Back online again

After my holiday from work and the bank holiday weekend, this is my first day back at a computer with an internet connection, and after going through the 57 emails I had received since Wednesday (most of which were spam), I've just gotten around to posting on my blog. It's been a busy few days. I'll try to recap here what I've been up to.

Wednesday: Awoke with acne (I'm 26 for Pete's sake!). Had to catch an early train to Beeston, to get to Nottingham University for the first day of the Momentum Festival. I attended a workshop by some people attached to the Royal Court, which was ok - basically there was a Court writer there called Alex and we had to read a couple of scenes from her published play and then write our own version. This struck me as a bit egotistical on her part and a bit embarrassing on mine (what if she was outraged by what I had done to her play?). Anyway, that was all ok. And then there was some lunch (thank God for Boots) and then there was the 'Script Slam' session where everyone got about ten minutes with the director and two pro-actors and they basically performed the extract of your play for you. Mine seemed to go well; the director was really good, and the actors kept saying they liked the extract (the male actor kept reading lines from my script at inappropriate moments saying he liked the language, which I found a bit embarrassing, though I guess it was a compliment). Then I even got to act in Sabrina's play, because she needed three actors and the director designated me the 'confident person' to do it. That was weird, receiving professional direction whilst being pulled about by two actors. So all in all the Script Slam was great. I have more of an idea of what to do with Hoodies now. I knew before that I needed to rewrite the Naomi and Jase scenes, and the Mouse=wood glue thing is so cliche it's ridiculous. But now I also need to figure out what happens to Brick and Sandie too, and what their journey is. After that, it was time to jump on a train back to Leicester, and then into a cab (with the world's slowest cabbie who didn't know where Fosse Park was) to go to the Short Story awards thing, where I received a 'commended' certificate and met loads of cool people (including my secret blog idol). I was a bit disappointed about not winning, seeing as it would have meant I could paid off some credit card and afford to have a haircut (finally), but I didn't really expect that I would win. Glad I didn't have to read my story out though, as it's quite rude.

Thursday was a bit less manic, and acne had mysteriously cleared up over night. I attended a presentation about the development of a short film, led by EM Media, which was really interesting. I've never really thought about getting into film before, but the process of pitch to finished product was really inspiring. There was also a session on promenade, or site specific theatre, which again was really good, as it's sort of like the opposite of regular theatre writing, and you're really encouraged to think big. So I spent the afternoon setting the myth of Echo and Narcissus in the grounds of University of Nottingham, which was good (though I think I was a little too bossy, sorry Alex!).

Friday: Early start again, but only because we felt guilty for skivving the 'Bottomless Coffee' session on Thursday. Attended a session held by the Gob Squad about performance art and installations and about generating ideas, which was good, and then a really excellent session by Jack Bradley about how to structure a play and about finding your story and the elements of a play you should really consider. I think this session is going to help loads when I come to redraft Hoodies. Also went to see Dec's play, which had a professional performance in the main theatre, and it was really good, so much better than the first draft. Well done!

My weekend was pretty lazy. I met up with Cat to talk about the event at Sumo (she will be performing the story I wrote for the Short Story awards at the Ladyfest fundraiser event at Sumo on Sat 1st Sept), and had barbeque, and made some really lovely double chocolate chip cookies which I'm now wishing I had bought to work to munch on this afternoon.

Rehearsals for Witches of Eastwick are going well. I'm a bit nervous because we're running act two on Wednesday, and we've not practiced my solo bit in the gospel number and so I'll be doing it for the first time in performance-like conditions, and I'm not really sure what note it starts on!

So that's about it really. As you can see, I've also figure out how to do that link thing in my blog, so you can reference anything I've written about. Well, I think it's cool anyway, but I have a feeling I'm easily pleased!