A middle-aged man's attempts to make his dream come true

This is about my attempts to break through writers' block, which I have been struggling with for the last twenty years or so. But I am not giving up. It has been my dream to earn a living from my pen since I was 13. The dream alters periodically - sometimes I want to write a novel, sometimes a stage play, a radio play, tv play, sitcom, etc. But always a fictional story.
When I was younger, I finished stuff all the time. I marvel now at how I did it. Whole, full-length plays I finished in months, sometimes weeks. It didn't matter what they were like - and some of them were dreadful.
People who don't write fiction might wonder why I bother. It's not as if there aren't great authors already, going all the way back to Homer. But I've had the urge to tell stories for as long as I can remember.
I don't know who you are. If you're just starting out, maybe you could learn from my mistakes, which have been considerable. If you're suffering from writers' block yourself, maybe you can take comfort from the fact that somebody is going through the same thing. And if you're a successful writer who's never suffered from writers' block, maybe you could have a good laugh at my expense.
Writing this makes me feel like Georges Simenon writing a novel in a glass cage, for passers-by to gaze at. But I'm hoping that, as I share my working notes, it will compel me to finish a project. And another, and another, until my work gets through.
Here goes...

Sunday 31 January 2010

Off the wagon

"A woman falls in love with a married man whose wife has just thrown him out. The wife discovered that he'd had an affair. The man is desperate to save his marriage ; so our heroine sets out to help him."
This is the basic idea for my next project. I've had it kicking around for ages. I got it whilst watching Twelfth Night (one thing I often do when I need a plot is to see/hear/read a Shakespeare play, and filch something from it).I've even described my idea as "Twelfth Night without the cross-dressing." I've put it to the back of my mind for various reasons. But recently, I read Cleaving, Julia Powell's follow-up to Julia and Julia (http://juliepowell.blogspot.com/) and it made me want to look at the issues of infidelity, trust, and marriages going wrong.
Cleaving wasn't an easy book to read. In it, Powell writes about an extra-marital affair she had, and it wasn't as genteel as Brief Encounter, either. When I heard about the book, I thought I might hate Julie Powell. I didn't. Although my heart went out to her husband, it went out to her as well. And I'm grateful to Cleaving for making me look at my Twelfth Night project again.
I've been telling myself that I'll start my Twelfth Night project just as soon as I've finished this one-act stage play. But I haven't done any work on my stage play for a few days, now ; and I've started to make notes about the Twelfth Night project. I feel like I'm being unfaithful to my stage play - the notes were even in the same notebook.
I've had another row with my wife. And again it seems like the end. And for some reason, I just couldn't face the stage play again. Why I should then look at a story about a marriage going wrong is a mystery to me.
But I don't want to give up on my stage play. For too long, I've been abandoning projects when the going has got heavy. And even though I don't feel this at the moment, I know that I'll never finish anything unless I stick with it.
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1 comment:

Me said...

It could be a very interesting point of view for a story! It's true that usually, we tend to hate those who've had extra-marrital affairs.

But if you're determined to finish the screeplay, finish it first and when you have ideas for the next project, add some storylines to it.

You can do it!

3 February 2010 at 08:58

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