Last Tuesday I bought two new A5 notebooks from the stationer's. I always feel a sense of hope when I buy a notebook, and I often begin a new one before I've finished the old one.
The thinner of the two is going to be used for writing practice, as propounded by Natalie Goldberg in Writing down the bones ( http://www.nataliegoldberg.com ). I will write, on the tube to work, about a subject which I've set myself, i.e.; Richmond Park, Alan Brown's mum, etc. And at the end of the session, as the train pulls in to the platform, I will jot down tomorrow's subject on the back page. In time to come, these timed pieces might turn out to be seeds for future projects. But just writing them, losing yourself in the writing, is wonderful. They are not for anyody else to read. You write them as quickly as possible, automatically if you can, without any thought for grammar, spelling, margins, to bypass your inner critic.
The fatter of the two notebooks...is for my new project. Which might lead you to conclude that I've finished the on-act stage play I've been telling you about. I haven't. I've written about nine tenths of it. But I felt bogged down.
I'm telling myself that I've finished the first draft. I've begun to type it up. I've promised my writing group that I will bring something in to read on 8th March. What I'm hoping is that, when I've got some feedback it will embolden me to start a second draft.
Have you ever seen the film Speed ? There's a bomb on a bus which will explode if the bus dips under 30 miles per hour. The authorities divert the bus onto a new, empty motorway, but they discover that there's a gap in the middle of a flyover. Sandra Bullock, who is at the wheel, has no choice but to put her foot down and hope that the bus will clear the gap.
That's how I fee typing up this stage play. As I get closer and closer to the last thing I wrote, I know that there's a piece missing before the curtain line.
I'm telling myself that by typing up the play, I am working on it. But it feels more like stalling.
Meanwhile, I've begun making notes on this brand new project, the one I'm going to get right first time. As you may recall, I got the idea for this story from Twelfth Night ; and I'm thinking of it as The Twelfth Night project until I can think of a proper title.
The premise of the story is this :
Heroine falls in love with a married man whose wife has just thrown him out. Wife discovered that Married Man had had an affair (with a third, unrelated woman who doesn't appear in this story). Married Man is desperate to save his marriage ; so Heroine sets out to help him.
So far, I've been jotting down the ideas for this project that I've already had. Such as :
* Heroine is Married Man's boss
* Heroine is digusted by Married Man's conduct
* Heroine befriends Wife. Married Man discovers this, and asks Heroine to persuade Wife to take him back.
These notes have given me a great sense of momentum. After weeks of getting nowhere with a project, I now feel exhilarated.
But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And at some point, I will go back to my stage play and write a second draft, because you can't keep running away.
Monday 22 February 2010
Sunday 14 February 2010
Scratching the surface
Yesterday, I wrote dialogue. Actual dialogue. After a gap of one, maybe two weeks I was writing the text of my play. I can't tell you how absurdly, ridiculously grateful I felt to be telling my story again. And as I began writing, I felt like crying. My characters were arguing with each other, I felt their pain, I felt tears coming to my eyes.
I was in a cafe, at the time, which could have been embarrassing. I was on a tea break, across the road from my workplace, and such was my concentration that I was nearly late getting back.
The tears weren't because I thought my writing was so good but because I had lost my ego, temporarily. My characters had taken me over. That might sound creepy, but actually that's the reason I write : to try and lose myself. And I don't think I'm alone in that. John Braine ( I keep quoting him, but I find his How to write a novel more insightful all the time) says that a writer must try to lose himself.
I'm now in an odd position. I'm thinking of the first draft as finished, even though strictly speaking there are still a few lines to go. I've worked out the very last line of the play, which Jackie says to Sue as they exit the stage. (The line is : "Here, Mum : you and Dad can have omlettes tonight." It's not meant to be profound. Sue had bought a box of eggs with the idea of throwing them at Camilla Parker-Bowles. Jackie had found out about it, and crushed the eggs in order to stop her. The line is a joke, something to bring mother and daughter together again after a fierce argument, and hopefully to make the audience smile). But there's still a gap which needs to be filled before we get to that last line.
I'm itching to put this stage play away and get on with my next project. I promised the teacher of my writing class that I would bring it in on March 8th. And I've begun typing it up ( so far, I've been writing it longhand, in a notebook). The idea was, as I reached the last written line in my notebook and typed it up, I would think of a couple of lines to fill the gap between it and the omlettes line.
What I hadn't reckoned on was my characters coming deeper into focus. I'm beginning to understand them better, and I feel actually like I'm giving them short shrift. The physical stage business, the two women struggling with a box of eggs, might be over, but there is still a verbal argument to settle. Issues have come up which need to be properly examined. I have been moving Jackie and Sue about the stage like puppets, except they haven't stayed puppets. Like Pinnochio, they've become real. And I can't just have them leaving the stage with a glib joke. There's more work to be done.
There's a richer, deeper play here, if only I can be bothered to write it. Which is ironic because, when I embarked on this project, I told myself that I'd finish it quickly. It was only a one act stage play, a self-contained scene, it only had to last half an hour. It didn't need a plot. William Trevor - the finest short story writer I've ever come across - once said that a short story is closer to a poem than a novel ; and he went on to say : "A novel needs a plot. A short story needs a point." And I thought that this stage play would be the drama equivalent of a short story. Two characters come on, they argue, at least one of them is changed by the encounter, they exit.
Now I realize that I've only scratched the surface.I'm confronted with my own laziness. The character of Jackie, especially, is sketchy. She's been under Sue's thumb all her life. Now she needs to claim some independence. In fact the Camilla Parker-Bowles/eggs business might become less relevant, simply a device to get the two of them arguing.
The next project will simply have to wait.
I was in a cafe, at the time, which could have been embarrassing. I was on a tea break, across the road from my workplace, and such was my concentration that I was nearly late getting back.
The tears weren't because I thought my writing was so good but because I had lost my ego, temporarily. My characters had taken me over. That might sound creepy, but actually that's the reason I write : to try and lose myself. And I don't think I'm alone in that. John Braine ( I keep quoting him, but I find his How to write a novel more insightful all the time) says that a writer must try to lose himself.
I'm now in an odd position. I'm thinking of the first draft as finished, even though strictly speaking there are still a few lines to go. I've worked out the very last line of the play, which Jackie says to Sue as they exit the stage. (The line is : "Here, Mum : you and Dad can have omlettes tonight." It's not meant to be profound. Sue had bought a box of eggs with the idea of throwing them at Camilla Parker-Bowles. Jackie had found out about it, and crushed the eggs in order to stop her. The line is a joke, something to bring mother and daughter together again after a fierce argument, and hopefully to make the audience smile). But there's still a gap which needs to be filled before we get to that last line.
I'm itching to put this stage play away and get on with my next project. I promised the teacher of my writing class that I would bring it in on March 8th. And I've begun typing it up ( so far, I've been writing it longhand, in a notebook). The idea was, as I reached the last written line in my notebook and typed it up, I would think of a couple of lines to fill the gap between it and the omlettes line.
What I hadn't reckoned on was my characters coming deeper into focus. I'm beginning to understand them better, and I feel actually like I'm giving them short shrift. The physical stage business, the two women struggling with a box of eggs, might be over, but there is still a verbal argument to settle. Issues have come up which need to be properly examined. I have been moving Jackie and Sue about the stage like puppets, except they haven't stayed puppets. Like Pinnochio, they've become real. And I can't just have them leaving the stage with a glib joke. There's more work to be done.
There's a richer, deeper play here, if only I can be bothered to write it. Which is ironic because, when I embarked on this project, I told myself that I'd finish it quickly. It was only a one act stage play, a self-contained scene, it only had to last half an hour. It didn't need a plot. William Trevor - the finest short story writer I've ever come across - once said that a short story is closer to a poem than a novel ; and he went on to say : "A novel needs a plot. A short story needs a point." And I thought that this stage play would be the drama equivalent of a short story. Two characters come on, they argue, at least one of them is changed by the encounter, they exit.
Now I realize that I've only scratched the surface.I'm confronted with my own laziness. The character of Jackie, especially, is sketchy. She's been under Sue's thumb all her life. Now she needs to claim some independence. In fact the Camilla Parker-Bowles/eggs business might become less relevant, simply a device to get the two of them arguing.
The next project will simply have to wait.
Monday 8 February 2010
Manual landing
Yesterday, I was very good. I stopped myself buying a creative writing manual. My wife and I were browsing around the shops. We'd made up our argument. I felt jubilant. On top of the world. We were in a bookshop. Probably, unconsciously, I'd asked to look in there because I was determined to buy a book, any book, to celebrate the fact that we were talking again. And after a brief preamble amongst the self-help books, I decided that I was only putting off the ineveitable, and went over to the reference section (for some reason I've never worked out, bookshops always seem to place creative writing manuals next to books about making a wedding speech).
This item was actually a box set. Not just a book, but a pack of cards too. And the introduction to this book was by Natalie Goldberg, the author of Writing Down The Bones and other terrific books about writing ( http://www.nataliegoldberg.com/ ). A woman I trust. I sneaked a look at the introduction, and Natalie Goldberg praised this book to the skies. I was shaking, sweating. I wanted to buy this book. This book was going to change my life. This book was going to show me where I've been going wrong, and launch me onto the road to fame and success.
But then I heard a little voice in my head say : "You don't need another creative writing manual." Because the truth is, I've read hundreds over the years. More, in fact, than novels, which I'm ashamed about. I've borrowed some from public libraries, but too often I've bought them.
I know why. When I first decided I wanted to be a writer - this was at the age of 12 or 13 - I only had to read a creative writing manual and I would get an idea. Sometimes, in fact, I would finish a whole script before I'd reached the end. And I began to think that it was the book itself which had given me the idea.
It was the same with school teachers. For some reason, I would write reams and reams during term-time. Although you couldn't admit this to your classmates, I used to look forward to the English homework when we would be told to write a story with the title "A stitch in time". But during the school holidays, when I desperately wanted to write, and had plenty of time to do it, I had no ideas. Or so I thought.
When I was about 16, I joined a playwrights' workshop which was attached to a fringe theatre. It was led by a wonderful director, Richard Shannon, who also wrote plays himself. Same problem again : when the worshops were running, I had idea after idea. When it took a break, and I wasn't seeing Richard, my ideas dried up.
To this day, I tend to get a lot of ideas around September, and I wonder if it's some hangover from the beginning of the school term. Some people hate the end of summer, but I actually thrive at the beginning of winter.
After I first got married, I became desperate for story ideas. They were going to lead me to writing a bestseller, which was going to get me out of my dead-end job. Money was tight, the usual end-of-honeymoon snags started biting, and I became more and more desperate to find something. Writing manuals seemed the only solution.
So I read them, hundreds of them. I borrowed some from public libraries, but too many I bought from shops. And bought during moments of tension, moments when I was depressed. When a project was going well, I used to attribute it to the manual I was reading. It seemed to act as a pep-talk. And yet, if I read the manual when things weren't going well, I couldn't understand it. It worked last time, didn't it?
I even read Writing Down The Bones at this time, but gave it up in frustration. It wasn't working quickly enough. All that writing practice - that was for amateurs. Today, I think every writer can benefit from writing practice. It lays down seeds for future projects. But back then, I didn't want seeds, I wanted fully-grown plants grown in the hothouse. The pupil wasn't ready.
When my marriage started to get better, I relaxed more. And then the ideas came. Long overdue, long needed. During this time, I read some wonderful creative writing manuals. But most importantly, I discovered that they don't really work until after you get your idea. There is often, in these books, a chapter on establishing a good work rate, a minimum number of words you write every day. And that's good once you've got an idea (an idea which excites you, that is). But if you're still searching, then those manuals just demoralize you. You are not a factory.
What happened on Sunday, in the bookshop, was this : I told myself no. You don't need any more creative writing manuals. Everything about the craft, you know already. And I walked on, with a sense of triumph.
Although before I left (because I was dying to buy a book of some kind) I went back to Personal Development and picked up Susan Jeffers' Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway. Well, I'd worn out the other copy.
This item was actually a box set. Not just a book, but a pack of cards too. And the introduction to this book was by Natalie Goldberg, the author of Writing Down The Bones and other terrific books about writing ( http://www.nataliegoldberg.com/ ). A woman I trust. I sneaked a look at the introduction, and Natalie Goldberg praised this book to the skies. I was shaking, sweating. I wanted to buy this book. This book was going to change my life. This book was going to show me where I've been going wrong, and launch me onto the road to fame and success.
But then I heard a little voice in my head say : "You don't need another creative writing manual." Because the truth is, I've read hundreds over the years. More, in fact, than novels, which I'm ashamed about. I've borrowed some from public libraries, but too often I've bought them.
I know why. When I first decided I wanted to be a writer - this was at the age of 12 or 13 - I only had to read a creative writing manual and I would get an idea. Sometimes, in fact, I would finish a whole script before I'd reached the end. And I began to think that it was the book itself which had given me the idea.
It was the same with school teachers. For some reason, I would write reams and reams during term-time. Although you couldn't admit this to your classmates, I used to look forward to the English homework when we would be told to write a story with the title "A stitch in time". But during the school holidays, when I desperately wanted to write, and had plenty of time to do it, I had no ideas. Or so I thought.
When I was about 16, I joined a playwrights' workshop which was attached to a fringe theatre. It was led by a wonderful director, Richard Shannon, who also wrote plays himself. Same problem again : when the worshops were running, I had idea after idea. When it took a break, and I wasn't seeing Richard, my ideas dried up.
To this day, I tend to get a lot of ideas around September, and I wonder if it's some hangover from the beginning of the school term. Some people hate the end of summer, but I actually thrive at the beginning of winter.
After I first got married, I became desperate for story ideas. They were going to lead me to writing a bestseller, which was going to get me out of my dead-end job. Money was tight, the usual end-of-honeymoon snags started biting, and I became more and more desperate to find something. Writing manuals seemed the only solution.
So I read them, hundreds of them. I borrowed some from public libraries, but too many I bought from shops. And bought during moments of tension, moments when I was depressed. When a project was going well, I used to attribute it to the manual I was reading. It seemed to act as a pep-talk. And yet, if I read the manual when things weren't going well, I couldn't understand it. It worked last time, didn't it?
I even read Writing Down The Bones at this time, but gave it up in frustration. It wasn't working quickly enough. All that writing practice - that was for amateurs. Today, I think every writer can benefit from writing practice. It lays down seeds for future projects. But back then, I didn't want seeds, I wanted fully-grown plants grown in the hothouse. The pupil wasn't ready.
When my marriage started to get better, I relaxed more. And then the ideas came. Long overdue, long needed. During this time, I read some wonderful creative writing manuals. But most importantly, I discovered that they don't really work until after you get your idea. There is often, in these books, a chapter on establishing a good work rate, a minimum number of words you write every day. And that's good once you've got an idea (an idea which excites you, that is). But if you're still searching, then those manuals just demoralize you. You are not a factory.
What happened on Sunday, in the bookshop, was this : I told myself no. You don't need any more creative writing manuals. Everything about the craft, you know already. And I walked on, with a sense of triumph.
Although before I left (because I was dying to buy a book of some kind) I went back to Personal Development and picked up Susan Jeffers' Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway. Well, I'd worn out the other copy.
Tuesday 2 February 2010
Melting ice
I got a fantastic boost from Sarah Landry's blog ( http://sarah-writerinmaking.blogspot.com/ ). Welcome to all new visitors to this blog. I hope you find it entertaining, and perhaps even useful.
I never realized how bad January is regarded before now. Growing up, January was always January. Alright, Christmas Day was gone, your birthday was a few months off and you had to go back to school. But still, going through a January was better than not going through it. There was that song, "January/Sick and tired, you've been hanging 'round me", but I always assumed that the songwriter just put those words in to rhyme.
Over the last couple of years, though, I've begun hearing people say "I'll be glad when this month's over." News stories have started cropping up about the most depressing day of the year (in January, of course). And it struck me that January 2009 also became a bit fraught on the domestic front.
Sarah's boost came to me at the beginning of February. And as soon as I read it, I felt like jumping for joy. As far as I'm concerned, that was the beginning of spring. And as with spring, there's still a bit of ice about, but it's thawing. There are buds in the ground, even if they haven't opened yet. The sun is peeping through the grey clouds.
And I began daydreaming again about my stage play. As I wandered about, memories of what I'd already written came back. Some of it was good. I began thinking of my lead character, Sue. Her marriage. I began to see her husband. Her motivation started becoming clearer.
I was on the verge of giving up this stage play and going onto another writing project. Somebody once said, in a creative writing manual ( I think it was John Braine, in How To Write A Novel) that if you have two ideas at the same time, you should choose one as if you were deciding between two dinner inviations, i.e.; you go for the one which seems the most exciting. And the advice is good. Writing is a bit like sex : you can't do it well unless you've got passion. And the other project (which I call my Twelfth Night project) was giving me the come-hither eyes, whereas my stage play seemed rather cool.
I haven't done a stroke of work on my stage play for about a week. When I see that Sarah Landry has clocked up 51,000 words (all the while doing a medical course) I feel guilty. But Sarah is an inspiration, too. So, this morning, I will open my notebook again. I can't promise to write one more sentence of the actual play. But I will think about it, and daydream about it, and see which ideas bud through.
2010 might not be so bad after all.
I never realized how bad January is regarded before now. Growing up, January was always January. Alright, Christmas Day was gone, your birthday was a few months off and you had to go back to school. But still, going through a January was better than not going through it. There was that song, "January/Sick and tired, you've been hanging 'round me", but I always assumed that the songwriter just put those words in to rhyme.
Over the last couple of years, though, I've begun hearing people say "I'll be glad when this month's over." News stories have started cropping up about the most depressing day of the year (in January, of course). And it struck me that January 2009 also became a bit fraught on the domestic front.
Sarah's boost came to me at the beginning of February. And as soon as I read it, I felt like jumping for joy. As far as I'm concerned, that was the beginning of spring. And as with spring, there's still a bit of ice about, but it's thawing. There are buds in the ground, even if they haven't opened yet. The sun is peeping through the grey clouds.
And I began daydreaming again about my stage play. As I wandered about, memories of what I'd already written came back. Some of it was good. I began thinking of my lead character, Sue. Her marriage. I began to see her husband. Her motivation started becoming clearer.
I was on the verge of giving up this stage play and going onto another writing project. Somebody once said, in a creative writing manual ( I think it was John Braine, in How To Write A Novel) that if you have two ideas at the same time, you should choose one as if you were deciding between two dinner inviations, i.e.; you go for the one which seems the most exciting. And the advice is good. Writing is a bit like sex : you can't do it well unless you've got passion. And the other project (which I call my Twelfth Night project) was giving me the come-hither eyes, whereas my stage play seemed rather cool.
I haven't done a stroke of work on my stage play for about a week. When I see that Sarah Landry has clocked up 51,000 words (all the while doing a medical course) I feel guilty. But Sarah is an inspiration, too. So, this morning, I will open my notebook again. I can't promise to write one more sentence of the actual play. But I will think about it, and daydream about it, and see which ideas bud through.
2010 might not be so bad after all.
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