… in which I can’t believe how time flies.

Day 34? How the heck did that happen?

Apologies for being remiss in my updates. To be honest, though, there hasn’t been much to say.

As mentioned in my last, I was having to leave Never Rains But It Pours to work on the second draft of a different script. And didn’t that turn out to be a bugger. Draft one had poured out of me, 80+ pages in a fortnight. Draft two was like wading through treacle. It went so badly that when I went for the script meeting about it I wore black, convinced I’d blown it so was ‘in mourning for my career’. Never let it be said I am anything less than melodramatic! Suffice to say, it wasn’t the train-wreck I had convinced myself of and we’re back on course for Draft three.

But I decided to give myself some time off. Reckless perhaps, with three scripts on the go at the moment, but it was that or burnout completely. So from Tuesday to Sunday last week I did nothing. Nada. Nowt. Well no; I saw friends, did ironing, watched telly, went to the cinema, read my book, tidied up, finally got rid of all my videos what with not having a video player anymore. That type of thing. But I did no writing, that was the key.

Monday marked three weeks until the deadline for NRBIP, so it was back to work. The joy of a first Draft is that it gives you something to work on. Sometimes I go back to a script and decide it’s an abomination. Sometimes I think it’s got something worth developing. With this one it’s been pretty enjoyable returning to it. I feel more comfortable with the characters, and because I know where they end up the job is tightening up their journey to get there. There are still things that don’t work and I’m not happy with the ending, but it’s moving in the right direction. I think. I hope.

And we’ve had to submit short blurbs for The People’s Theatre brochure, which makes it all seem very real and not-actually-that-far-away. Mine goes …

“Drip drip drop, little April showers … The Jensen’s are trapped in the attic room of their rapidly flooding house. Meredith’s forgotten the concertina-folder-of-important-documents; Lyn’s bridal shoes have just floated away and Cari is oblivious to the past bubbling up to bite her. As the water surges below, family secrets rise to the surface and resentments spill over.”

So, I’m committed to those character names now. Which is good, less time wasted on the marvel that is ‘find and replace’.

We four on the project have support available from writer Michael Chaplin – to use or not as we wish. I am going to send him this first Draft in the next couple of days – get another pair of eyes on it before the deadline. This is a scary bit … your play on your computer is one thing, but letting someone else read it, exposing it to a wider audience … crikey moses.

While Michael is reading that, I will be working on a different script again, Can Cause Death … workshopping it in fact, down in that there London. Which is exciting.

• In other news … my play Yackety Yak is going to be performed next month at Live Theatre. It is part of the Million Short Cuts event that will see some of Craig Taylor’s ‘A Million Tiny Plays About Britain’ read alongside four new short plays and four plays to be written on the night. All sounds a bit mental if you ask me … click [here] for details.
• In other other news … I am shortly recording the monologue I did for Paines Plough Come To Where I’m From for their website … link available as and when.
• And finally … I saw Traverse Live on Monday, which was disappointing. I saw The Expendables yesterday, which was not.

That is all.

I was delighted to see the play performed – the actors and director did a great job with it. “small but perfectly formed” one audience member commented. Which was nice.

Little did I know … this was not in fact Maggie & Mary’s first outing. They had debuted a few months earlier … across the pond, no less.

Last year I had entered the piece in to the call for submissions for the international ‘Gone in Sixty Seconds’ Festival. Writers are invited to enter plays lasting no longer than a minute – 100 are chosen. 50 are performed in the UK and 50 in the US. In New York, to be precise. You know, New York … busy place, bright lights, got a big statue of a lady holding a torch, Alicia Keys likes to sing about it. New. York.

So. The tiny (literally) play I had penned in my (equally) tiny room in Newcastle had been performed in New York.

Have I mentioned it was New York?

This is a little bit exciting for me. Can you tell?

This is going all over my CV, front and centre. I might get a T-Shirt printed. Or a baseball cap, that’s more like what a proper New Yorker would have isn’t it. Cos I’m one of them now, baby. Shift over Sarah Jessica, there’s a new poster-girl in town … pass me my Mano … Manol … Maonolo Blin … Blan … my trainers. Pass me my trainers. Thank you.  

How did I find out, you ask. Erm … hypothetically. Let’s say someone (not me) went on to YouTube and entered her – or his – own name (not me though) looking for namesakes doing something stupid and or/funny (I expect she/he was having a slow day) … and after scrolling down a bit, THERE IT WAS, bold as brass. Just sitting there. I’m just guessing. I mean, that is just one possible scenario of how I could he or she might have found it. There are loads of other ways though, much less egomaniacal.

Moving on.

The only details I have about the performance are the ones attached to the YouTube video … A Screaming Media Production, Gi60 Festival, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, N.E.W. Y.O.R.K.

And if you want to watch Maggie & Mary US, clickety click below …

Hope you enjoy it … 

For more information on Screaming Media and the 2010 Festival, click [here]

“Writing the last page of the first draft is the most enjoyable moment in writing. It’s one of the most enjoyable moments in life, period.” – Nicholas Sparks

Well knock me down with a feather and all that guff. I have finished Draft 1 of  Never Rains But It Pours. Let me say that again … I. Have. Finished. Draft. 1. I am as shocked as you, believe me.

My excursion to the cottage-on-a-hill was a disaster work-wise, although there were omens dotted about. The play features a rubber duck in a bucket, and not only was there a duck-shaped hot plate in the cottage-on-a-hill, but from the patio you could see a row of trees that look distinctly like a duck. No, really. (What do you mean, grasping at straws?)

Anyway. Omens or no, the rest and relaxation gained by a week away in peace and quiet seems to have paid off.

It’s been a busy year – I’m not complaining (when I say ‘not’ I mean of course ‘sometimes I do but who doesn’t’) … we all know it’s better to be busy than bored and so far this year I’ve been anything but bored. Long may it continue. Fingers crossed. Sometimes, though, I can’t help but feel I’m churning the work out and it becomes a bit … I don’t know … the spark can get lost. I’m lucky, the projects I do tend to be varied and recently I’ve been challenged with new stories and new ways of telling them, but there are times when it wears me down. Creating a world of people and their words and plots in my head, but sitting alone in a small room typing them up.

Hm. That all went a bit maudlin.

My point is … THESE moments are when it’s all worth it. Batteries apparently re-charged and able to say “that there Draft 1, it is in the bag”.

Good job, like. Today was the last day I had to work on NRBIP before devoting the next 7 days to the second draft of a different script.

I’m having a packet of crisps to celebrate. Seabrook Salt and Vinegar. Really, it deserves more but it’s all I’ve got in. The glamour.

The last-minute spurt was born from the stuff last-minute spurts tend to be born from – necessity. All the faffing about, pussyfooting on, was out the window. It was business time. Business time is usually heralded by one thing – getting up at 7am. I tried this in Scotland, but apparently it does not work across the border. Back home though, it worked a treat. Isn’t it scientifically proven or something that our brains work better in the morning? Mine does. And then it’s so proud of itself, when it returns to the computer later in the afternoon for Round #2 it can cotton on faster to what it was doing those few hours before.

Don’t get me wrong. Draft 1 is by no means perfect. It’s messy and inconsistent and overwritten and vague … but that’s first drafts for you. Indeed, in the words of Ernest Hemingway “the first draft of anything is shit”.

But it is not nothing. There is a framework, albeit loose. There are characters and a story, and a start and an end. A foundation, I suppose, to be knocked down and rebuilt.

But it’s not a blank sheet of paper. It’s a start.

… in which I don’t get off to a very good start.

So, today was the day. I was going to start, gosh-darnit. After a couple of days exploring the cottage-on-a-hill and the surrounding areas, today I was going to knuckle down and get going.

I ensconced myself in the conservatory – a ramshackle set-up; garden chair carried in, table from the living room lugged through, laptop balanced on a hamper lid and a couple of telephone directories. It didn’t last.

I decamped to the kitchen table. Hoisted up on a couple of pillows it was much more comfortable and conducive to work. I lost the lovely view and gained the (frankly amazing but potentially distracting) clock that plays a different bird call each hour.

Ok. So. Sitting comfortably? Ish. Cup of tea? Check. Ready to start … Ready to start …??

That was six hours ago.

Because I am developing an idea for which I already have some of the script written (see ‘Day 1’), the trick is getting back in to the mind-set of that play I started six months ago. I have managed to write nothing new today. What I have done is edit and trim and explore the 30-or-so pages that were already there. Not ideal. I wish I had made some headway instead of revisiting old ground. I feel dull and uninspired, with a numb bum and too much tea sloshing around inside me.  It feels like a wasted day. Not happy.

On the plus, I have learned the bird calls of the Chaffinch, the Cuckoo, the Great Tit (snigger), the Great Spotted Woodpecker and … as 5pm strikes … the Song Thrush.

Erm … right then … *looks sheepish* …

On Saturday I confidently wrote the headline ‘Past Glories; Day 1’.

Sadly that blog remains the sum of work that I have managed to do on the new play.

Well no, I tell a lie, I have decided on my title – Never Rains But It Pours. Which, as it goes, came from writing that aforementioned optimistic blog, so it hasn’t all been time wasted.

I have not been lazing around sipping piña coladas or whatever it is my housemates think I do all day, but sometimes you just can’t rush these things. I have been working on other plays. And if you’re not ready then you’re just not ready. Which can be a bitch. I have been doing some good ol’ thinking, though. Thinking really really hard …

(hopefully not this cottage)

I am going to a cottage on a hill for a week. The intention is to get lots of cleansing fresh air and write myself stupid. I will come back with a first draft. I. Will.

… a little something in me dies” - Gore Vidal

Despite what you may have heard, I do (occasionally) leave my room and venture to the world outside. And in that world I tend to stumble across other people. Not all of them are writers, but some are and – as much as it may gall me to say – they are a talented bunch with work regularly produced here, there and (every so often) everywhere.

There must be something in the water because there seems to be a flurry of activity at the moment, and below are some of the productions coming up …

• Islanders by Dick Curran – 24:7 Manchester Theatre Festival (27-31 July)
• Canoeing for Beginners by Mike Yeaman – The Customs House (31 July – 7 Aug)
• Seeing Double by Rosalind Wyllie & Ali Muriel – Live Theatre (14-15 Oct)
• Girls on the Verge by Lee Mattinson & Paddy Campbell – Live Theatre (21-22 Oct)
• Peter Creme’s Eyes & Therapy by Tracy Whitwell & Dick Curran – Live Theatre (28-30 Oct)

** trawls through diary **

… April 5, fact fans … I attended a meeting. At said meeting I was finalised as one of four writers commissioned by The People’s Theatre to write a play for its forthcoming Centenary Season.

The writers – myself, Tony Gannie, Philip Meeks and Sue Saunders – all have a connection (either past or present) with the People’s, which is one of the largest and longest established non-professional theatre’s in the country. 100 years young in 2011, the Theatre is lining up a celebratory season of events, including a fortnight of new writing in its Studio Upstairs venue.

I can’t remember exactly when involvement with the People’s began. I’m guessing 2004 because I originally joined with an eye on The People’s Play Award. This is a biannual competition run in conjunction with New Writing North to discover and develop new writers for theatre.

As ever my timing was impeccable … I had just missed the deadline for submissions. But. I was there now so why not kick about til the next one rolled around. You don’t have to be a member of the People’s to enter for the PPA, but I love theatre and all things theatre-y so this was a chance to pitch in and get involved, something I hadn’t done since Uni.

I did some backstage work (my table moving in A View From the Bridge is still talked about … by me); got a gig as Second Asst. Director; helped out with publicity matters; and first ventured on to the stage when cast as third hobo on the left in Little Shop of Horrors! So, I kept busy.

Time ticked by – I wore a wig in a Panto that made me look like Pat Sharp – and before you could say “Fun House!” it was time for submissions for the 2006 PPA.

My play My Mam Was An Ice-Cream Blonde was primed and ready – I wasn’t going to miss that deadline date again.

I am delighted to say that I won and the play was produced for a week in May 2006 in The Studio Upstairs, with a fantastic director, cast and crew. I made some fabulous friends during the process and since, and have kept up my involvement with the People’s to this day.

So, when I was asked to be one of the writers for the Centenary new writing season I was delighted. The brief is as vast as it is constricting – each of us must write a one-act play on the theme of Past Glories, with a cast of no more than four, all women.

At the time of the April meeting I had an idea and a bit of a script I’d started dabbling with at the beginning of the year. With work and development it could work for the brief.

What I didn’t bank on was that very script idea being short listed for the Nick Darke Award, something I had entered it in for and then promptly forgot about as other work and deadlines took over. So, my idea was in limbo and – while excited to be short listed for the NDA – I was a bit scared if it was selected, I’d have to come up with another brand new idea for Past Glories and have two plays to write for September. It never rains but it pours, etc …

So, it was with mixed feelings I found out a few weeks ago I did not win the NDA. Close but no cigar.

So, I have my broad idea. I have an opening few pages. I have three possible titles.

Now, to stop writing this and get on with writing that …

Every time I sit down with a new idea to start a new script, I always seem to have forgotten how it went last time. If it’s going well I think back to the ‘struggles’ of the last one. If it’s going badly all I can recall is the ease with which the last one came and how I must certainly have lost the ability to write since then.

Sometimes I am writing to a brief, sometimes an idea has just compelled me to get typing.

Often the run up to starting is as fraught as the actual starting – I can sometimes tell I have an idea brewing when I find myself watching my box set of Victoria Wood’s dinnerladies. While I am a huge fan of Wood and she was an inspiration to me when I started out, I don’t write like her so this need to watch her sitcom is pretty odd. But.

Sometimes I get totally overwhelmed by an idea and think about it morning, noon and night. Others, I just sit down with a bit of a thought and start. I rarely know what the end of my story will be as I write the first lines. I can’t settle without a title and, on a bad day, can convince myself that altering the font size and paragraph spacing does definitely count as work.

But why am I telling you this? Well. I am about to start writing a new play for production in April 2011 at The People’s Theatre. I have a brief, I have a deadline for draft #1. I have watched dinnerladies (again) so am good to go!

I have decided to keep a record of the process this time. From first draft to production, providing I have enough to say on the matter.

If no-one reads it, then it’s a useful tool for me to look back on. If they do, it might (I hope) be an interesting insight.

I’ll be as honest as I can – there will no doubt be days when I decide I am a talentless imbecile and days when I think it might, possibly, be ok maybe (the highest praise I am likely to afford myself). One single day might encompass both – it’s a very up-and-down thing, I find.

Right then. That’s enough preamble. I have a play to write.

Wish me luck …

Other times – and much more rarely, unfortunately – the somethings roll after each other one after another. I’m not going to say ‘like buses’ because in my experience, you wait ages and then your bus actually arrives or a different one does, rather than the fabled ‘three come along at once’ scenario.

Anyway.

June has been a good month. I like June. It has seen me have a different something on every week …

Blood & Money

Maggie & Mary

Come To Where I’m From

Can Cause Death

So, it’s been 4 plays in 4 theatres in 3 cities across 2 countries, with 6 actors (plus me). And it’s been sunny, although I can’t take credit for that.

Not too shabby really. Yey me!

A word to July, August, etc – don’t let June be an anomaly. Please. Cos that would be rubbish.

(Q) What do you get when you ask a writer (me) to pen a monologue about his/her (my) home town?

(A) Nothing.

Not at first, anyway.

Back in April I was asked to be one of the writer’s for the Newcastle-leg of ‘Come To Where I’m From’, a project dreamt up by Paines Plough to launch their new artistic-directorship. 61 playwrights across 14 cities asked to write a short play about his/her home town, the place that shaped them.

I was over the moon to be asked. I may have even done a little dance. Paines Plough. Like, the Paines blinkin’ Plough. I had to make this good.

But. You may have noticed amongst these pages a little thing called Blood & Money @ the Prague Fringe Festival. As writer, co-producer, publicity person, stage manager, dogsbody, et al this project took up a considerable amount of time. Before I knew it, it was the last week of May, I was in Prague and I hadn’t written a word for CTWIF. I hadn’t even written the title with a blank page dangling optimistically underneath. But when you’re busy and abroad it is very easy to think you will never be at home again. So really, nothing to worry about.

Cut to: 8am on Monday 7 June. I got back to Blighty at 10pm the previous night. I wake up with a start. I appear to be experiencing a cold sweat of fear. But why? Prague is over, we lived to tell the tale, it’s all good. Oh. I remember now. That’s why. 13 days until CTWIF. I am in serious trouble.

I react as any sane person would do. By doing nothing.

Cut to: 6am on Tuesday 8 June. Bollocks. Inexplicably a play about Newcastle does not appear to have written itself. I set to work. About time.

I write a first draft by the end of the day. It is awful. I eat biscuits and worry. Because I have not mentioned the extra element in play here. The horror that is keeping me awake at night. I can’t just rush off some substandard piece of fluff to palm off on an actor and hope they can work their professionally trained magic on it. Why not? Well, a) I have higher standards and more self-respect than that and b) I AM the actor. Paines Plough added a little kicker in to the agreement – the writer must perform his/her own work. When I had two months then that was fine – scary but fine. After all, I’d have it all polished and ready no problem. I have two weeks.

I eat another biscuit and get on with the re-write. I am too scared to send it to Paines Plough in case they are so horrified they rescind the commission, so send it to my Agent for reassurance. She rings me and tells me it’s not awful, it’s good. I am pleased. Then I remember she might be lying. I finish the biscuits and re-write the re-write.

Some time later. I have managed to come up with a fifteen minute monologue I am not ashamed of. I pluck up the courage to send it as a draft to Paines Plough, and co-Artistic Director George Perrin says he “adores it”. I also send it to Gez at Live. He says it’s “fine”. I resolve that I like George better. And do another re-write.

The day of reckoning – Saturday 19 June. No more re-writes. AD’s James Grieve and George meet with the ‘actors’ at Live Theatre at 5pm. It’s me, Dick Curran, Tracey Whitwell and Michael Chaplin. We are going to read the plays on the stage. One rehearsal. It’s in the main auditorium at Live Theatre – a lone chair sits on the stage in spotlight. G.U.L.P. We read. It is fascinating. With those five words – ‘Come To Where I’m From’ – and that simple brief of ‘write about your home town’ we have each come up with something totally different. Tracey’s spans from her childhood to the present day; Dick has chosen to create a character piece set at Bede’s World in Jarrow and Michael takes us on a journey along the river. And me. Well. I decided to pare mine right down, right down to the basics of my actual ‘home’. My house. My Agent described it as “miserable and funny”. Rather like me, then. I hope the audience will like it.

7.30pm finally arrives. I have had two halves of lager and a glass of champagne. Idiot. Overexcitement, terror and alcohol don’t mix. Fortunately when I see the size of the audience (a lot more than the one man and his dog I was hoping for) and that chair alone on the stage, any giddiness evaporates in to stone cold fear. Tracey gets proceedings off to a great start, then Dick entertains, then … me. The walk from the stairs to that chair seemed to take an eternity. But. I did it. And the crowd seemed to like it. They laughed, no one booed me and I didn’t trip over – I can’t ask for much more! About half way through I relaxed and realised I was enjoying myself up there. Before I know it, it’s over. I’m back at my table and Michael is delivering the final piece.

So. There we are. It was fun. Sort of. It was scary. Very. It was an honour to be a part of. Absolutely.

Good luck to the 44 writers still to perform (the next event is today in fact, in Birmingham). And good work to the 13 writers who came before us in Liverpool, Sheffield and Ipswich. I hope they enjoy(ed) the experience as much as I did … and I mean that in a good way!