Sunday 25th August 2013

Right, we’re almost out of time. I go back to work in a few days time, and I haven’t managed to finish the short stories I’m working on, and I haven’t finished a final draft of Four Play, and I haven’t seen any fantastic job in directing, and, most crucially, I haven’t won the lottery.

Actually, that middle one isn’t precisely true – there is a very good looking job at the National Theatre at the moment, for a fringe style director, for a post of six months. It actually really does look like something that I might be capable of, but at least one of the requirements is to have directed a ‘professional’ production. Now, the terms of that are actually looser than you might think – it seemingly just means a production in which people got paid (or, at the very least, were hired with the promise of pay), and that that production lasted at least a week. Strike two for me, right there. There are plenty of people I know who, should they apply, would be much more likely to get the job than I would – even in the unlikely event that I’d actually be better than them – simply because my day-to-day work is a ‘normal’ fulltime job in the ‘real’ world, and that all my creative energies get crushed into the evenings and weekends, entirely unpaid. (sorry, I whine about this a lot).

I am, therefore, mindful of spare time running out. A summer holiday isn’t nearly as much time as you might think to pull things together. Particularly as, in theory, you’d need time and money before the holiday kicked in, so that you could prepare for it. Perhaps I’m just horrifically without ambition and organisational skills. So many people began their writing career while having to commit to a full time job and young family. I guess that’s a major factor, right there – that it’s a writing career, rather than a directing or acting career, which by their very natures, have to operate within certain time frames. At least with writing, you can pretty much whenever and wherever the hell you want, even if it’s just five minutes on your lunchbreak. I mean, OK, I have a problem with that in itself – it’s very difficult to get into the head space required when you’ve got only five minutes to spare – for instance, it’s taken me about a hour to get focussed enough to start writing this, and this is just a meaningless, unplanned blog. It becomes a lot more difficult when you’re attempting to create a tight, focussed story.

Of course I’m moaning. Of course there have been plenty of other writers out there who shut up, and get the damn thing done. I’m not one of those writers just yet. Which – incidentally – is why, despite the fact that I have actually finished a couple of plays, short stories, and a (hack job of a) novel, I still hesitate to call myself a Writer. Well, in polite company, anyway. The word ‘writer’ is there on my website and twitter feed, and if a local college comes up with another ‘writer in residence’ job, then you can be damn sure that’s what I’ll be calling myself.

And I’m aware, of course, that I’m doing what every amateur writer (read: not actually a writer) does – whine, complain, and moan about how hard writing actually is. Rather than getting on and actually writing, which, when you get down to it, isn’t actually that hard. Certainly not as hard as an actual job. And, of course, that’s the point – there’s absolutely no way that I will be able to make writing my day job until I get more of these finished, and get more people to see and read them.

It’s possible.

One day.

Soon. 

Saturday 24th August 2013

Well, the first thing to say about Elysium is that it's pretty good. The second thing is that it's only pretty good up to a point - literally, a point in the narrative, around twenty minutes before the end - at which point I could find myself beginning to shift in my seat, getting bored. I'd been sold on the film before that, and it only took three seconds from me to get to one state to the other. 

This isn't a review of the film, by the way, so here be spoilers. I'm usually pretty dead set against any kind of spoiler whatsoever, having had many good plot reveals destroyed for me by clunky written reviews. I will have a rant about at it here at some point, but now's not the time, particularly as the main discussion point will involve a significant spoiler. I hope I've indicated that enough by now that many people who haven't seen the film yet will have turned away. Either because they don't want the film's end given away, or because of my shoddy writing style. 

Anyway, as I say, the film is pretty good. There are a significant number of plot points that make no sense whatsoever if you look at them too closely, but, like good cinema does when it's doing its job properly, there's enough smoke and mirrors so that you don't concern yourself with mere problems like logic until after you've left the cinema. At one point in the story, this is acheived literally with smoke and mirrors. It's got a great visual style (and as such, has a good deal in common with Neill Blomkamp's other film District 9, and like that film is more potent sci-fi than we've been served in recent years, in that it has something to say about the world we live in.) The Big Bads of the film are - literally - Homeland Security, and for the most part, your life in this world is safe and secure if you're both rich and white. Most of the people living in the gleaming space station above Earth are white, except for those occasions when - in a cute gag - they choose to 'go Asian' because it's fashionable. While the great and not so good get to live and upgrade themselves continuously in a coporate funded shiny afterlife - iHeaven, if you like - everybody else is punished (and dying) for the crime of being poor. 

Matt Damon gives good value in what's a fairly unremarkable role (apart from anything else, he can do Awkward Flirting as well as anyone). The most interesting role by far is that played by Jodie Foster. She's Jessica Delacourt, the Secretary Of Defence, delivered as a Fox News dream of how to protect your assests. She's sneery, absolutely cold-eyed and rational, and remarkably confident in her agenda to keep Elysium free of immigrants. At one point, she manages to deliver a variation on the 'won't somebody think of the children' line that quells her more liberal detractors. She stalks and smirks her way through all of her scenes with the attiude of someone who thinks that all other people are idiots. Somebody paid her a job because they didn't want to get their own hands dirty, and she doesn't have much patience when her bosses start getting queasy at her approach - she's absolutely disinterested in preserving life if the people involved aren't passport-carrying citizens. 

Foster's character is a great foil for Damon's. She's intelligent, focused and ambitious, clear-eyed on what the end game is. Damon's Max De Costa, on the other hand, doesn't know what the hell he's doing. He's basically a good guy who knows far too many bad guys, and very likely can't even spell his own name. As befits a movie like this, he's more able to have a conversation with his fists. The two characters have an entirely different approach, which makes any meeting between them compelling. She's the main bad guy, he's the main good guy, and when they meet face to face, there's nothing for them to get a grip on, no traction. And then, indeed - here's the spoiler - they don't meet - ever - in the film, because she's killed twenty minutes from the end. She has been the catalyst for Max DeCosta's misfortunes throughout the film, and it's unclear that he is ever aware of her existence. 

There is another bad guy - played by Shartlo Copley - who works for Foster's character, and ultimately is the one that kills her. There's absolutely nothing wrong with his character, and in fact it's a great wise-cracking, creepy and slimy villain. But here's the thing, though. We've had plenty of wise-cracking, creepy and slimy villains in films like this. There's been no population control on those characters. But as soon as Copley kills her off, and straps on a exo-suit to do battle with Matt Damon, your mind disengages a notch or two, because we've seen that finale. At least thirty times. Three of them in Transformers films. It's not new, it's not surprising. As soon as Jodie's been dispatched, we know that we're back to a Boys Scrapping With Each Other movie. And so it proves. It's a shame, because the wildly differing politics of the two characters promised a much more interesting end to the film.  

I understand, of course, that Elysium  is a popcorn, tentpole kind of film, and for it to go from guns and explosions to a Mr Smith Goes To Washington style debate would have been testing for the audience - particularly as , realistically, the more intelligent Delacourt would have won any argument against De Costa. But I am suggesting that when you have such an interesting dynamic, perhaps it doesn't always have to end in fisticuffs. I'm not suggesting, by the way, that Jodie is killed off because she can't have a fight at the end - in other words, because her character is female, and a non-superpowered one at that. In fact, everything about the role and the film suggests that the character might have originally written male, and that Jodie Foster simply lobbied for and 'gender-flipped' the role (apparently Foster does that kind of thing a lot), meaning that the character was due to be dispatched in the same way even if it was male. 

Delacourt is a more compelling character because she's female (and, admittedly, played by Foster, which helps) in spite of the fact - indeed, because of the fact that nobody makes any concession or any reference whatsoever - to her gender. It just would have been nice, once Jodie Foster had been cast, and started doing such fascinating things with the character (her fixed rictus grin and careful accent is something that less known actresses wouldn't have been allowed to get away with) that they couldn't have made some changes to the script and let her play with the boys til the end. 

Friday 23rd August 2013

Last night, went to an event called The Space in Brighton. This is a semi-regular event in which various industry types (usually two per evening) have an informal chat in what's usually quite intimate surroundings. It's always a good night, even if (sometimes, especially if) you haven't heard of one of the guests. I try to get along to it whenever I can (and fancy myself as a possible interviewer - not quite as overbearing as James Lipton of Inside The Actors Studio). At previous events, guests have included Mark Gatiss, Frank Skinner and Barry Norman, as well as many more. 

Last night, the first guest was Dennis Kelly, writer of Utopia, Pulling (along with Sharon Horgan) and the musical of Roald Dahl's Matilda (with Tim Minchin). Somehow, I've managed not to see any of his work, despite all things being on my to-see list for quite some time. Because I've never followed him as a writer, it was somewhat startling to see these apparently diverse things being created by the same person. I'm sure there are probably connecting themes if you look hard enough for them (good people can be dicks, for instance), but I imagine that there's not a stand-out text that you could point to and say that's a Dennis Kelly story. This was spoken about in a roundabout way as part of the interview when he spoke about not 'having a voice'. Many writers, at the start of their career, are advised to 'find their voice'. It makes some kind of sense. If nobody knows who you are, then if you want to get your next gig, then there's a certain logic in being easily identifiable to whoever it is that might give you your next pay cheque - 'oh, let's get the guy who does the Richard Curtis style rom coms .. who is that? Oh, it's Richard Curtis,' Kelly rails against that, and quite aggressively so. I can get on board with that idea. A 'voice', surely, runs the risk of being restrictive, of suggesting that you can 'only' write a certain type of story. Stephen King speaks of the warning that his agent delivered to him when he offered up Salems Lot for publication (the second book after Carrie) - the very real danger that with two bloody books in a row, he was going to be forever pigeon-holed as a horror writer. He decided that he was OK with that (and his success has meant that he's managed to smuggle a decent amount of very good books in under the radar that can truly be described as 'horror', even if they are still a bit bloody). I wondered if that's somewhat the case with Kelly. Although what he's written has been very successful (even if hardly anyone actually saw Pulling, it's highly regarded by those that did), his name isn't really on the public's radar yet, which means that he's allowed to follow the story, whatever story interests him, even if it bears no relation to what he's produced before. A certain amount of anonymity can be a blessing. I remember the creators of The Blair Witch Project being asked what their next film was going to be (this at the height of Blair Witch's success). They replied, in all seriousness, a romantic comedy. As far as I'm aware, that film never surfaced. 

The second guest of The Space was Phillip Hinchcliffe, who has had a wide and varied career, bringing many interesting and sometimes even risky projects to the screen ... but will always be remembered as a producer for Doctor Who. It helps that the era that he oversaw was just about the most successful in the show's history. Russell T Davies credits the Hinchcliffe era with igniting his passion for wanting to revive the show, even going so far as to say that the only reason he started writing for television in the first place was so that he could revive Doctor Who- and, in turn, the only reason he wanted to was because of his memory of the stories that were produced by Hinchcliffe. It's true that there's a very impressive wealth of stories under his tenure that are genuine classics that more than stand up today, and would be good gateway drugs for anyone who hasn't yet seen an episode of the original series, among them Genisis Of The Daleks, Terror Of The Zygons, Planet Of Evil, Pyramids Of Mars, Brain Of Morbius, Seeds Of Doom, and The Talons Of Weng-Chiang. 

Hinchcliffe comes across as a gracious and generous person, very often deflecting praise to others, (particularly Robert Holmes, who does indeed deserve much praise), but I get the impression that as a producer he didn't suffer fools gladly, and that he was straight-arrowed and focused. That certainly comes across in the stories of his era. While he didn't write or direct them, and is quick to bestow the praise for the 'Gothic' shades of those years back to Holmes, there's a focus there that is absent in the latter Pertwee years, and wobbles a great deal in the Tom Baker era after Hinchcliffe leaves. Indeed, most of the 'pantomime' criticism that is delivered at classic Doctor Who really begins as soon as he's left. We spoke about this, about the idea that a producer of a show can have 'authorship' on a programme, even more so than the director or even, ironically, the author. In many ways, it's directly opposite to the avoiding 'finding a voice' that Dennis Kelly was speaking about earlier in the evening. 

It's quite clear that, for better or worse, Doctor Who was essentially 'just another job' to Hinchcliffe. That's understandable: with genre TV or film, the story on screen is almost always going to be a helluva lot more important to the viewers than those who made it - they've already made the next three jobs, after all - but it always makes me curious and even uneasy at events like this. I imagine fan conventions are even worse. Exactly how many times can you answer the same question about bubblewrap monsters? Can you really relate to men in their forties who probably have an unhealthy fixation with Sophie Aldred, and are dismayed when you acknowledge that you don't actually know who Sophie Aldred is? Plus, you get people like me who are fans, but try to act casual about it, and absolutely refuse to ask questions about bubble wrap - which, I suspect, is equally annoying. 

Both men were inspiring, full of energy, intelligence and verve (and Kelly said 'fuck' an impressive amount). As a writer, though, it's always worth keeping in mind what other (successful) writers speak about when they are talking about what works, and what doesn't. It's always in slightly different words, it's sometimes eloquent, it's sometimes basic, but it's essentially the same message, a thousand times over. The only way to write is to get your arse on that chair - and write. 

Thursday 22nd August 2013

As a writer, you’re not really meant to go on too much about whatever it is that you’re working on at the moment. There are many reasons for this, the most compelling being that if you’re talking about the writing, then you’re not getting on with the actual business of doing the writing. It’s a form of procrastination: if you can talk about how fantastic the finished product is going to be, it (deceptively) lets you off the hook of actually putting in the work of putting one word after the other on a page. What you talk about will always be better than the dull, flabby story that you finally produce. There’s also the fact that you’re likely to dilute the story. Speak it out loud enough times – and all stories, at their source, come from the oral tradition (oh, stop sniggering at the back) – and the written version becomes a pale tracing.

There is, of course, yet another reason to shut up about your writing, and it’s probably the most simple. Unless you’re already published, unless people are prepared to fork out twenty quid at a book festival and ask some variation of ‘where do you get your ideas’, then, frankly, nobody gives a damn about that thing you’re probably never going to finish. Oh, sure, some of your loved ones will, and the couple of people who earnestly believe that you actually do have some talent – but even those people would rather you shut the hell up, and get on with the writing.

Back when I lived in Croydon, I remember attending a house party, although I don’t clearly remember anyone there, suggesting that the party was of a friend-of-a-friend. Therefore, I found myself wandering aimlessly through the various rooms. I do have one very clear memory of the party, however, and it’s of a writer talking – rather tediously – about this book he was working on. I remember thinking, even then, that this book would never be finished. The woman he was talking to also seemed to have reached this conclusion. He was speaking about how he got his ideas, making him reasonably unique in all of authors in that he actually had an answer to this question, even though it was likely that nobody had asked him it.

He’d written some kind of sci-fi book, which to my eavesdropping ears sounded somewhat like a EE Doc Smith kind of book. He was speaking about how he’d come up with the name for his hero. ‘You know the housing estate by the ABC cinema?’, he asked. It’s genuinely likely that you – yes, you, the one that’s reading this blog – do in fact know what housing estate he was talking about, since it’s the one that Jeremy and Mark live in, in the series Peep Show, and appears in some form in almost every episode. The name of the housing estate was (and may well still be) Zodiac Court. For as long as anyone could remember, however, the ‘O’ in court was missing. And therefore, our writer friend declared in revelatory tones that one normally reserves for penicillin being discovered growing on your lab table, wouldn't it be a great thing if those two words were reversed, and - ? Well, the rest is history. Uh, literally history, it seems, as a perfunctory Google search suggests that that character has not yet reached any kind of saturation point.

As I’ve indicated, though, I felt even then (and I wasn’t particularly doing any regular writing at that point) that his talking about his ideas in such a way seemed to pretty much guarantee  that he’d never finish the book. I’m not a big fan of Family Guy, but I’m fond of the repeated gag where the would-be intellectual Brian is constantly mocked: ‘you’ve been talking about that novel for three years now. How’s that going, anyway?’ Most of us probably know of a writer (read: not actually a writer) like this. I’m very aware of that trap.

However, that hasn't stopped me banging on about my writing on various networking sites. I know it can be tedious and boring to read/hear, and that it can be an excuse – as I’ve mentioned earlier – to not actually put the spadework in. I do it, however, for the same reason, I suspect, most writers do: partially for the affirmation, to get friends and other writers to show interest and support – to cheer me over the finish line – and also (the theory goes), if the declarations of a story are in such a public forum, then the idea is that I’ll be too embarrassed to do anything else but actually finish. However, I’m acutely aware that many other writers do this, and never finish (or even start) the stories that they’re wittering on about.  After all, writers have no excuse not to write, no matter how tired and emotionally drained at the end of a work day they are (which is normally, literally my excuse). The only thing to do is to sit down and write.

I feel a little more relaxed about banging on about what I’m writing (or so I tell myself) because the bulk of what I’m talking about is, for the most part, actually finished, done, completed. In the case of one play, it’s already had a full cast production. What I’m going on about now is the re-writes, the final draft. A few more of those well-wishers are now more vocal about wanting to actually read something I’ve written at some point. And, at some point, I’m going to have to take a deep breath, and let that happen. After all, why the hell else does anyone write? 

Ignore Them, And Watch Them Come Back For More

So, Caroline Criado-Perez did a lovely thing: she campaigned successfully so that when the British bank notes change face next, they will feature Jane Austen on the ten pound notes. This is significant because women are rather unrepresented on bank notes, rather suggesting that in this nation’s history is devoid of important females to choose from, with the exception of Florence Nightingale, who doesn’t even appear on bank notes anymore. Some people have tried to claim that the campaign was a bit of a PC agenda, and ultimately pointless, since a woman appears on every single banknote, presumably missing the point that Queen Elizabeth appears as the monarch, not an honorary female, and will, with the best will in the will (and, one would expect, with literally the best will in the world) not be on any fresh bank notes printed in, say, fifteen years time.

This wasn't enough, though. Quite soon, Perez was subjected to a genuinely horrific torrent of abuse, most of it within a 24 hour period, and mostly, it seems with the sole intention of shutting her up, just for having an opinion. Apart from anything else, this must be simply frustrating as well as depressing and at times threatening. To have abuse thrown at you when  nobody knows who you are, but to have it again (and magnified) when you are successful and established must be suffocating: ‘What the hell do you guys want?’

This has in turn prompted people like Caitlin Moran and others to ask exactly what twitter is doing about online abuse, particularly the threats of rape and death directed at women. Whereas facebook does have a resource for reporting on stuff you’re not happy with, twitter does not. Granted, facebook doesn’t always get it right (too many pictures of new mums breastfeeding get nixed, for instance), but it’s arguably a faltering step in  the right direction. When officials on twitter were asked what they were going to do about it, they battened down the hatches and made their accounts private (ironically, citing online abuse as the reason). It’s now been suggested that high profile account holders on twitter abandon the site to its own devices (and the trolls) on August 4^th – a so-called ‘trolliday’.

If I’m honest, I think that the Troll-iday will achieve very little, in actual, practical terms. The idiots and the bullies won’t really notice what’s going on, or they’ll simply sneer and declare loudly (and correctly) that such a boycott won’t really make much difference. And, to a very great extent, they’re exactly right. It’s already been argued that trolliday won’t silence the bullies, but actually make them bite harder. But like most protests, I suspect it isn’t the event itself that’s so important, as what it represents, and the reams of newsprint that will be (and have already been) devoted to the cause will argue. This isn’t about getting the trolls to shut up. It’s not even about ignoring them. It’s about something a lot simpler and more elegant. It’s giving us a chance to grow the hell up.

Let’s be clear here: this isn’t infringing on anyone’s freedom of speech. A ‘report abuse’ button on twitter (or any other social platform) does not – and should not – stop anyone from arguing, say, about the amount of benefit-swallowing immigrants swarming into the country every hour. That opinion, in of itself, is not actually offensive, although it’s arguably ill-informed. And indeed, it in theory leads to what twitter should excel at: two differing opinions smashing into each other (in 140 characters at a time), at the end of which, hopefully at least one person learns something they didn’t know before. If they were listening.

Many people argue (and quite loudly, ironically enough) that it’s pointless to draw attention to the troll – that such attention is exactly what the troll craves. It’s gone as far as to create a piece of advice that sounds like it was originally penned by the Brothers Grimm: ‘Don’t feed the troll’. It is, of course, an entirely meaningless and selfish bit of advice, which even this second someone is typing out on twitter. Hopefully, the trolliday, if nothing else, will go some way to dismantling that most insidious of pointless advice: ‘block and ignore’. This is the latest version of the idiotic demand that we’ve been handed down across the years, starting at school when we’re told to ignore the bullies, and they’ll go away, to questioning why the girl who was attacked was dressed like that and out so late, to sneering at celebrities who plead for privacy from the tabloids. Not only does it – unforgivably – blame the victims, it feeds an everlasting lie: that, if you (yes, you, not them) alter your behaviour, the bullies go away. But that’s not true. It was never true, and it never will be. The bullies don’t go away. Best case scenario: they simply turn their attention to someone else. But even that isn’t the problem with ‘block and ignore’. I’m sure that there are a few people who have given that advice in a well-intentioned manner. But they are presumably unaware of what that advice actually means. It means exactly the same as ‘just ignore then and they’ll go away’ always meant. The translation, if you don’t know what it means (and, don’t lie, you do know, you always knew what it meant) is simply this: Oh, please fuck off. I really don’t care enough about your unimportant problems. I don’t want to stand up for you, I don’t want to draw attention to myself. If I attach myself to you and your needs, I might get contaminated by whatever the bullies have smelled on you. You’ve probably done something to deserve the abuse you’re getting, because I really can’t be bothered to consider a world in which bullies will threaten rape and death for no good reason whatsoever. Just keep quiet, and it will go away. Or, at the very least, hopefully you will go away, instead. Either works for me. Just as long as I don’t have to help. Ignore them and they will go away.

Of course, that’s completely in the wrong. But not, actually, for the reasons that those who say ‘just block and ignore’ think. There’s a reason why this is a particularly hot topic at the moment. If you disagree with me on any subject – like, say, that the last Spiderman film was an entirely pointless if pretty reboot – then you would be perfectly able to disagree with me, and voice your disagreement firmly. You might even get a bit sweary, and call into question my intelligence and basic eyesight. None of this would fall into the realms of abuse, because it’s significantly unlikely that you would claim that the reason I disliked the last Spiderman  film was just because I was fat/ugly/had childbearing hips. (I don’t have child bearing hips, by the way. Those twigs would snap in a matter of seconds).  I’m not particularly fond of the often mis-used ‘check your privilege’ line, but its undeniable that I am pretty privileged: as a white male, my opinions are not going to be dismissed just on the perceived value (or lack thereof) of my gender. Indeed, if anyone calls me a fucking idiot, it’s because they have enough respect to honestly think that I am indeed a fucking idiot.

I know it’s a cliché, but having thought about this a bit, I can’t think of a better reason: the torrent of abuse that gets chucked at high profile, successful women online is borne of one thing only: fear. Sweaty-eyed, gibbering fear. If I talk about ‘a person going into a bar’, our default reaction is to assume that I’m talking about a man (and a white man, at that). The thing is, when you occupy a default position, you don’t have to do a hell of a lot to keep on to your crown. When intelligent, dynamic women are changing the world without having to change their hemline, others get confused and – yes, scared. If the trolls want attention, then, by all means, lets give them all the attention they can cope with, and more. You remember what it was like in school, or when you or your friend was in an abusive relationship. The bully thrived on silence. Not speaking up supports the bully. ‘Block and ignore’? How dare they. How dare we. It’s time to shout back. 

Saturday 13 July 2013

In the past week or so, Brighton had welcomed its annual swelling of the population with the influx of a whole gaggle of foreign language students. Of course, there are lots of such students here all through the year (there's lots of schools in the city for expressly that purpose), but there's a significantly higher proportion from July onwards. The idea of course is that they come over to England so that they can practice speaking English in a country where pretty much everyone else speaks the language as a matter of course (more or less). I think it's a particularly mean joke to drag all these kids over from countries like Italy and Spain, the places that actually have decent weather from time to time, and force them to spend sometime discovering what exactly is meant by a British summer. I suppose if nothing else, it introduces them to the concept of irony, which apparently is one of the trickiest linguistic tricks to pull off when learning English. 

I see a fair amount of foreign language students on the Ghostwalk at this time of year. For the most part, their attempts at English are far, far better than any attempts I could make at any of their languages - indeed, in at least a couple of cases, I'm pretty sure their grasp of English is better than my own. But from time to time, I get a group who clearly have learned only eight words in English (and at least six of those are the kind that the BBC wouldn't be able to transmit before the watershed). In the case of these students, there are a number of different reactions, ranging from shyly smiling incomprehension, to blank indifference. I've heard from several stand-ups who regularly perform at the Edinburgh Fringe who tell horror stories of having to perform a full hour to a room (not) full of about three people, none of whom understand a damn word of English. That's the very definition of a tough gig. At least with the Ghostwalk, it isn't just about the words alone, in the way that can very often be the case with a lot of stand-up. The role (of Jasper, the guide I play on the Ghostwalk) lends itself to being a bit broader, larger, and dare I say, frankly over-acted and hammy. 

All of this means that when I'm doing the Ghostwalk in front of an audience that perhaps only understand 30% of what I'm saying, I have to raise my game. Not exactly in what I say, or even how I say it, because a lot of that dialogue is simply not going to carry over. This requires me to communicate in other ways, not least the way I use my hands. Now, this is a bit of an odd one, because there are times as an actor that I admittedly use my hands far too much (I do tend to over-gesticulate), but it's not often that I consider that I am actually required to do so for my character. Of course, it's all about communication: what you need to do in order to tell the story. After all, that's what it's all about: telling the story. Whether it be on stage, or a guided tour, or a short story or novel. Being clear, direct, and concise. Almost completely unlike this blog, in other words. 

Friday 12 July 2013

Last night I managed to finish writing a play that I’d been working on. OK, it was only a ten minute play, but I still have a pretty keen sense of achievement – even more so, since I’d managed to finish it (final draft, an’ all) a full two days before the actual deadline. Normally, I find myself hacking out the third or fourth draft just a few hours before the final submissions are being accepted. And while I do refer to myself as a ‘writer’ on various websites and twitter feeds, this is why I’m somewhat wary of describing myself as such in real life. 

You see, writers actually write things. They get things done. I can’t always claim that great honour. Sure, I have ideas. Some of them are pretty good ideas. Some of those pretty good ideas would make well received books and TV programmes; because I’ve seen other people have the same ideas, and write the books and TV programmes before I did. And that’s the point, of course: anybody can have ideas. Ideas are cheap currency; ideas are all around us, over-laden fruit on trees. I sincerely believe that writers who complain that they can never come up with ideas are simply not recognising that at least half of the thoughts they’ve had that day are in fact ideas that could potentially make a good story. But that’s a blog entry for another day.

This blog entry, however, is about the ideas that I do have, but never actually develop into a full script. Most writers will recognise this: a new and shiny, sexy and exciting idea that’s fun to write for the first thousand words or so, and then – well, then, it feels too much like hard work. Particularly if  writing isn’t actually your day job, and you have to fit in between shifts of your actual hard work. And then, horror of horrors, you end up having another new and shiny, sexy and exciting, brand new idea that suddenly seems a helluva lot more alluring that the crappy old idea that isn’t cooperating with you right now. So you drop that idea, and move onto the new – until the cycle repeats itself, again and again. I’d argue that, even if you’re writing two thousand words a day, if you’re not actually finishing anything – if there’s nothing produced at the end of the day that has a beginning, middle and an end – well, then: you don’t actually get to call yourself a writer. I say this, and yet I’m still figuring it out for myself.

Even that’s being overly romantic about it. That line about it seeming too much like hard work? That’s uncomfortably near the truth. A lot of us so-called writers don’t actually write (or, more specifically, re-write, edit and finish) our work because of sheer laziness. That’s it, nothing more noble or mysterious than that. Oh, yeah, sure, there’s other stuff , like fear of success (not fear of failure, you’ll notice. But the crippling fear that somebody will like what you’ve produced, and expect that you can come up with more of the same). But there’s only one way to get past that: just get the stuff written. Now, some of you might have a sneaking suspicion that I’m writing this much more for my benefit than yours, and in that you would be entirely correct (let’s face it, the only reader who bumps up the hit counter on this blog is me myself when I’m trying to check if anyone else has wandered past).

And stuff gets in the way of your writing. I mean, literally. I started this blog on my way to work, and had to break off from writing when real life got in the way. I had a whole eloquent point to end on, that I could write up in my lunch break. Well, it’s now my lunch break, and the eloquent point has entirely vanished. No idea what the hell I wanted to talk about. Now, the other option would have been to junk this blog altogether. But, what exactly would have been the point of that? Now you, who have invested two minutes in reading this might have something to say about that. If I hadn’t committed to  actually writing and completing this blog, then right now, you’d be two minutes in credit. But let’s face it, what would you have done with those two minutes? (Don’t answer that. If anything you’re thinking of right now could be completed within two minutes, you probably don’t want to advertise the fact)

Sometimes – often, in fact – you’re going to have to write the crap in order to get to the good stuff. Maybe a hell of a lot of crap. But maybe, just maybe: you end up writing something decent. As long as you understand that it will almost always in that order. 

Sunday 30th June 2013

Spent the last couple of hours working on a play. It's only a ten minute play, but that doesn't necessarily make things any easier. With a regular play - or indeed any story, you have to hit the ground running, not spend too much time circling the plot before getting stuck in. Apparently, a hell of a lot of scripts and stories submitted to competitions and  companies have too many opening scenes where people are just meeting up over coffee, having not particularly interesting conversations about nothing in particular. You can understand why these scenes have been written - the writer has had to try and work out who these characters are, how they talk, what makes them tick. What's less clear is why such scenes survive several drafts until the final submitted version. Those scenes are the ones that get cut (or should get cut) while you get to the point of the story, in two minutes or less. 

In a ten minute play, without stating the bleeding obvious, the same applies, to the nth degree. Your statement of intent has to be - well, stated, in the first thirty seconds or so. Certainly, in the draft that I've written so far, that hasn't happened. I can understand why, and also why many authors shy away from the same in their scripts. You don't want to blow it all in the first minute - otherwise, it could be argued, where else is there for your story to go? The answer, of course, is always forward. The story may not even be about what you originally thought it was. Now, that's a startling thought for any writer - that whatever idea got them to start the actual story is in fact facile, unoriginal, and at best, merely the kickstarter to the other story that you haven't even thought of yet - but it's an important one to realise, I think. It allows you to stop being quite so precious, and to be slightly more relaxed about letting go of your ideas - adapting, adopting to change. 

The draft that I'm working on isn't even the first draft, I think. I've recently got into the frame of mind that the first bit of work you do on a story or a script doesn't have to be thought of as the first draft. This allows your inner critic to get a lot more freedom, when you finally let them off the leash. Your inner critic still gets to go wild, bitter, and - yes, critical - on your 'first' draft, but it also means that you still get to do a lot of false starts and working out of ideas before you get to that level. For me, a first draft should still be a reasonable piece of work. Sure, there's probably (at least) ten drafts to follow, but that first draft shouldn't exactly be an embarrassment to anyone, least of all its author. 

This summer, I hope to redraft an old script that just won't let go - Four Play. This is a script that has already had two productions, albeit of two very different versions of the script. The most recent version, a couple of years ago, had very positive feedback, and I have decided in a fit of entirely uncharacteristic ego, to take that feedback at face value, including the holy grail that it (the script) might have some kind of life entirely independent from me (in other words, that it might make me some money). However, in order to make that any kind of reality, the one piece of negative feedback, often and consistently repeated, has to be taken into account - that it was just too damn long. 

Now, I believe people who were in the audiences that said that, when you were actually watching the play, that it didn't seem all that long. However, I also believe those people that said that, yes, it really did seem that dam long. So, its required from me to hack out about half a hour. Not exactly an easy task, and not just because I'm a precious writer who can't bear to kill his darlings. Well, not entirely because of that. 

For those of you that don't already know, Four Play is a story set in the traditional trappings of a county house murder mystery. The twist in this play is that all four actors have to play four parts each, the costume changes getting all the more impossibly quick and frenetic. Plus, there's also four endings. I think we calculated that by the end of the night, there are more than 116 costume changes - and an equal number of exits and entrances. All of this means that any editing that I do isn't simply a matter of just cutting out that scene or this scene, since that scene or this scene is very likely in place to accommodate another actor's costume change. Having said all that, I worked out earlier this year how I could (probably) knock off twenty minutes or so from the running time. In the original (or, to be more accurate, most recent) version of the script, a murder is committed in the prologue. Then, scene two, set the following morning, introduces all the main characters, and goes about setting up their motives, red herrings, etc. Nobody knows about the murder that's already been committed. After about forty minutes, the next murder is committed, and then the pace really kicks in. I always likened it to a roller coaster that spends the first part of the journey going steeply uphill, so that when it drops, it can do so with real speed and energy. 

Finally, I worked out earlier this year that if all the characters already know that the prologue murder has been committed, then we could get to the meat of the story a helluva lot quicker. Of course, it worried me that it would be a lot more difficult to introduce all the back stories and red herrings, and also how I was going to hide the identity of the first victim - it's a big reveal in the finale because nobody's actually aware of the murder, and therefore a lot more difficult to pull off as a surprise if everyone knows that somebody has been murdered. But, I was reasonably confident that something would work itself out if I just got along to writing it. It was still going to be a bit clunky, but I figured, that's what 27th drafts are for. 

However, yesterday, I realised that there was no need for scene two to be set the following morning - that was a waste of time, and actually made the pacing a bit odd. Actually, I realised, scene two should follow pretty much continuously from scene one. It does mean, however, that the very top of the play is pretty much at the heightened level of finale  - the pace and attitude of where we come in at the very start of the play is where most plays check out. Now, that worries me for a number of reasons - it's a hell of a big ask for the audience, and an even bigger ask for the actors -and I'm not yet convinced that the story itself won't be capsized by such a move. However, starting at the end is exactly what any writing manual / workshop implores you to do. I just never expected to be considering to do it quite so literally. Whatever else, I'm convinced that many audiences will not have seen anything like that on stage before. And that's a good thing. 

Probably.  

Saturday 29 June 2013

So, this time last week (God, has it been a week already? How the hell did that happen?) I tried to organise a picnic/barbecue thing on the beach. Of course, I know, and you know, that as soon as you say those sort of things out loud, then the weather will be against you. And so it came to pass that there were pretty healthy winds all day long, which effectively (very effectively, in fact) put paid to any chances of spending time whatsoever outside. This Saturday, things are different. This Saturday, there was a full day rehearsal with the youth theatre, so it was pretty much inevitable that today would be the first day of 2013 where there would be more than two hours of uninterrupted warm sunlight (please don't message me to tell you that, actually,  you've had loads of days of brilliant sunshine: we're talking about my experience here. My experience may admittedly be significantly a lot more boring than yours, but we happen to be on my blog, and not yours. Of course, you could argue - very successfully - that the reason that you don't have a blog is precisely because your experience is less boring than mine, and I'm really not going to argue with you on that point). 

Like most people who write a blog (with the honorable exception of Richard Herring) I've let it go a bit fallow without updates this month. This is mainly because of the festival fringe production I was directing (which I really, really will chat about in more detail in a couple of posts time), but a few other things have happened in the meantime. I guess the main thing most recently was turning forty. This, in fact, was the main reason for attempting a beach picnic/barbecue type of thing. Many people have been asking me - quite intensely, in fact - if I've bothered by this milestone. They ask with such intensity, in fact, that I've begun to wonder if it isn't to facilitate their own sense of glee at a fellow human being falling apart and crumbling to dust before them than any actual concern they might have for my well-being. But the fact is, I feel like I was born at the age of forty, so getting to the actual physical age is no great hardship. Of course, traditionally, this is the point in time when a man is supposed to have a  mid-life crisis, but since I'm not exactly adverse to the idea of suddenly having a classic car and a girlfriend who's all sorts of wrong for me, I'm not exactly sure that it will be any kind of crisis at all. 

There are probably lots of things that did or didn't happen while I was far-too-busy to keep the blog updated, but the thing that springs to mind was getting to the long list for a writing competition. Now, I'm hopelessly naive about these sort of things. I wasn't even aware that there was such a thing as a long list. I know, logically, that there must be - that would make a lot more sense of the phrase 'short list', but it wasn't really something that I gave much thought. So when I originally got the email telling me that I hadn't made the short list, I took that as a standard rejection, and thought no further about it, other than to redraft the story (for what was probably about the tenth time, now). I rewrote it with the critical eye of a story that had, in fact, been rejected. I think the changes that I made were actually pretty important, and vital - indeed, how had I missed them the first nine times? - and made the story a helluva lot better. That done, I sent the story off again (to its third chance). 

I hadn't really read the rejection email until weeks later, and it was only then that I discovered that my name was on the long list. Sure, it was still a 'rejected' entry, but I wasn't exactly sure what long list actually meant, believe it or not. For a moment there, I did wonder if it was simply a list of all the stories that had been entered - literally, a long list. Turns out, not. Apparently, there was over a thousand entries, and the long list was under 100 stories. As 'rejections' go, that's pretty good odds. As I say, I have already redrafted the story and improved it. The long list (now that I actually know what that phrase means) gets announced at the end of next week. It might not be third time lucky. 

But, then again .. 

Thursday 27th June 2013

Right, where were we? The last time we spoke, I was deep in rehearsals for the completely improvised play that I'd been directing, 'A Beginning A Muddle And An End,' I'm not stopping for long here today - at least, I don't expect to be - so for now, I'll simply say that the show, for the most part, seemed to be very well received. 

Well, for the most part. There were a couple of people who clearly hated it. There were also a couple of people for whom improv wasn't exactly their thing, and the production did absolutely nothing to shake them from their beliefs. But they still found the time to hang back and vocalise their admiration for bravery of the cast who threw themselves onstage (sometimes quite literally) with no idea what the hell was going on (again, quite literally). In fact, with this particular person I'm thinking of, I might well be assuming wrongly that they didn't exactly like improv; I'm just reading that into their lack of effusive praise about the actual show. But they were at pains to praise the dedication and cajones of the cast. In many ways, it was this praise that meant more than any compliment regarding clever or funny storylines that the crew came up with. 

Oh, and there was one more section of the audience that didn't exactly warm to us. (by the way, I should point out that the show went very well. There were lots of people that were giddily excited about what the cast came up with. It's just that this particular blog post is about the less flattering elements of the audience). These people had a problem with the show not because they thought it boring, or ill-prepared, or incoherent. In fact, they thought the exact opposite. Rather too much so. In other words, they thought that our improvised show wasn't in any way improvised. 

OK, on one hand - our first reaction, indeed - was to take this as some kind of compliment: the idea that everyone was so-damn-slick that it beggared belief - literally, that it was unbelievable - that anyone could be quite that smart to come up with this stuff without some kind of process or plan. I can understand it, to some degree. As audience members, we're primed to see a structure in our stories - sometimes, literally, a three-act one (a beginning, a middle, and an end, if you will). But, since at least two of our un-believers had actually written reviews taking us to task and, in the case of the particularly bad-tempered one, pretty much accused us of breaking the trades description act, I had been advised by many to exercise my right of reply.  I had been reluctant to do this, simply because a director replying irritably to what's essentially a negative review can come across as a crate of sour grapes. But when our in-house reviewer also raised an eyebrow at the possibility that the show was made up, I was persuaded. 

I won't post my reply here just yet - I'll wait to see if it gets printed in the NVT newsletter first. But the writing of it reminded me that audiences really like to see their improv performers sweat. It can't look too easy, otherwise it just gets drenched in what is, for me at least, one of the cardinal sins of bad improv, a sin that you are capable of even if you're excellent; that of self indulgence. 

Well, more on that another time. The coffee shop I'm stealing internet from closed twenty minutes ago.