, theirs. Those people who make working on a show a joy are to be celebrated. This could very easily have been a difficult show – Sarah is performing her own script, and I have had the audacity to tell her what her own script means – more than twice contradicting what the text itself actually says – and even if she’s felt that my instincts are entirely insane, she’s been gracious enough to indulge me, and treat me as someone who knows what the hell they’re talking about.

Also this week, I’ve been beginning to leave out flyers for the series of improvisation workshops I’ve got coming up. It’s called Iron Clad Improv (cause it’s on at the Iron Duke, d’you see?), and the first drop in is on Sunday 28th October, which suddenly doesn’t seem all that far away. From then on, it’s every Sunday, 7 – 9, and I’m genuinely looking forward to it. Of course, it doesn’t work unless actually get some punters in through the door, so do please spread the word, even if you can’t get through the door yourself. I’m obviously fretting that I’m going to be doing a lot of these improv drop-ins to which absolutely nobody turns up, so I’m having to get over my own instinctive shyness (which even though I’m even older than was when I last referred to my shyness at the start of this blog), and shout about the improv class from the rooftops. Or, at the very least, leave out brightly coloured flyers in every coffee shop the Brighton and Hove area.

Lastly, before rehearsal tonight I’m going along to the Old Market in Hove to see Caitlin Moran talk about her new book. I saw a great many people last year reading her previous book, How To Be A Woman, although – curiouser ad curiouser – none of them were women. Presumably none of them felt that they needed instructions on how to be a woman, or possibly they were all reading Fifty Shades on their kindles. It’s the second time this week I’ve been to The Old Market (I saw a show of Comic Strip at the weekend, headlined by the blistering Terry Alderton, who I’d never encountered before), which is bad, since it’s a great venue, and practically on my doorstep. There are a few times when I get exhausted and poor, but all it takes is a reminder of exactly where it is I live, and its enough to consider myself reasonably lucky



Storm In A Tea Cup

I don't remember the Great Storm of twentyfive years ago. Mostly, I slept through it. There was a similar storm less than three years later, and I remember that one, mostly because it was beginning to pick up wind during the day, and I was outside in the back garden, with my hands resting on the fence. At one point, a gust of wind got particularly strong, and I was lifted bodily off my feet, managing to stay in place only by holding onto the fence. It's the closest I've ever come to flying. Apart from, you know, actual flying in a plane and stuff.

But the 1987 storm, I remember pretty much nothing about. Totting up the years, I must still have been at school, although my memory is trying to tell me that I was older. But then, I was born at the age of 36, so that makes sense. Incidentally, I've been telling people, when in a morose mood, that I was born at the age of 36 for as long as I can remember - since at least the time of the storm, in fact - and suddenly, subtly, I've rocketed to well past that age. Something else to get morose about, I guess.

But I do find it somewhat interesting that the Storm isn't really a fixed point in my memory. Sure, I can remember certain things - how quiet it was that day (not much traffic), and a few roof tiles scattered around. But mostly, I didn't much care, and it was outside my sphere of interest. Today, kids are a lot more sophisticated - by which I mean they'd immediately be uploading photos to Flickr, not that they're eating quails eggs and have annual membership of the ENO - and there's a lot more discourse and discussion of what's going on. If the storm happened again tonight (which I concede would be one hell of a coincidence), most of the newspapers and television stations would be filled with, not actual news, but a rolling gallery of the nation's badly instagrammed pictures of similarly crushed cars and logs. Followed a month or so later by an ITV documentary that revealed that half the pictures were the result of some kind of insurance scam.

Although this by very definition happens to absolutely everybody, it still feels odd to see something referred to that is now part of the cultural history and psyche. By way of clumsy comparison, more time has elapsed between now and the storm than had elapsed between then and the assassination of John F Kennedy, which was so obviously ancient history that I'd covered it for a school project a few years previously. The Storm of 1987 is now pretty much forgotten by those who got through it untouched, and is an irrelevance to anyone who was born anytime after - well, after 1987.

Rehearsals for Three Kinds Of Me continue to go well, and I'll take this opportunity to remind you to get your tickets quickly if you're going to get them at all, since we've only got the show on Friday and Saturday. We've been going through the technical aspects over the last couple of days, which as been as trying as these things usually are, particularly as everyone's feeling a bit under the weather. I think the general consensus is to get through the production until Saturday night, and only then collapse and die.

I myself haven't been feeling all that great, but to be fair that's mainly fatigue as my body attempts to recover from the bruised ribs. They're still painful, but I suspect that I've gotten off lightly, as I'm beginning to feel myself ease up, and I was told that I could potentially be in a hell of lot of pain for anything up to sixteen weeks (we're only on week three). I'm fully aware that they must have been erring on the side of caution in order to cover themselves from any idiots who choose to take them at their words and try to sue them if they don't feel strong enough to throw themselves from a balloon 25 miles above the Earth (for instance) within seven days. But either way, I'll take it as a win.

But the main side effect, I noticed from the whole rib-bruising thing was that I stopped writing. Not entirely, and not even for a full week - I was still noodling rewrites and ideas for the collection of short stories I'm currently hacking out - but I certainly completely flatlined on the steam of momentum I'd managed to build up over the last couple of weeks. It's scary just how difficult - even close to impossible - it was to get my groove back on, even on something like this blog. It's very easy to see how so many so-called writers remain just that: so-called. In the end, I was gently prodded back into service by a friend who declared that she was actually subscribing to the blog on kindle, which gave me an odd sense of responsibility ... well, if someone's actually reading the damn thing, I should really continue writing it. It's always very humbling - and encouraging - to discover you've actually got a reader. It drives you, to strive you on. So to that friend, and those of you who still indulge me by actually reading these very often incoherent ramblings: thank you.

The Final Furlong

So, tonight, we hit production week on Three Kinds Of Me at the New Venture Theatre. As I’ve doubtless mentioned before, it’s only on for two nights, so you’re well advised to book your tickets up now, by clicking on the link to the New Venture Theatre.

I think I’m right in saying that it’s one of the most challenging things I’ve ever directed. Now, this might seem a bit rich, considering that I’ve already gone through directing musicals (bit of a test, since I’m about as musical as a blanket) shows with casts of kids numbering forty or more, or most recently, a Greek tragedy, and, by way of comparison, 3KM is simply me offering advice to a good friend who’s performing her own script. You’d think that, at the very least, that last fact alone would cut down on the amount of time we spent discussing what the playwright really meant. In theory, I didn’t really need to be there at all.

But Sarah has been patient enough to indulge my theories and suggestions on how to best present her text. It has, as I’ve indicated, been a surprisingly difficult process, not least because we’ve made every effort to make it as simple as possible. People who have worked with me before, upon hearing me declare that I wanted to make this production uncomplicated, were no doubt clearing space in their schedules for that inevitable moment when I finally said in a musing tone, ‘actually, I’ve just had this idea ..’ It appears that easy is not as easy as it looks.

A recurring conversation in rehearsal was what this production actually was: was it a play, or was it storytelling? It certainly lends itself to the latter, as it’s delivered in epistolary fashion, meaning that the entire narrative is packaged in smaller chunks. There’s still an over-reaching narrative arc, with a beginning, middle and an end, but just not necessarily – as you might have guessed – in that exact order. In the end (or, to be exact, quite near the start) Sarah and I agreed that it was indeed a play, rather than storytelling (Sarah has experience of both). The distinction is important, as different things come into play when you – well, get into a play, particularly in a play like this, which is largely about story-telling. Don’t worry if you’re not keeping up; I’m not sure I am.

When directing, I tend to start out from a single image that I find striking and arresting. Due to constraints of time, budget, and occasionally, simple logic, I can’t always deliver that image on stage, but that doesn’t matter – it gives me enough of a foundation to make decisions throughout the entire production, and can be a great influence on style and theme. With this production, interestingly enough, it was all about telling the story. Of course, I’m aware that every production is about telling the story, if you’re doing your job right, but since 3KM is simply about the power of one woman’s voice as she attempts to discover who she really is, I considered it vital that the production itself was as unfussy as I could make it – there could be no attempts to hide behind tricksy directorial flourishes. At least, I said all that, and then found myself concerned if we could maintain the simple elegance of a young woman standing in a black box for a hour and a half. In the end, of course, there is a sort-of compromise between the two: it really is simply a woman standing in a black box for a hour and a half (which sounds more and more like a David Blaine magic trick each time I type that), but we have introduced small little grace notes that I hope enhance, rather than distract, from what is being said on stage.

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If you get a chance today (Monday 15th October), do try to pop along to the Google homepage, which today celebrates one of the most important comic strips of all time, Little Nemo In Slumberland. Little Nemo was not, as you might have thought, an abandoned clownfish, but rather a 1905 newspaper cartoon that filled the entire page (and this being the time when a newspaper was about the size of a reasonably sized six year old child). As time went on, newspapers discovered they could make significantly more money by hiring their space out to advertisers, but for a few glorious years, Winsor McCay’s creation tumbled Alice-like from his bed into a dream world of wonder. Nemo literally tumbled, too – from frame to frame, the fairly wordless cartoons seeming stationary as Nemo dropped out of one panel down to another. The strip was magnificently cinematic in an era when cinema was barely a flicker in a projectionist’s booth. As a sidebar, McCay is usually credited with creating the first animated character in cinema history with a distinct personality – Gertie the Dinosaur.

Little Nemo’s presence can still be very firmly felt in today’s cartoons, from ‘In The Night Kitchen’ and Alan Moore’s work, and most certainly in the Sunday cartoons of Calvin and Hobbes. The Google cartoon is a thing of gorgeousness, and certainly a good gateway into Slumberland if you’ve not yet heard of Little Nemo.