I'm going to tell you some stuff about my writing that may or may not be of interest

So I'm writing some stuff again, which is Good News.

To get started again, I had to give up on some stuff. Namely, this sort-of play I wrote that was aimless and directionless and storyless. Trouble was, I fell in love with some of my clever lines, and forgot to get on with the business of story and dramatic tension and all that stuff. Ahem.

(Yes, rubbish I know, but it was my first attempt at this sort-a thing).

So, there we are.

I do have some other things on the go:

I have a couple of episodes of a sitcom - which, as I've blogged about before, made it through to the finals of the Sitcom Trials no less. Not that I'm boasting. Oh no, hang on, I am boasting. Sorry about that. Anyway, that's kind of in limbo, so I should do something with it but not entirely sure what.

(I normally Know What To Do with these things, and am quite driven and ambitious and get-ahead, but I'm not with this, and I think it's because I loved writing it so much I can't quite bring myself to ruin it with misplaced attempts at Trying To Make It. It's complicated.)

I have a new project, which is something I've been thinking about for a while. It's a play, it's set in an office, it's based on a true event, and it's just starting to emerge. (It's a good sign when the characters turn up, properly turn up that is, and start being arsey and not quite how you first thought. Mind you, I'm all of 5 pages in, so there is some considerable distance left to run.)

And I have an idea for another comedy, if I feel like venturing into the competitive world of the Sitcom Trials again next year. All my comedy ideas are a bit high concept. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. I should probably try and write about two people on a sofa and keep it simple, but no, that's not where it all leads me.

Oh, and I have the not inconsiderable demands of a day job too, so this is all going on in my so-called spare time.

So now you know.

oh well never mind bye

I'm an idiot hole. I went to see a great new play recently, and I forgot to blog about it until after the run had finished, which is to say now.

Oh well never mind bye by Steven Lally takes the Stockwell shootings as a starting point, but is really about the state of modern journalism (not great, being the verdict) and the vested interests that shape news coverage and its supposed impartiality.

It manages to be an intelligent, thought-provoking piece that tackles the big topics, without ever feeling worthy. The conclusion is quietly devastating. And I loved the Union theatre, where it was well staged in the round.

So anyway, you can't go and see it because it's finished, but - y'know, for info - it was excellent.

everything's going jackanory

So I'm watching Blur at Glasto on the telly, and they are very ace. And in addition to being ace, the whole thing is kind of transporting me back to the mid-90s and it's all a bit weird.

I had a look through some old diaries the other day. I tend to remember the good bits of being a teenager. It was quite instructive to remind myself how gruesome and painful it all was. For every 'This is a Low' there was a 'Country House', if you will.

But when I remember the olden days of the 90s, I remember it in vivid colours. I remember feeling very, very alive.

And there was this point, later on, when everything went crappy for a while. There were some very dark days in Peterborough, when everything was grey and monochrome and dead.

(I fucking hate Peterborough. If I ever write a play and I want a metaphor for something very shit and depressing and deathly I will call it Peterborough. I could say 'no offence, Peterborough!' here, but I think I do mean some offence.)

And thankfully, living in London has kind of helped to regain the colour. Some of the colour. And yes, I have less energy than I did when I was a youngster, but I am also now much less reliant on snakebite during my leisure time.

I don't know what my point is here. I'm not sure I have one.

I'm writing again, a couple of pages at a time. Trying to remind myself that it doesn't matter about being good - not in the first draft - it just matters to do something. Not very profound I know. Still true.

Good God, are they really playing Country House? Yes. They are. Yikes.

alco-booze

Earlier this year, I decided to give up the booze for a while. This was for various reasons, but in short the hangovers were getting worse and worse, and the alcofrolics were getting less and less entertaining.

I imagined leaping out of bed with boundless energy, enjoying instantly fabulous health, and eliminating all those idiotic things I say and do whilst under the affluence of incohol. Not to mention getting up to do charity work with orphans before breakfast, running the odd half-marathon of a weekend, that kind-a thing.

Obviously, this has not happened.

Unfortunately, it turns out that alcohol is not the primary cause of saying idiotic things in social situations. The primary cause of that is me, plus nervousness, plus people. Which covers most going out scenarios.

Alcohol is also not the reason I'm shit at getting up on time. Or the cause of staying in bed till midday of a weekend. I can do that just fine on my own, thanks I think, to the excellent sleeping genes I've inherited from the Irish side of my family. (Who are champion sleepers. Honestly, Olympians.)

Alcohol is not the thing that stops me getting up and doing all those London things I mean to do, but instead get as far as the local coffee shop for papers perusal. That's just laziness.

So, what is different?

Um.

Well. It's nice not to have hangovers. (I found myself getting nostalgic for hangovers the other day. Weird weird weird ness.)

And it's nice to know, I suppose, that if something fuckwit comes out of my mouth it's entirely on my account, and not the fault of the Malbec I've been inhaling for the evening. Just for information.

And, ok, I don't have boundless energy - who does? But more than before.

I realise I'm not selling the whole giving up alcohol thing. But four months in, I'm aiming to do it a while longer, and hoping that at some point I will feel unbearably, smugly healthy. (A friend who gave up the booze for two years has assured me the benefits are cumulative, rather than instant.)

Till then, on with the substition of alcohol with other vices!

(Mainly coffee, sadly. Dammit, why aren't I better at vices?)

(Note to self: work on more interesting vices. Maybe develop a crack habit. That's well renowned for renewing artistic vigour. I think. )

Open mic

I wandered past Tate Modern recently, and there was an open mic thing going as part of some kind of art installation/performance type thing. It was very nice:

A group of Egyptian tourists got up and did some dancing.
A cool New York hipster did some very nice singing (to some awful sub-Alanis Morrisette song, but you know, excellent voice).

I stood by the side for half an hour - genuinely, half an hour - listening to songs on my ipod and trying to work out if I dared to get up and sing.

I really, really wanted to.

There was a moment when there was hardly anyone around, and the compere was entreating people to come up and bring their ipods and perform in some way. And there was this golden opportunity to get up and sing some obscure Broken Family Band song and it would be this really brave, interesting thing to do.

I paced. I listened, again, to various songs to see how caterwaulingly bad it could be if I tried to sing. I paced a bit more. I got within about 10 metres of the stage.

And... I didn't do it. I walked away. So the tourists stolling by the Tate Modern were spared from my delusions of musical ability. Which is probably for the best.

Now I'm going to do an awful tenuous link to writing (bear with me):

I keep thinking about writing and not. I keep thinking what's the point of writing something if it's not going to be good? And so, I don't write. I sit around, not writing. And it's all a bit depressing.

Never mind, eh.

staycation

I am super double skint.

So in the spirit of credit crunch chic (ha!), I am enjoying a holiday at home in good old London town. Here is a list of some things I thought I could do:

• Visit art galleries/museums and be very inspired, and probably finish up trying to look intellectual over coffee and cake
• Go to yoga every day (I haven't been to yoga for about 6 months, so I don't know who I was kidding by putting this down.)
  
• Catch up on all the films/boxsets I own and never watch because I'm too busy watching Friends for the 6th time (seriously, I don't know what is wrong with me. I'm not proud.)
• Do an ambitiously long river walk
• Read an improving book or three in the sun.
• Bake a cake and related domestic goddess nonsense.
  

All sounds lovely, doesn't it? This is how day one shaped up:

Get up really late.
Think about going to the gym. Decide against it.
Lounge about for a bit. Head out of the house.
Decide I need a Project for the day. Buy dye for my curtains.
Come home.
Put curtains and dye in machine. Realise machine has stopped working mid-cycle. Spend several hours alternately panicking that my landlady is going to go apeshit about this and trying different programs to get it to work.
Google the fault and decide to try to fix myself.
Attempt the unblock filter, whilst holding up washing machine tilted at an angle as gallons of lilac water swooshes out onto the kitchen floor - my baking tray wedged ineffectually below to try and catch some of it. It doesn't.
Clear up related mess, and run the washing machine again (which I have to do so it cleans the dye out of the machine and can be used again.)
Accidentally put on the two-and-a-half-hour programme, which means the spin cycle is still going at 1.30am as I try and fail to get to sleep.

The good news is the curtains are now a lovely shade of lilac, as intended.
The bad news is my week has signally failed to get any more exciting than this.

Next time, I'm putting some big fuck-off holiday to the Maldives on the credit card and being done with it.

Displacement activity

Here are a selection of things I've been doing lately instead of writing:

• Watching episodes of Friends I've seen at least 4 times before. (Honestly. This is tragic behaviour. I just don't have the energy to watch good stuff sometimes.)
• Drinking coffee. (I drink a ludicrous amount of coffee, in the frankly delusional hope it will give me the energy and momentum to write loads of Exciting and Amazing stuff. It doesn't).
• Looking with mild despair at the last few boxes of god-knows-what that I didn't feel able to throw out before I moved but have no actual idea what to do with.
• Reading really rubbish magazines that make me feel a bit dirty for caring about the weight fluctuations/relationship ups and downs of very minor celebrities. And yet... really quite enjoying them. (Sorry.)
  
• Looking at holidays and wondering how/if/when I'll ever be able to afford them. And wondering if my camping tolerance threshold will ever lower enough to consider it as a credit crunch alternative to a proper holiday. And mainly concluding, no, not in this lifetime.
  

As you can tell, these are all immensely useful and rewarding activities to enjoy during the bits of my life I'm not doing my real, proper job. But, y'know, it would be really nice to get writing again.

Soon.