On Monday, I got a piece of shirt cardboard, glossy white on both sides, and divided it into twenty squares using the spine of a hardback book as a straight edge. Each square represents a chapter in my novel.
I learned this particular technique from a book called How to write and sell a synopsis by Stella Whitelaw. You write in each square what you want in each chapter. So it could read something like this :
Chapter Seven : Letter arrives-shock-Tina rings her sisters-Arguments-Car journey to Knightsbridge (describe streets)-Tina finds hotel(describe)-Brian is sitting in the lobby.
Ever since I read Stella Whitelaw's book, I've been itching to try. In fact, I had three sheets of shirt cardboard ready and waiting. You can create your own codes (I'm using A/D for Another Day), and you can even use different coloured felt-tips for different things, i.e.; yellow = describe, blue = establish mood, etc. In fact, it was probably the idea of using different colours which appealed to me in the first place.
This chapter breakdown wasn't for my Twelfth Night project. I haven't given up on that idea ; but day after day, I kept thinking that the Twelfth Night project simply wasn't what I wanted to write. Not yet, anyway. It didn't feel ready. This depressed me at the time. The Twelfth Night project was at least an idea. Without an idea, I'd be starting from scratch. But in the end, I put it aside.
Instead, I began writing practice again, filling up an A5 spiral notebook with any old junk I could think of. I'd write a subject at the top of the page, but wouldn't necessarily stick to it. I've been doing writing practice on and off ever since I read about it in Natalie Goldberg's Writing down the bones. It becomes almost meditation. You get to the point where your unconscious mind takes over. That's where all the goodies are.
And I filled a whole notebook. From beginning to end. Normally, I'd leave at least a few pages blank, but this time I made it to the end. What I wrote may or may not become seeds for future projects. The main thing for me, this time, was to let my mind go blank.
I felt like I was in the wilderness (although one of the benefits of writing practice was that I did feel like I was storytelling). But then I began daydreaming about some previous ideas I'd already had. One of them was the Twelfth Night project. Another one was about an unemployed school-leaver. So I looked again at the latter.
I often get cold feet when I begin a project. With this one, I'd had an idea, jotted down a few notes about it, got fed up with planning, started writing the actual draft, got scared that I hadn't planned it enough and then abandoned it. But clearly the passion hadn't gone. I must have still cared about it. (This will probably happen with my Twelfth Night project, too). So I began jotting down more notes. And so far, I've been sailing.
I wasn't really ready for the shirt cardboard. I began filling in the squares. The prologue and chapter one were easy enough, because I'd actually written those. But chapter two was sketchier, and I definitely wasn't ready for chapter three. Still, the cardboard is ready to fill in as soon as I feel I know the story.
I made two attempts at the chapter breakdown, with two pieces of shirt cardboard. The first one I divided into thirty squares, for thirty chapters. But after a while, I began wondering whether I had enough story for that. I'm making it a rule of thumb that the unemployed hero should argue with, or lie to somebody in each chapter. This isn't going to be a thriller, the hero's life isn't in jeopardy, so I cannot fill the chapters with physical hazards. So there has to be human drama instead - characters trying to change other characters' minds.
I didn't have thirty arguments/lies. And then it occurred to me that perhaps this isn't going to be a full-length novel anyway, but a thinner teenage novel. Hence the second piece of shirt cardboard, divided into twenty squares.
If you're still reading this, if I haven't lost you with all this talk of shirt cardboard and abandoned projects, all I can say is : I feel happy. I feel like I'm getting somewhere. I get up in the mornings knowing what I have to do to move the project along, and I can't wait. I just hope the feeling lasts, at least until I'm writing the actual text again. Perhaps if I bought some coloured felt-tips...
Thursday 15 April 2010
Tuesday 6 April 2010
Word detox
Last week was meant to be my week of non-reading, something Julia Cameron recommends in her book The Artists' Way. She recommends you take them about once a month, although of late I've been taking them for a couple of weeks in the year.
For a whole week, you're meant to do without the written word, plus television, radio, the cinema and the theatre. You don't even read a newspaper. You can write, you can have long chats, you can listen to instrumental music, you can do anything providing it doesn't involve literature or rehearsed speech.
It sounds severe, but I've found it helpful over the years for thinking, daydreaming, plotting through a project or even coming up with a brand new idea. Unfortunately, I can't seem to do it as completely as Julia Cameron. For a start, my day job involves reading. Secondly, my wife is addicted to three soap operas and the news. One of the drawbacks of Julia Cameron's books, and Natalie Goldberg's too, excellent though they are, is that they seem to be written for people who live on their own. If you want to keep any relationship going then having a notebook and flashlight at the side of your bed, so that you can jot down ideas in the middle of the night, is problematic. I would need to get out of bed and go into the living room, to avoid a kick in the shins.
Then there's the Artist's Date. Once a week, Julia Cameron tells you, you take off by yourself to do something you want to do. I only seem to be able to manage these after rows, by which time the attraction for them has severely waned.
It's hard for me to resist putting on a DVD when I've got the television to myself, which usually means the 15 minutes or so at bedtimes whilst I wait for the bathroom. I've had to watch whole films in 10 or 15 minute chunks because I so seldom get the set to myself.
Last week, though, I was good, and resisted another chunk of Van Helsing. I've been itching to watch certain programmes, and it's been driving me mad. I discovered that my favourite cop show, The Sweeney, is can be viewed via computer. Ten episodes from 1974 which I can barely remember, all waiting. But because I'd committed myself to this wordless week, I had to stick with it.
And so I played instrumentals as I made and ate my breakfasts. Autobahn by Kraftwerk (I suppose, strictly speaking, there are words in that, but sinced they are in German, which I can't speak, they don't count) . On the trains home, via an ancient CD Player, some new agey thing ith lots of whale cries in the background.
I always feel self conscious listening to the CD player. For one thing, everybody around me is listening to IPods or whatever they are, and I feel like I'm carrying around a wind-up gramophone. But also because you are, in effect, making yourself voluntarily deaf. Or at least you feel caught between two worlds - one a mundane, crowded, hot, sweaty train compartment and the other a celestial paradise where harps plink away. I've nodded off a few times when I've been able to get a seat.
But it's beginning to pay off dividends. Ideas are coming to me. I'm getting to work on time, because I'm not waiting to the very end of that sitcom episode before I get up and get ready (I even watch the end credits). And strangely enough, I'm beginning to feel better, more energetic. I should do this more often.
For a whole week, you're meant to do without the written word, plus television, radio, the cinema and the theatre. You don't even read a newspaper. You can write, you can have long chats, you can listen to instrumental music, you can do anything providing it doesn't involve literature or rehearsed speech.
It sounds severe, but I've found it helpful over the years for thinking, daydreaming, plotting through a project or even coming up with a brand new idea. Unfortunately, I can't seem to do it as completely as Julia Cameron. For a start, my day job involves reading. Secondly, my wife is addicted to three soap operas and the news. One of the drawbacks of Julia Cameron's books, and Natalie Goldberg's too, excellent though they are, is that they seem to be written for people who live on their own. If you want to keep any relationship going then having a notebook and flashlight at the side of your bed, so that you can jot down ideas in the middle of the night, is problematic. I would need to get out of bed and go into the living room, to avoid a kick in the shins.
Then there's the Artist's Date. Once a week, Julia Cameron tells you, you take off by yourself to do something you want to do. I only seem to be able to manage these after rows, by which time the attraction for them has severely waned.
It's hard for me to resist putting on a DVD when I've got the television to myself, which usually means the 15 minutes or so at bedtimes whilst I wait for the bathroom. I've had to watch whole films in 10 or 15 minute chunks because I so seldom get the set to myself.
Last week, though, I was good, and resisted another chunk of Van Helsing. I've been itching to watch certain programmes, and it's been driving me mad. I discovered that my favourite cop show, The Sweeney, is can be viewed via computer. Ten episodes from 1974 which I can barely remember, all waiting. But because I'd committed myself to this wordless week, I had to stick with it.
And so I played instrumentals as I made and ate my breakfasts. Autobahn by Kraftwerk (I suppose, strictly speaking, there are words in that, but sinced they are in German, which I can't speak, they don't count) . On the trains home, via an ancient CD Player, some new agey thing ith lots of whale cries in the background.
I always feel self conscious listening to the CD player. For one thing, everybody around me is listening to IPods or whatever they are, and I feel like I'm carrying around a wind-up gramophone. But also because you are, in effect, making yourself voluntarily deaf. Or at least you feel caught between two worlds - one a mundane, crowded, hot, sweaty train compartment and the other a celestial paradise where harps plink away. I've nodded off a few times when I've been able to get a seat.
But it's beginning to pay off dividends. Ideas are coming to me. I'm getting to work on time, because I'm not waiting to the very end of that sitcom episode before I get up and get ready (I even watch the end credits). And strangely enough, I'm beginning to feel better, more energetic. I should do this more often.
Sunday 14 March 2010
Read-through
Last Monday, my Writers' Group read the first draft of my stage play, The Eggs. It was nerve-wracking. I'd been trying to type up my handwritten first draft ever since I'd asked them to read it, three weeks earlier. I'm still not au fait with memory sticks or word processors.
I've still got an electric typewriter which my wife bought me, and which she couldn't really afford at the time. It was a touching gesture of faith in my abilities, and I've always felt guilty that I never used it that much. I was going through a prolonged writers' block, and simply didn't have anything to type. And now that I had something, I discovered that they no longer manufacture the ribbons for it.
I'd hald conceived this stage play as a way of winding up ny writers' group. They are a dry, dispassionate lot, mostly men, mostly into science fiction, mostly of a middle class outlook, and mostly atheist. They seem so bloodless and mechanical at times that I want to slap them ; but I must admit, they give good, fair advice on what is read to them.
But I wanted, with this play, to wake them up. Present them, in my two characters (Sue and Jackie) the world of two working-class women. I thought of it as an angry, Barrie Keeffe-type play, in the same vein as Gem or Gotcha. Instead, the two women reading the parts decided to send it up. Two working class women, after all, must be comic.
I couldn't stop my feet twitching under my chair as they read their lines. The bad lines became glaringly obvious, and I cringed at them. But there were times when it seemed to be working, when the two readers realized that I had been attempting real characters rather than stereotypes.
I felt at first that they were laughing at these women because, in the play, they had mourned Lady Diana Spencer. The group was laughing at them, and by extension laughing at me because I cared about them. I realized the play's shortcomings all too clearly.
Yet when they came to the end (or, rather, got to the bit where I'd run out of time to type any more) they seemed sympathetic. Could it be that the message of the play had actually got through?
I am determined to write a second draft. Determined. Because I don't want this play to die. I want it to be performed. I feel jubilant as I write this. In a way, I've fulfilled what this blog set out to do : to see me through to the end of a project. So now I'm moving the goalposts. My mission now is to work with this first draft, improve it, and see it brought to life on stage.
I've still got an electric typewriter which my wife bought me, and which she couldn't really afford at the time. It was a touching gesture of faith in my abilities, and I've always felt guilty that I never used it that much. I was going through a prolonged writers' block, and simply didn't have anything to type. And now that I had something, I discovered that they no longer manufacture the ribbons for it.
I'd hald conceived this stage play as a way of winding up ny writers' group. They are a dry, dispassionate lot, mostly men, mostly into science fiction, mostly of a middle class outlook, and mostly atheist. They seem so bloodless and mechanical at times that I want to slap them ; but I must admit, they give good, fair advice on what is read to them.
But I wanted, with this play, to wake them up. Present them, in my two characters (Sue and Jackie) the world of two working-class women. I thought of it as an angry, Barrie Keeffe-type play, in the same vein as Gem or Gotcha. Instead, the two women reading the parts decided to send it up. Two working class women, after all, must be comic.
I couldn't stop my feet twitching under my chair as they read their lines. The bad lines became glaringly obvious, and I cringed at them. But there were times when it seemed to be working, when the two readers realized that I had been attempting real characters rather than stereotypes.
I felt at first that they were laughing at these women because, in the play, they had mourned Lady Diana Spencer. The group was laughing at them, and by extension laughing at me because I cared about them. I realized the play's shortcomings all too clearly.
Yet when they came to the end (or, rather, got to the bit where I'd run out of time to type any more) they seemed sympathetic. Could it be that the message of the play had actually got through?
I am determined to write a second draft. Determined. Because I don't want this play to die. I want it to be performed. I feel jubilant as I write this. In a way, I've fulfilled what this blog set out to do : to see me through to the end of a project. So now I'm moving the goalposts. My mission now is to work with this first draft, improve it, and see it brought to life on stage.
Wednesday 3 March 2010
Sick Note
Since my last post, I have done virtually no work on anything. Not this new Twelfth Night project, not my stage play, not writing practice, not even morning pages. I was off work for three days with a cold. You would think that, with all the free time, I could spare an hour here or there. But no. It was as much as I could do to put on a couple of James Bond films, and I even nodded off during those.
I haven't been reading, either. There's a stack of books on my bedside cabinet, but whenever I've picked one up I just haven't had the energy to read it.
This scared me. It was only a bit of a cold, wasn't it? And yet I had no energy to do anything, even enjoy myself.
On my last day at work, I felt bad. It was baking hot inside the building - the radiators were on full blast, nobody would open a window even a crack - but freezing outdoors. There were other problems, too, things which made me grit my teeth, clench my fists, moments of intense stupidity, when you feel like you're the last sane person on the planet. It was all I could do to stay at my post until I'd finished my shift, and even then one of my colleagues, God bless him, let me go early. The trains home were packed and stifling. I kept trying to read Feel the fear and do it anyway, but couldn't concentrate. I felt like kissing the ground when I got home to my wife.
I calmed down, bathed, changed. My wife cooked me a lovely meal and then later we watched Naked Gun 33 and a third. The Naked Gun films are sort of milestones for us. Not only do we find them hysterically funny ( even when we know which jokes are coming up ) but we're sentimentally attached to them. We saw the first Naked Gun film when we were courting, and we've seen it so often since then that I even know some of the dialogue off by heart.
My wife is more cultured than I am. She has passions for Tudor history and the paintings of Van Gogh. And yet the films we choose to see to remind us of oour early days include The Untouchables, the Lethal Weapon series and Robin Hood : Prince Of Thieves.
Even as I sat there with a blanket wrapped around me, laughing at lines such as : "Like a midget at a urinal, I knew I was gonna have to keep on my toes" I knew that I wasn't going in tomorrow.
And so three days passed. Three days when I feel like one of the homesteaders in a western murmuring feverishly by a log fire whilst the town's doctor looks over me and says : "He ain't gonna make it." On Saturday, I went back to work and very nearly walked off again. It was only until one o'clock, so I made myself stay ; but the same chaos was in place, and I dreaded to think what the week ahead was going to bring.
But I got an odd surprise. My boss, who is new, and about whom we have mixed feelings, had left me an email with a Stress Assessment form. He had spotted how anxious I was and had made the connection. I hadn't really thought of this myself - and this after years of Stress Management courses. I felt strangely uplifted by this. I was exhausted at one o'clock, and I coughed all the way home, but something made me feel good. I also nipped into the public library and borrowed two books : the complete works of Shakespeare, and Freda Warrington's unofficial Dracula sequel, Dracula : the undead. I started reading them on the trains home, and found myself enjoying them.
I'm not going to feel guilty about the writing I haven't done. I normally write a little bit each day, and there are days when you just can't force it. Things have got to be bad when I fall asleep during a Bond film, because I love those films.
But reading Twelfth Night on the way home, and then again in bed before I went to sleep, reading for pleasure, rediscovering what fiction is, what it does, I began to feel my mojo coming back.
I haven't been reading, either. There's a stack of books on my bedside cabinet, but whenever I've picked one up I just haven't had the energy to read it.
This scared me. It was only a bit of a cold, wasn't it? And yet I had no energy to do anything, even enjoy myself.
On my last day at work, I felt bad. It was baking hot inside the building - the radiators were on full blast, nobody would open a window even a crack - but freezing outdoors. There were other problems, too, things which made me grit my teeth, clench my fists, moments of intense stupidity, when you feel like you're the last sane person on the planet. It was all I could do to stay at my post until I'd finished my shift, and even then one of my colleagues, God bless him, let me go early. The trains home were packed and stifling. I kept trying to read Feel the fear and do it anyway, but couldn't concentrate. I felt like kissing the ground when I got home to my wife.
I calmed down, bathed, changed. My wife cooked me a lovely meal and then later we watched Naked Gun 33 and a third. The Naked Gun films are sort of milestones for us. Not only do we find them hysterically funny ( even when we know which jokes are coming up ) but we're sentimentally attached to them. We saw the first Naked Gun film when we were courting, and we've seen it so often since then that I even know some of the dialogue off by heart.
My wife is more cultured than I am. She has passions for Tudor history and the paintings of Van Gogh. And yet the films we choose to see to remind us of oour early days include The Untouchables, the Lethal Weapon series and Robin Hood : Prince Of Thieves.
Even as I sat there with a blanket wrapped around me, laughing at lines such as : "Like a midget at a urinal, I knew I was gonna have to keep on my toes" I knew that I wasn't going in tomorrow.
And so three days passed. Three days when I feel like one of the homesteaders in a western murmuring feverishly by a log fire whilst the town's doctor looks over me and says : "He ain't gonna make it." On Saturday, I went back to work and very nearly walked off again. It was only until one o'clock, so I made myself stay ; but the same chaos was in place, and I dreaded to think what the week ahead was going to bring.
But I got an odd surprise. My boss, who is new, and about whom we have mixed feelings, had left me an email with a Stress Assessment form. He had spotted how anxious I was and had made the connection. I hadn't really thought of this myself - and this after years of Stress Management courses. I felt strangely uplifted by this. I was exhausted at one o'clock, and I coughed all the way home, but something made me feel good. I also nipped into the public library and borrowed two books : the complete works of Shakespeare, and Freda Warrington's unofficial Dracula sequel, Dracula : the undead. I started reading them on the trains home, and found myself enjoying them.
I'm not going to feel guilty about the writing I haven't done. I normally write a little bit each day, and there are days when you just can't force it. Things have got to be bad when I fall asleep during a Bond film, because I love those films.
But reading Twelfth Night on the way home, and then again in bed before I went to sleep, reading for pleasure, rediscovering what fiction is, what it does, I began to feel my mojo coming back.
Monday 22 February 2010
Notebooks
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.
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.
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.
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