Monday, February 26, 2007

Progress


I wrote 8 lines of dialogue over the weekend for my youths play. At least it's better than nothing! Don't know what I'm going to tell Amanda though tomorrow. Will have to try to squeeze out a few more lines tomorrow lunchtime.

Have written no more bad poetry though, you'll be pleased to read...

Friday, February 23, 2007

Insomnia and Headaches

I'm feeling really fragile at the moment, I have a splitting headache and I just can't get to sleep at nights. And I've written a poem. All is not well.

Embalm the Essence and
Lock it away,
Painless for another day.
Love Dies and
Friends Betray.


I shall be wearing a black polo neck jumper soon if this continues...

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

The Fear


I think I officially have 'The Fear'. I know exactly how I want my play to go, but I'm terrified of writing it, in case (it's crap). Logically I know that's silly, because if it is crap, then I can just re-write it, re-draft it, or start something new, but I'm not able to communicate that down to the creative side of me that does all the writing. I want to send Amanda a first draft of my play (or at least a couple of scenes) before the next Momentum session on Tuesday, so I have a week to get my arse into gear.

My friend's play was performed for the Comedy Festival last week, and I'm so pleased for him, as I think it went really well. It has made me want to put on one of my plays (of course, that means actually completing one, but we can skim over that minute detail for now). In the pub we were talking about creating our own 'new writing' theatre production company, and I still think that's a good idea. Very time consumming, but worth thinking about nonetheless.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Update: February


Well, I feel that I should update my blog about my progress so far:

1) I have extended my self-imposed deadline for the completed first draft of Inter Vivos until end of April/first week of May, due to the problem that I’m stuck and having a crisis of confidence and so I’ve not touched it for about two weeks.

2) I have come up with the plot of my first draft (at least) for my youths play. I have also decided that ‘Shilton Rec’ is a silly title and so I’m back to calling it ‘my youths play’ or ‘my hoody play’.

3) After doubting my abilities as a writer for most of the weekend, I have written myself a list of all the things I want to write about, however unrelated they may seem. I thought that writing a list of what it is that I care about, and the things that interest me, will make me ultimately stronger as a writer, because instead of trying to write about everything across twenty different genres, I can try to become the best that I can be in the areas that interest me most.

4) I am contemplating taking a year/couple of years out from doing amateur musicals to focus more of my time on writing, and am also looking into doing a part-time/distance learning MA in Creative Writing to commit myself to writing as a career (plus I really want to do something academic again).

5) I am thinking about the ‘chick-lit’ novel I started writing a while ago, and am going to try to start writing that again, as soon as I have a spare minute. I may also go back and complete ‘The Dragon Prince’, my children’s story.

So that’s about everything that I’m doing/thinking about doing right now. I could do with some time off work/rehearsals to actually do some writing, but obviously this is impossible.

Monday, February 05, 2007

My 50th Post!


Wow, this is my 50th post in my blog! Feels like yesterday when I first opened the account. How time flies...

Anyway, just a short post really. Amanda sent me some really positive feedback about my 'Youths' play so far. I asked her for her thoughts on what should happen in my play - I have enough character stuff to keep it ticking over but I want something to happen to bring all of them together at the end - and Amanda couldn't think of anything. I would like something that's not really life altering, something simple and relatively small in the grand scheme of things but something that will impact their lives and also show how futile and mundane their existances are. Current ideas include breaking a shop window and losing something (eg cash or a family possession).

How you can help
If anyone out there has any funny/poignant/stupid stories about stuff you or your mates, etc got up to when you were thirteen-fifteen years old, then please post them in the comments section. I'm not going to nick all of it, honest, but I thought a bit of research might do the play a bit of good!

I think, as usual, I need to sit down and think this one through. Finding time though is a bit difficult at the moment as it is coming up to my show, and they keep adding in extra rehearsals. My next evening off is Thursday, so will have a crack at it then.