It's been a while...

I haven't written much on here recently...I like to delude myself that there are fans out there eagerly awaiting my next post but there aren't, yet it still feels important to me for some reason to explain my absence:

I finished my MA.

I was so busy doing that I didn't have time to do anything else.
And then I celebrated finishing which took up all my time and even though I finished the course a month ago I have only just finished the copious amounts of celebrating!
And now...?
Back to business as usual.
Except, I have no idea what that is anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I couldn't wait to finish the course, to get to the end of the stress of delivering that final script, the end of the pressure knowing it would be used as our calling card and the end of the intensity of not having room for anything else in your life.
But I miss it.
I miss the structure, the deadlines, the constant challenges and surprises, the great tutors and mentors and of course my fellow writers.
I miss having someone to blame, for two years I have been saying - I can't go out/stay out/spend the day/night/watch this/read that/stay up/sleep in/drink this/eat that/buy those or generally afford to do anything...because of the MA.
There is no way I would want to carry on studying but there's also no way I would want to carry on living the life I had before the MA either.
And that's the scary part.
A lot of my friends have said they are glad to have me back on the social scene, glad I can actually say yes to their invites again, glad I can have dinner or a few drinks on random week nights again etc
And I have been doing a lot of all of that in order to make up for lost time!
I'm touched that they have welcomed me back with open arms but I am also terrified of actually embracing them back.
Because if I go out half as much as I used to I will never have time to write...
If I drink a quarter of the amount I used to put away I will never write anything of quality if I am doing it whilst suffering through a hangover...
If I travel across London on the sprawling nightbus network for just a tenth of the time I used to I will be so sleep deprived I will never even be motivated to write...
So it's clear that I can't go back to my old life and I can't carry on the one I've got used to whilst on the MA.
I need to forge a new path.
New rules, new discipline, new goals, new deadlines, the lot.
It's a bit like breaking up with someone, suddenly there's an MA-sized hole in my life and I don't quite know what to fill that hole with yet.
This last month I've been to the theatre 6 times, celebrated my birthday on 5 different occasions, had 4 friends come to stay, been to 3 friend's birthdays, had 2 weekends away and 1 massive 'end of MA' blowout has been liberating, rewarding, exhilirating, depressing, terrifying, inspiring, surprising, tiring and expensive!
But it's been exactly what I needed to get over the 'break-up'.
I think now my life will naturally be divided into 3 parts; my crazy TV life pre-MA, the none existent life I had during the MA and post-MA.
And this 'life post MA' is the one story that has not yet been written.
I suppose the only thing I can do is get writing...

Diversion Ahead

I have made a countdown calendar.
The no# of days left till my final deadline for my MA.
Today it sits on 43.
My fingers shake slightly as I type that. I think I'm in shock because, first of all, I am now counting my deadline down in days (how scary is that) and second of all I feel like I have so much work to do I should still be counting down in months (where did all the time go)
Such is life...right?
Writers - far more experienced and talented than me - deal with much more stressful deadlines than this on a more regular basis, in fact they deal with multiple deadlines at once.
But this one, for me, is as big as it gets. I really hope it will be the first big writing deadline of many big writing deadlines. As well as hoping it will be the first, I also hope it will be the last. The last one where I am labelled a 'student of writing', or a 'wannabe writer'.
Despite my hopes and my state of shock...I am feeling blocked.
BLOCKED!
I'm not even a proper writer yet but I get writer's block?
What is that about?
It got me thinking about that fact that a few years ago I had a man pal who I loved dearly and it turned out he loved me dearly too. In fact too much so - he wanted us to get together and I just didn't feel strongly enough about him to get into a serious relationship with him.
So for a while we just stayed friends. Not for long though. In true When Harry Met Sally style it was not possible to 'just be friends' - we would go out on nights out, have fun and then one of us would get emotional, we'd argue and then we'd talk for hours on the phone and meet up the next day and make up. I realised I was having a relationship with this man without actually having a relationship with him.
I talked to him about this and he said we needed to move forward or move apart.
We decided not to be friends anymore and - true to his word - I haven't seen him for about 3 years. Whilst there is no doubt in my mind that we had to stop our pseudo relationship somehow I'm not sure going cold turkey was the best option and I'm almost 100% sure that if I could do it over I would do anything but that.
Why am I thinking about all this?
Well, it seems the parrallel is I was having all the problems of a relationship without having an actual relationship and now I am having all the problem's of writer's block without actually being a writer.
I need to move forward or move apart from this story.
Seen as I am 43 days away from deadline it is too late to move away so I can only go forward.
If this block is a wall I am going to have to smash it down.
Ok maybe not smash it, but perhaps take it down one brick at a time.
Why am I blocked?
1) I feel like I don't really know what my play is about.
I mean, I know what it's about - I know what happens, who to and when. But I feel like I am still struggling to know why. Has this play evolved too far past what I originally wanted to say? Can I still say that? Should I be trying to say something else if the story has taken me somewhere else? Why have I come up with a story that doesn't say what I wanted to say in the first place? And how did I do that? I feel like I've been painting a sunset using green paint. Do I still say it is a sunset or is it actually just a green picture now?
2) Until I 'know' what it's about I feel like I won't know what the right form is.
And I have David Edgar to blame for this (no, not the new Burnley player)
His incredibly insightful article in the Guardian last weekend pretty much ruined my life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/11/drama-edgar-plays-theatre
Until then I thought I was telling a nice, little, interesting and dramatic story about Burnley. Then he made me see that the story is one thing, the plot is quite another.
And the plot, well the way the plot is shaped shows you what the meaning of the play is. That's great, so clever and true, I'm really glad he pointed that out while I am still in the process of writing my play. See point 1.
Oh...Crap.
3) Points 1 & 2 have - over the recent two weeks - combined forces and like some looming transformer-type monster have dwarfed every creative decision I've made till I have got to the point where I can't type a word without deleting it again.
Writing is putting words down in a shape that gives them meaning. Not putting them down, being unsure about the shape and then taking them away again. That's just typing.

I don't want to be a typist.
I want to be a writer.
I want to write this story.
I want to give it the best form it can have.
I want the meaning to resonate through each and every word.
I want to smash this wall.

If anyone out there has a sledgehammer...or a chisel...even a fork sized amount of wisdom to help me do this I would be most grateful to hear from you.

Well, gonna go and score another day off my calendar.
42 days to go now.

Gulp.

Long Time No See

Well, I haven't written anything on here for nearly 3 months...

I never promised myself I would write everyday or even every week but this gap has been a bit excessive even for a commitment-phobe like me!
I did promise myself that I would write when anything inspired me - whether it was good, bad or ugly inspiration and yet I find myself typing away again when I feel momentously uninspired.
And less than two months away from my final MA deadline is not when I can afford to be uninspired.
So, I'm trying to work out why this is so in the hope that I can overcome it.
Perhaps I should do a recap of what has been happening for the last 3 months in case it offers me a whirlwind view of my life which inspires me into action...ok it's a tall order but worth a try and at least I'll feel slightly less guilty about my absence.

Well...Burnley won at Wembley and I am not ashamed to admit that I cried - mostly tears of joy but also slightly of exhaustion too - and shortly after I went to see Oasis in Manchester something I have wanted to do for ages and I am not ashamed to say that I cried - mostly tears of joy but also slightly of exhaustion - (hhhhmmmm is there a pattern emerging here?)
Then we had a showcase as part of our MA (part of the reason for the exhaustion I think) and it was amazing (don't worry I didn't cry) and erm then I went off on holiday to Stonehenge, Cornwall and Scotland.

Thinking about it, it really was a big relief to get out of London and away from everything I'd been worrying about and working towards...in fact that may be the problem, that once I got away I didn't really want to come back.

No, that's not true, I did want to come back - I just wanted something to be different when I returned, some sign that all the things I had been struggling with were worth it...someone to say "well done", "it was all worth it", "keep going", "almost there"...
Truth is there was no sign that things had changed...there still is no sign that they will.

Well, I need to do something about it. I'm going to do what I do when I'm lost and there's no signs...I need to stop looking for that sign, choose a direction and head in it and then stop and work out a little later on if it was right or not.

It might not inspire me...but it's worth a try!

All's well that ends well...

Sometimes the good guys finish last - we are all used to that, but sometimes, just sometimes the good guys get to finish...at Wembley.
I didn't intend to write this blog about football but I did promise myself I would write it whenever I felt inspired and frankly there are certain nights when those eleven men in claret and blue make me feel like anything is possible. Tonight is one of those nights.
After having victory snatched from us in the semi final of the Carling Cup and being defeated in the FA Cup we could have easily thought that our chances at Wembley had come and gone but we didn't. Beating Reading by 3 goals over 2 games means Burnley will now face Sheffield at the mighty Wembley for a promotion place to the premier league.
In less than two weeks our 61st game of the season will come to define our season for the rest of time.
We want it. We deserve it, but will it go our way on Bank Holiday Monday? Who knows...
What I have learned since I started this blog is that it's not the outcome that's important, it's the journey.
That may sound bizarre from a football fan who's team is only 90 minutes away from promotion but it's true.
Like the Burnley players I have put so much pressure on myself to do this, achieve that, be there by then and have this to show for it. Unlike the Burnley players I am still waiting for my day out at Wembley, but, like the Burnley players, I now believe I deserve it.
I have worked hard, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. I have faced my fears and weaknesses and stared them down. Most importantly of all, I have dared to dream. If I achieve any success now there is no doubt in my mind of the price I have paid for it. Sometimes you aim for the prize and you decide that it's worth giving everything you have to get it. At that point you realise that getting it is not important, the giving everything to it is.
The price of success is knowing that the struggle was the success.
Owen Coyle, the majestic, much loved manager of Burnley said on Sky TV of the Burnley players that "each and every one of them gives me everything they can on a daily basis" - how many people can honestly say that?
If you can say that then I shall raise my glass to you, you may have to wait awhile though because the next time I will be raising a glass will be 13 days from now, amongst 30 thousand other Burnley fans, on the inside of Wembley stadium.

A friend in need...is the one with the broken laptop

2 days ago my laptop died.
I got home from a long day at work, grabbed a snack and sat down to my evening of re-writing but it wouldn't turn on. Then it came on for about 3 seconds then went away again, it did that again once more, flashed an error message at me then refused to ever come on again.
I was heartbroken, mortified, inconsolable...
I know that may sound dramatic but I am less than 11 days away from the deadline for the second draft of my full length play for my MA. This period, between the first and second draft, is one I can only describe as hell.
I thought things were bad over the Easter weekend when I was fretting over the structure of the second act and wrestling with my awkward female characters...I had no idea.
Not only could I not do that evening's work on my play, I didn't know if it was ever going to come back on and let me do my work on it again.
Luckily, I back up my work every Sunday so I hadn't lost huge amounts of material but time - and with it hope - was rapidly slipping away.
I rushed it to PC hospital the next day and a very lovely man did a few tests and told me the board was gone.
I don't know much about computer healthcare but I knew that was not good.
The very lovely man told me it would be cheaper to buy a new laptop than to save this one.
I ranted at him that I was less than 2 weeks away from a big deadline, flat broke and unable to buy a new one and that only two weeks ago I had paid another nice, but not as lovely, man to restore it because it had been poorly then.
He said there was nothing he could do but that he would give me my money back that I paid for the restore which I could use towards buying a new one.
This is what earned him his nickname.
I had to go back the next day with the receipt and get the refund.
In the meantime I phoned a few friends for advice, advice on ingenious ways to get a laptop without paying any money for it or advice on ways to raise enough money to buy a laptop without breaking the law.
All the while, I was still trying to keep up with my work using good old-fashioned pen and paper which was romantic for about 10 minutes before it became gloriously frustrating.
What struck me in those few, painful hours was how wonderfully helpful my friends were. I had offers of laptop loans and money loans from people I knew couldn't really afford either and I was sincerely touched. I also had offers of help finding and choosing a replacement and one to sit and type as I dictated my play to them to help make up the lost time which was ludicrously kind...or maybe just ludicrous, I'm not sure.
Anyway the point is...I felt lucky.
In a difficult time, when disaster struck, I felt lucky to have really wonderful people around me and it made me even more determined to get through it all and to get through it all without bitching and moaning about it.
Today I went back to the very lovely man and when he gave me my money back he offered to 'dispose' of my laptop. I wasn't ready to let it go yet I knew there was no point keeping it.
I tried to work out why I was being reluctant and it hit me.
It's not just that I loved it, it's not just that I used it every day for 5 years and it's not just that it went everywhere with me.
It's that it represented everything I have recently achieved.
The plays that audiences have laughed at were written on there, the casting briefs and call sheets for the theatre nights I've produced were emailed from there, the essays and script reports for my course were created on there. We had built this world I now live in together and we'd never get to do any of it together again.
Even now, as I type this on my housemate's PC, I wish I still had it, even though I know it would never light up at my touch again I miss it and I can't help wonder where it is right now.
I have been telling my friends that it has gone to laptop heaven.
They laugh, as if a child has said something cute and naive but that's what I need to believe.
Right now I just need to believe that all the years of hard work and sweat and tears and stress and fears and worry and frustration and doubt and hope that has poured out of me and into that laptop has gone on to a happy resting place and not an empty techie-graveyard.
There will soon be a new laptop, and probably many more, but there will always be the memories of my first laptop that was with me through so many inspirations and discoveries.
And no matter what there will always be my wonderful friends if one ever breaks on me again.

The dating game

Going to the theatre is like dating...
That's my new theory.
You pay out money, there's usually alcohol consumed and then you sit back and hope for magic...
But you never know what you're gonna get.
That's why millions of pounds is poured into the West End Tourist-friendly theatre trade because people like to know what to expect. It's the same with internet dating sites, why talk to someone in a bar when you can read their profile? Because that way you think you know what you're going to get. But the thing is you can't...not really.
Even if you think you know because it has X writer or Y director involved, because you have the same hobbies or interests, the evening can still take you completely by suprise.
Sometimes in a really good way that you'll remember for a long time and sometimes in a way that makes you wish you could get a friend to phone you and pretend you your gran fell down the stairs.
Lately a lot of the shows I've seen have left me feeling like this, wishing for an excuse to escape. Not because they were bad (though some were) but because I don't think I really wanted to be there.
Me.
The person who is forever trying to drag her friends to the theatre?
The person who pre-books tickets months in advance?
It didn't make any sense at first so I ignored, brushed it off as tiredness yet I couldn't shake the feeling that I just didn't care and that...well, I just didn't have enough patience to wait and see which way it would surprise me.
I was half thinking about this when I heard someone (in a movie ironically enough) say they had fallen out of love and frankly that terrified me.
I had to pause the movie.
I had to go get a drink, pace up and down for a while and think this through.
Was this what had happened to me and theatre?
What about my theatre-is-like-dating theory?
Sure, you can fall out of love with someone, you can even fall out of love with quite a lot of people, but you can't fall out of love with everyone in one go and surely you can't fall out of love with the very notion of trying to find love, can you?
And if you can - what does that say about me?
Was I giving up? Was I becoming a bitter cynic? Was I losing faith?
I couldn't work it out so I decided to press play on the rest of the movie.
The person had recently met someone who, though they weren't romantically involved with, they had more in common with than their partner and it had made them realise who they were and what they wanted and it had just changed everything.
That's how I feel about theatre.
I will always love it but recently I've met something else and it has changed everything.
The something else I've met is my own writing.
I have written lots of stuff before now, some of it has even reached performance, but what I'm writing now is different.
I don't know why it is...I just know that this movie had a point.
Sometimes things don't change, you do.
I'm not giving up on dating, I'm just ready for something more.
Having a one night surprise with a pre-prepared play is not enough, I want a relationship, I want to see it grow and develop and be part of that process.
The irony is I doubt I would feel this way if I hadn't been to see so much theatre.
So I guess I was right, it really is like dating.
When you're really ready for more the novelty wears off having anything less.

Running On Empty...

Last time I was on here I wrote about running on the treadmill but now all I feel I can write about with any expertise is running on empty.
I am exhausted, I've never felt so tired, not in a I can't get enough sleep way and not in a I'm tired of life and want to give up way but somewehere yo-yoing between the two.
I feel chronic guilt if I'm not doing as much as I can/should/need to and sheer exasperation when I do as much as I can/should/need to and feel like I fail at it.
I know what you're thinking - take a break, chill out etc etc but I'm in the last 7 months of a 24 month MA course, taking a rest now would be like the hare that has a nap and gets overtaken by the tortoise.
The dilemma is not whether or not to work hard, it is simply what to work hard on.
I joked with my housemate that if I had put as much time and effort into my lovelife as I have changing careers I'd be turning them away in their droves at the door (which would be nice)!
But I haven't because all I have wanted to do for the last two years is open doors to a different future for myself and now I feel like all I ever do is run between the doors that might open frantically trying the handle instead of choosing one and preparing to step through it with both feet.
For anyone who's hesitated when choosing which carriage to get on in the tube and watched the train pull away might know what I mean.

I have got into a terrible habit recently of quizzing friends about certain aspects of their lives - travels, purchases, jobs, affairs - if I think it might make an interesting aspect of a future play and I keep saying "it's all material".
Most of them are supportive and quite flattered but a few of them seem to wonder when these stories are going to materialise.
They're not the only one, I feel like I need to stop collecting material and start telling the story.
And if I could just figure out which story that is that would be a good start...