Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Outback Shan

Right now, I'm in the country. Like on a farm in the country. Sure, I'm an hour away from where I live. In the city. Nothing to do with the country. But a week and a bit ago I travelled down a freeway and entered … the country. This is a very odd thing for Australians. When I was last in the US, I got told a lot that I didn't sound like an Australian. John Guare said that to me. I told him I was from the city. He seemed disappointed but then he hugged me and said I was wonderful so I figured all was forgiven. It's true. I don't sound 'Australian' to the Americans but that's mainly because I don't say 'Crikey, check out that croc' at every available opportunity. In fact I've never said 'Check out that croc' BECAUSE I'VE NEVER GOT THAT CLOSE TO A CROCODILE. I mean, those things will kill you. If you don't believe me, ask about a thousand German tourists. In fact, don't. They are dead.

Anyway, I digress.

I'm in the country. I got a fellowship to come to the country and write for three weeks. Sure, I'm writing. I'm writing up a storm. But more importantly, I am bonding with the country which is something I rarely do, mainly because it is full of things that will kill me. Australian stories of the outback are nothing more than How to Get Yourself Killed by Venturing Outside of the City. But this place is wonderful. Mainly because nothing has killed me. Yet. Although there was a kangaroo the other day that looked at me with murderous intent but that could have just been the face he was born with. There are also sheep and horses and bunny rabbits that frolic about the lawn. There is an echidna that just mooches about being all echidna like. And because it is Spring, there are babies. Cute, cute babies that I want to steal and raise as my own. So keep being nice to me Australian outback. No one wants to read 'Australian Playwright killed by echidna with anger management issues'. Although, that would be hilarious.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Employment

So this whole writing fulltime thing is simple awesome and I am the happiest person alive at the moment. I even smiled at a dog the other day. It wasn't even a particularly cute dog. But happiness is not going to last forever and I am going to have to look for a new job. The thing is, I can't go back to being a legal secretary. I just can't. Not because it's awful, even though it is, but it's awful to me because it's not my job. There are people out there than love being a legal secretary. I've never met them but I'm choosing to believe that there isn't a whole profession out there plotting ways to kill their bosses. Told you, I'm one happy camper at the moment.

So, here is the deal. I'm putting my employment future out there into the cyber universe. Tell me what kind of job a playwright should have. To help you along, this is what I want in a job:

  • Not going to leave me exhausted at the end of the day.
  • Doesn't involve lawyers (sorry, it's me, not you).
  • Use all these writing skills that I have painstakingly acquired over all these years.
  • Is going to pay me a decent wage.
  • Involves the things I love: books, plays, paper, words, people.

This is what I bring to the table: I am fun. And funny. I can make you laugh quicker than you can say 'God, is it Monday again?' One of the lawyers I worked with went to an Enrique Iglesias concert and I called her Enrique for 3 months. Never failed to make her laugh. Okay, that could have been crying and there was some mention of bullying in the workplace but trust me, fun is my middle name. Fun is what I do while I am working. I work like a vampire in need of their next victim. I suck the blood out of my work. Fine. Gross, but if you need it done, it gets done.

I have lawyers who love me. Lawyers! They have no soul, but they still love me. That's how hard I work, while keeping the fun. Laugh? You'll cry.

So, help me. Help me figure out a job that is going to give me money, but more importantly, give me some sense of … what is the word … oh yeah, fulfilment.

What is your day job? Does it help your art? Is there such a thing? All suggestions, thoughts, musings welcome.

Aftermath

Last Friday, I made my way to Malthouse Theatre to see Aftermath as part of the Melbourne Festival. I don't live far from the city but my short journey to Southbank was turned into an odyssey when the train stopped and we were told by the not very happy train driver that the train had gone down the wrong track – like the train itself was a crazy drunk that was out of the control of the driver, the signallers and the entire Metro train organisation.

So I'm running down St Kilda Road in shoes that are so cute but have an evil, blister-inducing soul and it's hot and I'm running late and I get there huffing and puffing and with sore feet just as the lights are going down and I'm stuck in between two sets of 'Toorak Women' or, for people not living in Melbourne, delete Toorak and insert name of the rich suburb in your town where ladies of a certain age wear a lot of light, flowing fabrics, gold jewellery and complain about the help.

So, there was all that.

But it didn't matter.

All of that was gone at Lights Up. Because what happened after that is the stuff that makes you jump up and down and feel glorious that there is such a thing as theatre in this messed up world we live in.

Aftermath is theatre at its most simple and therefore most powerful. It's the stories of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances and what they had to do to survive. Or, more importantly, what they had to lose in order to survive. These stories of Iraqi people and their war gives complexity and understanding to a war that has consistently failed to dig below the surface. Wars are about right and wrong, and which side you belong on. I dare you to see Aftermath and ever think like that again.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Innovation

In new ways to find me, you can google 'devil sleeper', 'confidence & innovation' and 'jokes asbestos luggager'. You know how they say that it takes all types … I'm pretty sure we could keep going with a few less.

In other news, I'm off to the country! Being the outdoorsy type and at one with a pair of wellington boots, I'm taking me and my laptop to a writer's residence on a farm in the middle of a state forest. I'm planning to recreate the Rihanna topless in a field shot, whittle something and tell long tales into the night of bear attacks that I survived. Oh, and I'm going to write a play. I may whittle my play. A play told entirely in whittled scenes. Innovation. You betcha.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Home

I'm finally home from Yale, and have been for a week, and while I meant to be all good and attentive and documentarian when I was there I quickly realised that it was me and not some other person that owns this blog so I slammed down my laptop, laughed and went and bought another bagel – because you really can't have too many and that is a scientific fact.

So, I'm really not going to go into everything that happened and how freaking wonderful it all was, and how I'm now making my partner call me THE GREATEST PLAYWRIGHT EVER just because my ego is riding at an all-time high and I want to hang onto that shit for as long as possible, and how Americans get such a bad rap for being all arrogant and stuff when really they are just the nicest, smartest, most generous people in the world (No, the American Tourist Board did not pay me to say that, but you know, totally open to talk about it) and how I got to meet all people that have been my heroes for as long as I could remember and how it was all just 'pinch yourself Shannon, because this may never happen again'. No. Not going to do that.

But Yale people, you fucking rock*.


 

* Feel free to use that on your brochures. No. You're welcome.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Fun

Conversation with my nephew Matthew at 5.35am on Sunday morning:

MATTHEW: Aunty Shannon …

Aunty Shannon sleeps

MATTHEW: AUNTY SHANNON!!!!!!!!

Aunty Shannon wakes up.

AS: Yes?

MATTHEW: Are you awake?

AS: Apparently.

MATTHEW: You want to come and see all my Thomas the Tank Engine toys?

AS: I'd love to come and see your Thomas toys but I seem to be lacking the will or desire to get out of bed.

MATTHEW: Okay. I'll bring them to you.

Thanks Matty. I never knew 5.30 on a Sunday morning could be so fun

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Dance of joy

All systems are go ...

http://blogs.courant.com/curtain/2011/08/xxxxx-3.html

If you come near me right now, watch yourself. I am totally on fire

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Enough!

Hey! You! Person from NASA who came to my blog by searching for asbestos jokes? Yeah you.

What the hell are you doing?

Shouldn't you be hiding aliens and trying not to get sucked into a black hole? Yeah. I so know about space and science and stuff so don't even start with me. Asbestos jokes? Really? Why could you possibly need asbestos jokes? Is that what passes for fun down there at NASA? Is it?

STOP IT!

You're scaring the hell out of me.

Long

Yeah.

It's all great and well to be going on holidays and jetting off here and there and whatnot and whatever, but you know what's not great and well? Actually getting shit done so you can go do whatever.

I have a list as long as a person with a freakishly long arm. Like Guiness Book long. Like those weird shows you see late at night about people with trees growing out of the hands and stuff. That long.

NOT FUN!

Okay. Rant over.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Bat shit crazy

Someone found my blog by typing into google 'What is a phlegm witch?'.

No. I can't make these things up.

But happy to know that I'm providing a service.

Shannapalooza

In the next two months I am going to become one of those types of people. That have the life. You know. Those people that you look at and say "Well, they have the life."

In the next two months I have trips to Sydney, Brisbane and New York. Try and find a link between those three places and the only thing you can come up with is ME!!!

I'm nicknaming it Shannapalooza. I'm making T-shirts. Feel free to casually mention to loved ones and total strangers "That girl, well she has the life." Because I do.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Talk

The lovely Cristin Kelly interviewed me for a new project she has started which you can find here. A great idea, right? Australian playwrights talking about writing plays. Genius.

Even greater, she made me number one. There should be some sort of award for her, or soon, I will buy her many drinks and thank her properly.

In the meantime, you can read it here

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Lessons

It's amazing the things you learn when you are in the middle of trying to finish a scene. Just a scene. Just something in writing, on a file on your computer, just to tell yourself that things haven't gone completely to hell, and you are a writer more than just by name.

Thing I learnt tonight: You will never completely know what you are doing. Never, ever. Enjoy the naivety. It may be the last time you experience it. I don't know why. I don't. I wish I did. I think it would make this easier. But then, really, I don't think I would like this if it was easy. I think I like the hard. I think we all do.

PS: Who the fuck writes plays in winter? I mean, seriously. Spring and autumn. Spring and autumn. It should be a law.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

More work

Things that annoy me about working people:

1. That they work.

2. They like work so much that they invent reasons to keep staying at work. I've been back at this day job for 4 weeks and I have already got 3 invites for drinks, a dinner, a lunch, a chance to spend my lunch hour watching the firm's netball team in the grand final and an end of financial year party. I mean, go home. Seriously. Even whole DVD sets of The Jersey Shore is better than eating canapés with each other. [## This is not a scientific fact, but am I right?]

3. They talk about how all the horrible, mundane things that they are forced to do on a daily basis are "well, okay, really, when you compare it to ..." but never quite seem to finish that sentence.

4. They tend to laugh at things that just aren't funny. "Remember that contract? Yeah? With the ... I KNOW! Hilarious, right?" No Sir, go to your room and look up the meaning of hilarious.

5. That they turn up each and every fucking Monday morning with clean underwear and brushed hair. I seriously don't know how they do it.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Bright side

It's so nice when I come back to previous temp jobs. All the sweet, smiling faces asking me how I am, and what I've been up to, and what other law firms I've been to, and what gossip I have for them. There's presents, and free coffees, and ... No. Wait. None of those things happen. You get back, someone points vaguely to a spare desk that is buckling under the weight of piles of work labelled "Stuff that is too hard/too boring/too stupid for me to deal with so let's leave it for the Temp" and they all have a look on their face of "JUST GET ON WITH IT ... Please". I imagine the Please because I don't want to fully give in to my cyncism. This return to former day job has had the added bonus of giving me the flu. I know. How can I ever repay them? I'm thinking of letting the flu develop into pneumonia just so I can pass it back to them. Genius.

In other news ... my partner woke up in the middle of the night last night and yelled out "WHAT ABOUT THE GERBILS?" No. I have no idea either.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Don't bother

And just like that, back to the day job. Hopefully (and I say this with everything crossed including a few internal organs which is very, very painful but shows my utter commitment to this being true), this is going to be the last one for a while, but it's only one week in and already I'm hiding the sharp knives. I don't have a clue how people do this for their entire lives. Really. I don't get it. If someone wants to explain it to me, then ... actually, don't bother. I'll find the sharp knives I've hidden faster than you can convince me that being here until I shuffle off to the retirement home is a good thing.

Have to go. File something. Look like I’m working while trying to figure out Scene Three of my new play. Googling writers who are more productive than I am and beating myself up for not being more like them. File something else. Try and kill myself with a papercut from my filing. Walk around the block while convincing myself that death by papercut is not the way I should go. Practice my smile when someone calls playwriting 'a wonderful hobby'. Some combination of the above. Welcome to my days.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Random

  1. I almost got sprung doing something bad this morning, but I was swift with my coverup and got away with it.


     

  2. I wrote 27 pages yesterday in some sort of public holiday frenzy. Everything I write now, I can't stop thinking 'Is this too much like New Light Shine?' and then I have to tell myself 'Fuck it."

    Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it …


     

  3. I have too many books. Please, let no more bookchains go down the gurgler. I can't afford any more sales.


     

  4. I started writing a novel. And then I started writing more of it.


     

  5. I haven't written as much today. 8 pages on one thing, and a 4 page play about pills. It's a random sort of day.


     

  6. I'm thinking of buying a dog with my prize money.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Dreams

You know, when I'm at the soul sucking day job, all I dream about is the hours and hours I'm going to have for myself when I'm at home writing. I see myself sitting at my desk just churning out page after page of incredible, awe-inspiring dialogue. The truth is … well, I sit at my desk, and at some point usually about the time the sun goes down, I think it's probably time to get out of my pyjamas – or at least wash my face and I look at the pages that I have written and call them every name under the sun and usually put them into a file that I then go into the backyard and bury so they will never see the light of day EVER AGAIN. Then I start drinking. Yep. Living the dream.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Movies

One of the great things about not working at soul sucking day job is cheap Monday movies – I know I've mentioned it before but $6 movies on Lygon Street – you really cannot be asking for more than that. That makes you a greedy guts and you should be ashamed of yourself. Go and sit in the corner until you can appreciate the wonder and glory that is $6 movies on Lygon Street.

Right. Where was I?

MOVIES!

Well, I went and saw Snowtown today. Yeah, the one that Richard Wilkins called depraved and gave no stars and said he took one for the team by going to see it so we all wouldn't have to. And then twitter went a bit mad with him and everyone was either pro-Snowtown or anti-Snowtown. So, I went to see that.

Oh, you want to know what I think?

Snowtown is a devastating, poetic examination of a period in Australian history that has never been widely discussed, that we prefer to think is a freak occurrence that will never happen again, but could so easily, because this happened so easily. The acting, the writing, the directing, the slow deliberate camera that makes us keep watching, that forces us to confront every detail of this horrific story, are all carefully considered and of the highest order. Richard Wilkins, you should be ashamed of yourself for so wildly missing the point of this film and the Snowtown boys and girls should pat yourselves on the back. You are exactly the kind of filmmakers this country needs. And I only looked away twice. I think I did pretty well.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Back

So, I go and one little award and then I forget the blog that got me there. Well, not quite, and a soul-sucking day job rather than winning an award has been the main cause of not being able to finger to laptop and speak to my adoring fans … You are all still out there aren't you? Oh good. I was concerned there for a while. But soul-sucking temp day job is over and while it possibly the most exhausting job I've ever done I will actually miss my little gaggle of assistants. I'm thinking we should all go form a dancing troupe and leave the glamour of the law behind us. I'll work on this.

So, I'm back.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Where’s Shannon?

It's come to my attention that people are trying to find me and are finding it difficult, having to resort to reading my inane ramblings on Twitter and Facebook. Sorry about that.

If you're trying to get into contact with me, the best way is by email – smurdoch31@gmail.com

However, if you are spending your days yearning for inane ramblings then head to @shanmurdoch on twitter where I do my best to take inane to the level of martial art.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Yale Drama Series Award

About a week ago, at about 7.30am, just as I was getting ready to get on a plane to go to Sydney, I got a phone call.

On the other end of the phone was a very nice man who very calmly told me that I had won the Yale Drama Series Award for 2011.

This lovely, lovely man also remained very calm when I started shouting things like "OH MY GOD!" and "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" and "I THINK I NEED TO SIT DOWN" which is all I managed to get my brain to say for the ten minutes we were on the phone.

This is the announcement in the New York Times:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/australian-playwright-wins-yale-drama-series-award/

"I'M REALLY HAPPY" is about all I'm managing to say at this point but it doesn't come close. I'm thinking I'm going to have to spend some time inventing new words like superridiculamazahappy.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

New Light Shine

My play is on in Sydney. Well, a reading of my play is in Sydney which is pretty cool and I can barely wait to get there and be all playwrightey for a couple of days.

This is a little something I wrote about the things I thought about, the things that were going on in my life when I started writing the play and what the play is about.

Enjoy. And if you are in Sydney on the 16th March, come down to Parramatta to see it and say hello.


 

Friday, February 25, 2011

Noise

There is so much noise at my little abode at the moment, it is sometimes hard to hear yourself think. Between the work site across the road, the one neighbour who likes to listen to the soundtrack of Cats and the other neighbours who are obsessed, OBSESSED, with karaoke.

They have these trains now in Brisbane that have quiet carriages. You can't talk on your phone, you can't have music playing. You've just got to sit there and be quiet. QUIET!!! I want to create a quiet street. Like, now.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

What I’m doing

What am I doing? Well, outlines. I'm writing so many outlines at the moment, I'm starting to live my life in short, sharp actions:

Shannon walks to the shops to buy dinner. Contemplates the beef, but goes for the lamb. Makes witty statement about people and indecision over small life decisions to no one in particular. Fellow shoppers move away in barely concealed terror.

I've always had a troublesome relationship with outlines veering wildly from compulsively making long, detailed documents to thumbing my nose and driving at top speed into a draft.

But I think I may have found a breed of outline that seems to be working that isn't too detailed, but is detailed enough to put me on the right path when I'm flailing about in the ditch when trying to get characters what I want them to. And, if you're wondering, it's all about action. Follow the action of the scene and you have to work really, really hard to fuck it up.


 

PS Don't forget cheap monologues here and here. Only a couple of days left!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Loose change monologues

SALE! SALE! SALE!

Get In quick my fearless readers and buy two of my monologues for the bargain basement price of £1.01. CHEAP!!!

Names for things that sound like home

Oscar has just moved with his girlfriend to her home town. He is not coping well.

Ten Balloons

It's Clio's 16th birthday and she is determined to put her childhood behind her.


 

Check them out for some loose change. Just click on Licence A and it will be on your screen before you know it.


 


 

Saturday, February 12, 2011

The Little Play that could


 

So about a year ago I wrote this play called New Light Shine. I was pretty happy with myself but was ready for the tsunami of rejections that always seem to follow such amazing feats of creativity. But this little play seems to be (FINALLY!) starting to strike a chord with people. Some people. Other people have failed to see the brilliance and these people will of course be punished when the day of reckoning arrives – I'm pretty sure there is something in the bible about that. Anyway, if you want to know what I'm talking about then go here and read a monologue from it.

Or, if you are in Sydney next month you can go here and see it.

Or, if you are in San Francisco in May, you can go here and see a stage reading of it.

I know. I cater for all localities.

Lost

I know. Don't even start with me. And let's not do this again where I apologise and swear that I am going to be a better blogger and you get all angry but give in quicker than you should. Let's just pretend it never happened and I'm the kind of blogger that you've always imagined you would end up with. Okay? Okay.