Rehearsal

I sat in on my first ever proper rehearsal for something I've written tonight. It was very exciting. There were proper actorly things going on about motivation, and backstories and all sorts. I felt a bit unsure of my role, to be honest. I mainly sat there, nodding wisely whenever the actors said anything about their characters, which was mostly what I had in mind, with occasional flights of fancy on their part. This is fine, to be fair. The important stuff is in the script. I'm quite happy for others to fill in the gaps. That kind of feels like the point.

Sometimes they asked me things about the setting, and I had to admit that I hadn't fully defined it. Afterwards I thought I should have said something clever about it being deliberately vague in order to represent the essential homogenity of modern workplace. I didn't think of it in the moment though, I just gibbered a bit and looked embarrassed. This is why I'm a writer, not an actor.

Actors intimidate me slightly, if truth be told. They're often very funny and entertaining and have big expressive personalities which I sort of envy and admire. I'd like to think that I retain an air of mystique or some such. In fact I often just feel awkward and uninteresting in comparison. The funny stuff goes in the scripts. (I hope).

This time next week it will all be over. I'm cautiously optimistic. I've had a few things put on now, so I'm less willing to judge from the first readthrough. It will depend on how things develop at rehearsals (I won't be going to them all). And it will depend on the venue and the audience on the night. This is what makes it scary. This is what makes it so flipping EXCITING...

Hurrah!

Not one, not two but three productions in the offing! By which I mean one fully staged, and two rehearsed readings of short scripts I have written...

'Tis amazing, and very gratifying, and exactly like that bus metaphor (simile?) which it would be embarrassingly cliched to use, thinking of myself as a writer as I do...

(I didn't experience the truth of the bus metaphor till I moved to London. In other parts of Britain, the scenario would be, 'you wait ages for a bus to come along, but it doesn't ever arrive, because of cuts to the service due to deregulation, privatisation etc)

Not sure how I've made this mainly about buses, but anyway, the Thailand opus and the scary attempt at writing something not a comedy are both getting outings and for this I am glad.

More soon, sleep beckons...

Arts funding cuts: almost certainly a genuine document about them

Memo - Strictly confidential

From: Conservative Press and PR office To: Jeremy Hunt, Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Hi Jeremy,

As you may be aware, we recently had our blue-sky-thinking-outside-the-box away day. Cuts in arts funding haven’t gone down very well and the deptartment isn't very popular at the moment. So we put our best brains onto it (Tabitha and George the intern), and here’s our thoughts on how to sell the cuts as a positive force for good.

The key is to focus on innovation. Whenever people talk about cuts, gently remind them that artists thrive in difficult economic times. Where they say ‘disastrous loss of funding’, we say ‘opportunity to rebrand and repurpose.’ Here’s some stuff we brainstormed – think you’ll agree it's dynamite.

Theatre companies
Lots of opportunities here.

Verbatim: don’t bother with a writer.
Site specific: hold your show outside to cut down on rent, bills etc.
Community-based: get local people to act for free.

Fiction
People have very short attention spans these days, so instead of novels, why not just write a blog? Or set up a twitter account? If you must write something longer, why not just print out and hand round photocopies at local library.

Poetry
Haikus in, epic poetry out. Will save significantly on print and publishing costs.

Film
Filmmakers: just source your stuff off Youtube. Honestly, there is nothing on there that doesn’t already exist. Or else film it on your iPhone. They’re very advanced these days.

Blue sky thinking action point: can we get BBC to take lead and film next series of Sherlock entirely on iPhone?

Music
Apparently, ‘playing the spoons’ was big in the 50s. Can we encourage a revival? Spoons significantly cheaper than guitar/synthesiser-based music. Have sounded out Scouting for Girls people as possible early adopters. Cautiously optimistic.

Also, remind people of the Smiths

We did a kind of step-by-step chart for this, which might be helpful

People still seem to like the Smiths.
The Smiths made their music in the 80s.
The Conservatives were in power in the 80s.
(this is the clever bit!)
We can take full credit for providing the vibrant cultural environment that allowed this kind of music to thrive. We did it in then, and we’ll do it again!

Blue sky thinking action point: could we get ‘mass unemployment = great music’ to work as a slogan?

Multimedia
Gently remind artists that twitter and facebook are free. No reason why all marketing activities can’t be done on there.

You might want to run with one of these the next time they use your name as rhyming slang again. LOL!

Best,
Your PR gurus

P.s. When some addled hippy demands to know why we’re no longer funding their innovative parsnip sculptures, simply say: ‘Well at least we’re not taking the country to illegal war!’ (Checked this with the Foreign Office, no imminent plans to invade Iran, so you’re good to go for next few months at least.)

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.