Science Girl

Taking a break from the two plays this morning – because two days on the one thing is just so hard – god help me if I ever ant to write a novel. A couple of years? On the same thing? Go get fucked.

However, while it may look like I'm slacking off, I am actually doing some research on nanotechnology … as you do. At the moment it is incredibly confusing and yet I'm getting some ideas for a play … which is actually the whole point.

I'm also downloading a lot of plays for those young people which I'm telling myself I'm going to read.

Day Two

What was lacking in motivation (and trust me motivation had left the building some time during the night) was made up for in sheer tenacity. 11 pages on each of the plays later and some quality reading time and I'm feeling pretty good about myself. I've even gone and bought the papers today to do a little writing exercise I came across a while ago. It involves finding little paragraph stories (you know the ones that wrap a whole story in a paragraph) and turning it into a play. As I remember the writing exercise, you only have 15 minutes to outline the whole play. I thought it would be a good exercise for me as I tend to take forever to do anything when it comes to writing. I'll have a go and report back.

David Foster Wallace

Managed to eke out another twelve pages on the new full-length for the grown-up types. Yes, am sitting here thinking I am the hero of my own writing room. Wiped me out so much had to take a nap. Feel refreshed and brilliant now, as only someone who has written 24 pages in one day can. The day hit a crashing halt though just a few moments ago with the news that David Foster Wallace took his own life on Friday. This is devastating news and while I don't know any of the details, I think every writer on the planet today is thankful for what he left behind, are also very, very sad about what we will never have.

And we’re off

Day One has got off to a flying start. Woke up with quite the spring in my step even though it's miserably cold, wet and windy. But I didn't have to go and stand in the cold, wet and wind and wait for a crowded train. Yeah for me. Boo hoo to all those people that did. Kiss my ass suckers.

Made coffee, rugged up and went and sat at my desk. Pulled out notebook and found where I had left off with my children's play. Started writing. Things were tough going for the first few pages even though it all came back to me quite quickly. Oh yes, this character has this going on. That character wants that. Still, it's been about six weeks since I last did anything to it. I thought if I get 10 handwritten pages out, it's all slaps on the back and high-fives all round. Two and a half hours later, 12 pages done and dusted. I so totally rock I'm finding it hard to stop making out with myself.

Now, it's out to get some supplies and do something I really should have done on Friday and then it's back to get started on the other full-length.

What’s next?

So along with everything else that has been neglected in the past 6 weeks while I dealt with cash job from hell, it's time to sprinkle some love and attention on my poor, neglected blog. I'm going to try something new in the next few weeks on this blog. From tomorrow morning I'm going to be trying to see just how much writing one slightly flu-ridden girl can achieve . We're talking quantity over quality here although a little quality won't be kicked out of bed for farting … if you get my drift. I have so many first drafts that need to be written in order to be able to submit for cool stuff that I would like to be a part of.

The plan is to get up each morning and just write. Write and write and write … you can see that I've thought this through to the last detail.

The two big priorities are a full length adult called Habits of the Love-Struck and a full-length children's play entitled … well, as I said, all the details have been nailed into place and nothing could possibly go wrong. I also have a couple of short plays I want to get done. I also have a lot of rewrites to get done. The well-organised plan is to do all the fresh writing in the morning hours, take a bath, do some reading and then spend the afternoons on rewrites. I mean, seriously, what could possibly go wrong?

I am going to try and blog about the experience. No, scrap that. I am going to blog about the experience. What's the point in having a blog if you can't whinge about perfect plans going down the toilet?

Realism

However, and should mention this, the highlight of the week was seeing a stage reading of Paul Galloway's play Realism at the Arts Centre last week. Charming, hilarious, terrifying and most impressive, BIG. After struggling with a big play for the last couple of years, I have the most amount of sympathy for writers that take on large plays. 8 characters each who had their story to tell and did so quite convincingly. It's all set in The Great Terror and a small Russian theatre trying to put on a play to celebrate Stalin's 60^th birthday. Cue the laughs. Bold, brilliant, messy and full of smashing ideas. Well done Paul.

Where the hell never ends

Blah. Another week goes by. This cash job is killing me. Sucking me dry. All I want to do at the end of the day is find my piece of couch and the bottom of a bottle of wine. Oh, the pain. Oh, the torture. Only one more week to go.

Didn't get anywhere near through my to do list last weekend. But did manage to get all the presents to the people they needed to go to and … well, that's about all. It seemed more impressive when I was doing it.

But another weekend approaches and it's almost a quarter through. Done nothing so far but I feel there is momentum still left in this old horse.

I want to get Good World done and dusted. Rewritten and then out into the world. I have too many unfinished things. I also have to get an application done for the play in November. And submissions. Time to get things out there.