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...

Keep on keeping on

I've recently joined a gym.
It's not unheard of and in fact it's pretty common around this time of year.
The gym is very nice, spacious, not too expensive, is quite near my house and some of my friends are members too.
Despite this - on my first visit there something about it unsettled me.
It's not the fact that they have a 'young person's gym' though I find that quite disconcerting (why aren't they getting fit playing team sports like we used to). It's not even the fact that I have discovered that I am not nearly as fit as I thought I was. What has struck me as peculiar about this is how it seems to reflect my life at the moment.

The fact that I can barely decide what machine to get on seems to expose how indecisive I have become recently, constantly changing my mind, procrastinating and rearranging things, I seem to spend more time wondering what to do than doing it.

Then there's the fact that once I get on the chosen machine I seem to spend a large part of my time on it justifying the decision I've just made in my head. This is something I do in real life too. At an age where promotions, proposals and pregnancies are defining the life choices my peers have made I, in the absence of these things, have become used to defending my current position in life as the exact position that I always intended to be, regardless of whether it's true.

Finally, when I manage to get going on the chosen machine and I actually get to the point where I am too exhausted to care about whether it was the right decision or not I flip into 'Countdown' mode. This can be how long on the next machine, how long till the next gym visit, how long till my next deadline, how long till my next lie in...

And it hits me.

I am literally running on the treadmill of time.

Everything I do has become a series of 'I just need to get to X point in time then I can fulfill X ambition/desire' statements.
I am constantly sticking markers down in the road ahead as if when I arrive there the marker will turn into a welcome party with a balloons and a brass band. "You made it here in one piece - let's celebrate". Which would be nice, if it weren't entirely fictional.
Don't get me wrong, there are definitely occasions which don't pass by without some sort of ceremonial rites of passage (usually alcoholic) but it just seems these days I am back on that road to the next three markers before I've had chance to let the last one pass.

I don't mind life being busy, I don't mind the relentless, exhausting pace of London life but my recent adventures in fitness have reminded me that sometimes being too wrapped in getting somewhere means you don't ever really get anywhere.

Getting back on the treadmill made me realise that I want to get off the treadmill. I want to learn how to enjoy and celebrate where I am right now and who I am here with.
They do say it's about the journey not the destination after all.
I'm pretty sure whoever said that wasn't trying to get back into their favourite skinny jeans at the time, but you never know, if my trip to the gym brought a metaphorical revelation for me...just maybe it did for them too.

Mirror mirror on the wall...

A very wise lady once told me that it is easier to hold up a magnifying glass than a mirror and recently I have been thinking a lot about this.
Why is it easier to look through a magnifying glass at other people than it is to hold a mirror up to ourselves?
Why is it easier to criticise other people's behaviour than it is to understand your own feelings?
Why is it easier to see problems in other people's scripts than it is your own?
What is it about human nature that makes us this way?
Is it because our eyes look straight out ahead of us and so our points of view follow suit?
Or is it something more complex?
A friend of mine recently asked why he could give qualified advice to others but not follow his own and I replied that if we knew what was best for us there'd be no need to seek professional help from people like him in the first place.
Similarly, if we all had the ability to follow our own advice we wouldn't feel the need to drink wine with our friends, laugh at comedians, sing along to songs at the top of our voices, cry at movies and do a whole bunch of other stuff that helps us make sense of the world.
I don't think it's good to feel confused or sad but if we didn't feel these things there'd be no need to talk to each other, to enjoy a little light relief or seek out a hug from a friend.
Wouldn't we be lonely if this was the case?
We might be able to achieve a zen like state of mind but wouldn't we become a little numb?
Sometimes we do this - we get caught up in the fact that we know how not to get hurt and we forget to take risks that might not hurt us at all.
I wrote a script a few months ago about this and I still don't have an answer for it but when I think about it I think about the magnifying glass and the mirror.
I think the biggest part of the learning process is making mistakes, then seeing them for what they are and then not making them again.
So I've come to my own conclusion that they are not two separate things, it's a two-sided object.
Most of the time we face the magnifying glass side out but we should remember to turn it round and use the mirror every now and again.
If, as a writer, I can keep it turning then I might just survive out there.
If I manage to hold the magnifying glass up I will learn what works but then I need to just keep writing and do it knowing that I will make mistakes. If I then manage to use the mirror then I can try to learn what mistakes I made and not make them next time.
If you hold the wrong one at the wrong time you might never be able to write another word.
So if you're struggling with something, maybe try the mirror out.
Just ask yourself what you'd see through the magnifying glass if you held it up to yourself.
And answer with what you'd tell a friend to do about it if it was them.
It's good to follow your own advice once in a while...because who knows where it will lead?

Have a little...patience

To me patience is a virtue that saints have and if you are a patient person in this life you will be looked after in every life after this.
I am not a patient person.
I am certainly a lot more laidback than I was a few years ago but I've still not quite reached the saintly heights of having patience.
I wish I had, if my desire to be patient was enough I'm sure I would be granted the virtue tomorrow, but (as anyone wanting to be a writer knows) just wanting something isn't enough to make it happen.
I'm impatient about my work - I always want to be further on than I am and I always want to start the next project and make the next contact which, according to the Palumbo book I'm reading, is a common thing for writers everywhere.
He says writers are always in a rush to get somewhere and what they should do is be true to where they are at that moment because that, more than anything, will inform their writing and that honesty to the moment will one day give you patience.
It seems ironic but true that if you stop rushing towards the future and enjoy the present you'll get where you need to be quicker and in better shape.
Pretty soon it will be 2009 and, typically, I've been thinking about what I hope 2009 will bring and what my new year's resolution should be.
I think now that my resolution should be to enjoy the moment.
I have plenty of deadlines in the diary already - I don't want to focus on the future any more than I already have without really enjoying the moments that might otherwise just pass me by on the way there.
It might not make me a patient person but then again it just might, but at least this way I won't be in such a hurry to find out...

Age aint nothin' but a number...or is it?

I've been thinking a lot lately about an anecdote I have grown a little too fond of telling.
In order to explain the craziness of the last 18 months of my life I tell people the story of my premature mid life crisis at 26 years of age.
I was born 2 months premature so I have resigned myself to the fact that I am likely to pass through most life stages earlier than most but even if 26 is too early for a mid life crisis it was a crisis none the less.
At age 26 I was suddenly quite ill and was off work for a few weeks and trapped in my bedroom for far longer than is normal. I looked round the photos on my wall and the stuff I had accumulated and had a sudden desire to change everything.
At first I thought it was a kneejerk reaction to being ill, but it wasn't.
Then I thought it was because I had moved a lot as a child and I was scared of being settled, but it wasn't.
Before I could figure it out I had the urge to start making a list.
I made a list of things I wanted but didn't have, things I had but didn't want and all the things I thought I would have done before I hit 30 years of age.
It was quite extensive so when I recovered I got to work on it straight away.
A year later I had gone travelling to Thailand, done a 6 week playwriting course and moved house. Another year later and I had set up my own business, raised £3,000 to do a trek along the Great Wall of China for charity, got on a Creative Writing MA course and changed jobs twice.
Looking back now I think it was silly of me to do everything in such a short (and very intense) period of time but ultimately my self imposed deadline helped to kickstart my life, not my life as it was but my life as I'd always dreamed it would be.
And here's the thing, if you ask yourself if you are happy with where you are now you might say one thing but if you ask yourself if your ten year old self would be happy with where you are now you might say something completely different.
I think at 26 years old I found myself spending some time with my younger self and I didn't like the way I looked through her eyes.
Not that there was anything terrible about my life, there just wasn't anything inspiring about it either. There wasn't anything that made me jump out of bed in the morning or that kept me up late at night.
Nowadays I have more lists of things that do both these things than I have hours in the day.
It's pretty exhausting but it can be exhilirating too.
Sure, there's lots I still haven't done yet (my latest joke is it's easier to get an MA than it is to get a date in this city) but there's also something I've never felt before which is...a sort of connection.
I don't know how to describe what it is I feel I'm connected to, nature, karma, fate etc but when I look around my room now I don't feel like I need to change everything and when I don't know what the hell is going on deep down I know it's ok because the struggle means I'm getting somewhere - that I'm taking a step on a path that's heading in the direction I need to go.
At 26 I had a mid life crisis, by 27 I had disconnected from my life as I knew it then and now, at 28, I feel connected to a completely different way of life.
I don't know what my ten year old self would say about me now (though I think she'd wonder why I don't own horses by now) but I'm pretty sure if I were to spend some time with her again it wouldn't result in any sort of crisis this time.
My life now isn't the one she dreamed about living but it is more likely that it might become it.
I'm still 2 years off my deadline and I hope in that time life continues to evade, challenge and completely surprise me.
If nothing else it'll give me a better anecdote to tell.

Good things come to those who...try, try and try again.

Tonight was another reminder of why I chose to call this blog Burnley girl's blog. As most writers will agree titles are incredibly important for what you write. I guess I am made up of parts of many different things, part Scottish girl, part London girl, part Media girl, part Traveller girl, part Student girl...but I am, and always will be, for the most part a Burnley girl.

Burnley just beat Arsenal 2 v 0 in the quarter finals of the Carling Cup and already the headlines are celebrating the Burnley Big Mac or the Burnley Beast and rightfully so!
This is the first time in 25 years that they are in the semi finals of the Cup, the third time in a row they've beaten a London Premiership team to get here and the fourteenth goal (including penalties) they have scored to prove they deserve it.
Watching the game on my TV made me feel both incredibly close to Burnley and yet so far away from it at the same time.
I longed to be amongst the crowd, my voice coarse, my hands raw and my toes frozen cold.
I realised that me wanting to be there wasn't just excitement at how amazing the game was it was actually me wanting to remember who I am.

Recently, a couple of people have told me how they have left me to figure things out myself because they thought I was tough enough to cope without their help.
I had started to feel that they'd let me down or neglected me in some way.
I know that although on the one hand, everyone needs help and I am only human, on the other, they are completely right.
The tougher things are the deeper you have to dig down into the true nature of who you are and some, if not most, of that is determined by where you're from.
The characters in my latest play are from Burnley and I'm from Burnley and tonight I was reminded what that meant.
People from Burnley are not afraid to be the underdogs and relish the opportunities they are given where they get to work hard at what they love to achieve their goals.
I should not be afraid of the odds being stacked against me, of being left to struggle on my own every now and again or of the huge amount of hard work I have ahead of me to achieve my golas and neither should the characters in my play.
If I can't remember that then I will be nothing more than an exile who is letting the boys back home down.
But if I can live up to the challenges I face like the Burnley team keeps doing these days then I know I will have earned the right, regardless of where I live, to call myself a Burnley girl.