Park

There's a really nice park near where I used to live. It's a massive expanse of space, with a canal at the bottom, and an excellent cafe. I used to go jogging there. When I started out, I did 2 mins at a time, with about 5 mins walking inbetween. Eventually - very, very slowly - I got up to being able to run for 40 mins, or 5km. (The same thing, in case you're wondering. AKA incredibly slow. But still.)

I used to go to this park all the time. I walked round it with friends and put the world to rights. I pottered on my own and dreamed impossible dreams. I took a notebook and wrote.

I left my old house in a manner not of my choosing. And I've missed it for a really long time. So much so that I couldn't bring myself to go back to the area, even though it's really not that far from where I live now. I couldn't bring myself to go back to the park either. Because it reminded me of a time when I felt like anything was possible. And I haven't exactly felt that way for a little while.

I went back today. An impromptu visit on my bike. It was everything I remembered and more. I really enjoyed it. And it occured to me that it was in that very park that I wrote a little sketch that turned into my first ever script. The script got staged, remarkably enough. And I went on a writing course, and I kept writing and it felt really good.

I haven't wanted to write for the last few months. Not this blog, not anything. But I think maybe I can again.

This is a long way of saying that after the last few months hiatus I am, officially (ish) back.

And I will be writing things that are considerably less self-indulgent than this. I promise.

cold hard cash

I have very few rules about writing, but one of them has always been that I won't pay anyone to look at my script. Whether it's entries fees or script consultancies or whatever...

Until now.

I ummed and ahhed. But in the end I decided I would, with a heavy heart, pay a £10 fee to enter a competition.

The reasons are twofold, and I will elaborate.

1. Good, old-fashioned enthusiasm to get this script on somewhere. It's proper and it makes sense and I like it. (Which is why I've sent it to about 7 different things and am waiting to hear back on all of them.)

2. I know some people who run open submission showcases, and to be honest, they get sent a right load of old shit. Obviously, some good stuff in there. But there are a lot of people who dust off their script from the bottom drawer and send it in without bothering to look at the guidelines.

'You wanted romantic comedy? Well, this is more of an Estonian hitman revenge thriller, but I think with the right director, you could really find the laughs...'

Of course, I've never been guilty of this...

Oh no, wait. hang on. I actually have. Sort of.

Here's the thing: last year when this same showcase opened entries (for free) I got well carried away, and sent in two things, neither of which were in any way finished/ready. But they had, y'know, some good lines, and so I was hopeful. (I can do 'some good lines'. Storytelling remains a work in progress.)

So when this year's competition rolled around, I felt more kindly inclined. Since I'd sent my dear, misshapen misfits in last year, I thought I would pay the £10 in some kind of recompense.

(This is the kind of guilt-ridden thinking you get from being steeped in the dramatic narrative of sin and penance from birth to rational thinking age. Thanks Catholicism!)

Anyway, I've paid, and it's in, so the fuckers better pick it or I'm going round to kick some doors in.

a small selection of the stupid questions I'm pondering right now

Why am I so motivated by jealousy?
Like, when I see that a writer who took part in a showcase thing I did is having a short piece put on, I immediately do a trawl of everywhere I can think of to start getting some scripts sent out. I mean, it's great that it gives me a kick up the arse, but is that really what it takes? Am I really so uncharitable? (Yes, yes I am. It doesn't help, of course, that she wrote a very beautiful piece that was quite frankly better than mine.)

What on earth is going on in my head?
The last script I've written is weird and a bit dark. I re-read it last night and there was a point I just had to stop. It was TOO STRANGE. All this stuff comes straight out of my head, scarily enough.

It's a bit terrifying when I write things I had no idea I thought. I discovered a deep-seated aversion to homeopaths in one of the first things I ever wrote. I never even thought I had an opinion on the matter. I'm going to hope it's a good thing that this stuff comes out.

Why do I need constant praise and validation?
And this being the case, why do I persist in writing scripts, which have approximately a 97 per cent rejection rate?

How do I tell some bloke off the internet I don't want to see him again?
I find it deeply unnerving when people go all keen on me. And I have no idea how to tell them that I find them completely, irredemably unattractive. Not because they're horrible. Just because. God I'm rubbish at this.

Feel free to provide answers to any of the above.

anyone but Cameron

I really, really need to meet some Tories. People like my friend's flatmate, who has a signed photograph af Margaret Thatcher displayed pride of place, his best ever birthday present.

This is not because I have gone mental. It is because right now I only have political debate with people who agree with me.

It's good, I think, that I mix with like-minded people. That I live and work with people who are broadly similar in political terms. That the 57 people I follow on Twitter are all clearly on the left-wing side of the spectrum.

And yet... lots and lots of people in the country voted Tory on Thursday, and I want to meet them and have a conversation with them/shake them firmly and ask why oh why in a disappointed tone.

Hating the Tories is more than a default position. I grew up experiencing the worst of Thatcher. My home town was all but destroyed by their policies. I still feel slightly sick when I think of the wealth accrued by over-privileged, over-entitled grandees who thought it would be quite a laugh to dismantle industry, sell it off, bit by bit, to provide a massive profit for them and their mates.

And at this stage you might be thinking, well what about Labour? Their record hasn't exactly been great. They're very relaxed about people being filthy rich and avoiding their taxes.

Labour have been a disappointment. I don't doubt that there are people growing up who feel exactly as I feel about the Tories. On the Iraq War and the surveillence state and lots of other ways they got it wrong.

But I don't hate Labour in the way that I hate the Tories. I may be the only person in the country who doesn't hate Gordon Brown. I feel exasperated. I wanted more from them. But they don't make me feel sick to the stomach like David Cameron, who as far as I can tell has no discernible belief in anything except his entitlement to rule, and the god-given right for rich people to stay being rich.

I don't hate rich people, or people who went to public school. I just find it difficult when they don't realise that not everyone had the same opportunities that they did, that it's not a level playing field, that the place where you're born still determines far too much about your destiny in life.

I don't want people who've lived in a bubble of Eton and Oxbridge to be making the decisions that affect single mums and people on benefits and people who don't have aspirations because they don't realise they can.

In short, if and when the Lib Dems do their deal with these knob-ends, I will feel sad.

And I will need to find a way to hang out with some Tristans and Quentins and Camillas and Tabithas to indulge my need to argue.

Watch this space.

the latest work of genius. also, crap telly.

This is the typical cycle of my feelings towards any given script I write:

Stage 1: in which I am wildly enthused about my most recent scribblings. And decide that it is by far the best thing I've ever written.

Stage 2: doubt creeps in. It's good but...
Editing ensues. It's brilliant again! Stage 1 and 2 can take a little while.

Stage 3: It's bloody awful. Irredemable. Why did I ever think I could write. I'm an idiot.

(At this stage I pause and go away and do something else to forget about it all. I'd like to pretend that 'something else' is generally a highbrow cultural event, but more often than not its those Friends repeats on E4. Still! What's wrong with me? I have no idea.)

Stage 4: Revelation: the final piece slots into place, and I have a script that is - in my head at least - somewhere on the scale of not bad to quite good.

In case you're wondering, I'm somewhere between stages 3 and 4, so metaphorically speaking on the Friends repeats.

Something is definitely missing from my latest script. I just can't work out what.

One problem is that I feel like I'm beating people around the head to make my point. So it needs some nuance. And after months and months of writing short, sharp scenes, I've gone a bit mentile and decided to write a sustained piece over 15 minutes real time, which requires quite a lot of skill with pacing that I'm not sure I have yet. But for it to work at all, it has to work in this format.

Sigh.

Wonder what Ross and Rachel are up to.

My greatest work of fiction yet

I hate internet dating. It's soulless and heartless and effectively reduces romance to the status of shopping from Tesco.

Which is why I never have and I never will...

Oh no, hang on, I am. I am internet dating.

Why oh why oh why would I do that? Because I've yet to find an alternative. Let me rephrase that: I've yet to find an alternative that doesn't involve being horrifically drunk, and I gave up on that caper a little while ago.

Oh, but it'll just happen. This is what people say. Pah.

If you live in London, take a look next time you walk down the South Bank in nice weather, at the cafes and the benches. Tens of single women sitting winsomely on their own in cafes reading an interesting intelligent book and just waiting for an interesting intelligent other to engage them in conversation. To start off on a path that will end in something deeply romantic.

It doesn't happen, I bloody assure you. The South Bank isn't so much a side of the river as a graveyard for crushed dreams of romance, built on the lonely tears and misplaced optimism of women. The men, sensibly, are mainly down the pub.

So that's why I'm doing internet dating, and that's why I've written a stupid profile to try and show how, ahem, cool and amazing I am. Or, er, something. It's true, mainly, what I've written about myself. It's just selective. So watch this space.

Material, that's what I remind myself. As well as being my life, this is all material.

Pah, and thrice pah.

feedback

This is probably the nicest rejection email I've had to date:

Many thanks for your entry. We had over 200 entries and sorry to say your script wasn't selected for the final six. It did make it to a final shortlist of fifteen, however, and we thought it was an excellent piece of work...

Excellent work, eh? My best review ever, and it hasn't even been staged.

Producers of open script things take note: Be nice! Even if it's not true. Just pretend. Nothing wrong with some politeness to spare sensitive writerly feelings. OK?

I'm being a bit flippant. But a personalised email saying something nice genuinely does feel better than the usual half-hearted round robin seven months after the closing date/no response at all.

I did a playwriting course a couple of years and one of the tutors brought along some of his rejection letters. He had a lot of rejection letters, but is now wildly successful. So it just goes to show... something or other.