Good/Bad

Things that are bad but really good

1. Getting drunk for no reason on a Sunday night and having to front up to work on Monday morning.
2. When you wake up in the middle of the night with a pounding headache and you drink a big glass of water.
3. Coffee in the morning, with a hangover and when that doesn’t work, the justification of an egg and bacon sandwich.
4. Listening to crappy songs on your ipod and feeling like you can take on the world, once you’re rid of your hangover.

Baby, I didn’t mean it

So, I've been working on this play, which I was calling the Rainbow play and then I was calling the f*(#@ing rainbow play and then ended up calling it the Thing. What are you doing? Hating the Thing. I was trying to rewrite it, I've been trying to write and rewrite the thing for a couple of months, on and off, and well, I think I've killed it. I think I killed it until it is dead. I'm not quite sure what I did or whether it is actually dead or just in a head trauma deep coma from the banging with a blunt instrument (read: my pen) but I've come to the conclusion that once you start calling your play The Thing, it's time to put it down. Let it rest. Let it heal. I hold hope that there will be a time in the future where it will flicker its eyes and I will know what to do with it. I have so many plays like this. My writing room is really an intensive care facility for plays in various stages of recovery from the brutal beating I have delivered in the pursuit of artistic glory. I'm like the neighbourhood thug. Plays should really run and hide when they see me coming. But then again, plays survive. The beatings I gave New Light Shine would make normal people weep at the sheer, thuggish brutality (For one draft I set it all in a forest – for anyone who has read it, you know what a beating that is) but it recovered, it really did. Some plays don't know how to die. So deep down, while I beat the crap out of plays some time, I really do love them all.

Best Thing

Sometimes, when it is all too much, and you just can't be arsed, it's time to go to the pub. Drink, eat, talk absolute shite, come home, write 13 pages. In my ongoing series on how to write, tip number 34923 … Just go get drunk.

Important information

Okay. Here's a tip for all you newbie playwrights out there. Are you ready? This is great advice so you might want to sit down. Are you already sitting down? Don't get too comfortable. This is important. I don't want you nodding off halfway through. Do you have a drink? Do you want a drink? Do you have a drinking problem? I don't want to give out this advice and have you forget it because you have one too many Bacardi and cokes. Do people still Bacardi and coke? I used to drink Bacardi and coke and then vomit everything from my ribcage down. I'm getting away from the point. Here's my tip … When you start something, finish it. Don't start it, think I don't know where I'm going so I might just stop for a while and do something else OR I'm halfway through a draft of a play but I have a publishing contract for another play and I need to get this play perfect because I don't want to sit down with my published play in a couple of years and DIE OF HUMILIATION … just as an example. Start it, finish it. Trust me, you are going to save yourself a lot of angst.

Also, I really hate summer.

That is all.

Houston baby

If you happen to be in Houston, Texas at the end of this month or the start of next month, you can check out my new short play, Piercing the Skin, at Obsidian Art Space along with some other fine playwrights. If you don't happen to be in Houston, Texas at the end of this month or the start of next month, then you are dead to me. Kidding. Sort of.

You can check it on out here

OMG!

Holy crap! It's 2012. How the hell did that happen? I swear to god it was like 1993 twelve minutes ago. I was graduating high school without a clue in the world about the … world, and then a couple of decades passed and, well, I have no idea what I did with them. Where does all the time go? WHERE?! Because it's 2012. 2012! I've got to go and … get a clue about the world.

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.