The Shannon/SHANNON debate

When I look at the people that come to this blog and no, it's not obsessive or egotistic, no, not at all, nothing needy or desperate about me, I really like how some people search for Shannon Murdoch and some people search for SHANNON MURDOCH.

Because some days I am Shannon Murdoch. I'm small and quiet and don't really want to talk to anyone and other days I'm all WHAT'S GOING ON BITCHES (I don't think I've ever said that phrase but you get my drift … do you get my drift? Is your head exploding from all the capitalised words? Really? You should work on that because that's weird. It's just a capital. SEE. Okay. Stop crying. I'll stop with the capitals now, even though I was making a point. Well, trying to make a point but I get it. You’re the audience. You're way more important than me. Or something. I think I remember something about the importance of the audience in some theatre class I took but look, really, I was probably hungover. Or high. And I was in love with a married man, so it's all a bit of a blur. I do remember once that Skye Patchett - and really, that's her name. I should probably use a false name to protect myself from defamation or something … I do remember once that Fkye Fatchett did a real number about artistic dignity when we all had to be trees or farm animals or something and then about six months later dropped out to become the ingénue on the remake of Flipper. No. I didn't make that up. I can't make those things up. I'm really not that clever. I do have an exploding chicken in my new play. That's pretty clever. Well, it will be if it gets produced and someone figures out how to make a chicken explode on stage. I have no idea how to make a chicken explode on stage. But I trust that someone does. I'm sure they teach that at University these days. We were not taught that … or maybe we were and I was just, as previously stated, hungover, high and giving all my attention to a man that did not deserve me and used me like a rag. Well, not really a rag but I was 19 years old and that man was a long way from 19. That's all I'm saying. I'm just saying that …well, who knows what I was thinking? I'm pretty sure I wasn't. I'm pretty sure I was too hungover and high to do much but drift from situation to situation with the iron clad belief that I knew everything there was to know. I do remember that my friend Moyra and I (and that is her real name) found Jerzy Grotowski so hilarious that we created a long-running comedy sketch on him. Those were the days … BITCHES! Ha! You thought I had forgotten. I forget nothing. I'm like the Catholic Church that way).

So anyway, all this was because I think it's funny that some people think I'm Shannon Murdoch and other people think I'm SHANNON MURDOCH and … Well, now I've forgotten my whole point. Thanks for nothing bitches.

Wiki love

Just in case you were wondering, and I know you all hang off your seats in a perpetual state of unease, distress and pure bewilderment regarding my wellbeing, NO! I AM NOT COPING WITH THE WIKIPEDIA SHUTDOWN. It's 11.00am in the morning here and apparently I have to wait until 4.00pm this afternoon before I can get my intellectual crack.

Things I should know about but can’t because Wikipedia is offline include methods for stuffing a chicken, besser blocks and which number child is Peaches Geldof. I want to say that all this is research for the play I’m writing but I don’t want to lie to you. Will someone please go and change the law or whatever and get Wikipedia back. I can’t get any dumber. I just can't.

Train talk

Things heard on the train this morning (Part1)

- Baby, you need to be an app

- Darren, defrost the fish fingers or suffer the consequences

- I got explosives on my mind.

I should also point out that these looked like ordinary people.

Conclusion: THERE ARE NO ORDINARY PEOPLE!

I need to get a new train.

Love

I started out this afternoon writing something about Valentine’s Day and came out with this …

MINNIE: Just so we are clear, I don't think about dating serial killers. Well, I do, but not in a creepy way. And not all the time. I hold down a job. It's not a particularly exciting or demanding job but it's mine. I turn up. I sit at my desk. I don’t do much more than that but in this world, turning up is usually enough. I also am a member of a book club. Or I was, but they threw me out because I kept calling the other members stupid. They were. That's an absolute. Anyone who calls Dan Brown a deep and probing thinker deserves to be called stupid. They also deserve to have Dan Brown in hardback hurled at their head, and I hope the scar it left on Betty’s face is a long, red rope of a reminder about how angry the stupidity of others can make a person. They threw me out but forgot to remove me from the email list so I still get their poxy exchanges about what books they are reading. I should remove myself because it’s incredibly upsetting to read that The Time Traveller’s Wife is glorious and Pride and Prejudice was full of people that spoke weird … Also I just think I am going to be one of those people that ends up with a serial killer. You know. I'm just the type. I look like a serial killer wife. So I've got to put a little bit of thought into it all. You know. Prepare myself. Are you a serial killer Jason?

Somehow I don’t think this is going to have a happy ending …

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.