Saturday, January 24, 2009

Also

I'm also reading The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas which is fab, fab, fab.  Go read.  Go on.  Why not?  Well, we're all busy.  You don't know busy.  Really, you don't.  You're just lazy.  Yeah, that's right.  Lazy.  Look, there's no need to cry.  Why are you crying you big baby?  You remind me of the kid in the book.  Well, if you read it you would know if it was an insult or not so go read it. 

Plans schmans

Things have gone slightly off the rails in the last week or so, namely due to the cash job and the demands of.  Have still yet to find a way to manage both a full day's work and then writing at night.  I manage to get something down every day but it's hardly any serious work.  However, there is a long weekend here this weekend and that means writing, writing, writing.  I'm working on a one-act and a couple of 10 minute plays.  I'm hoping to get a completed first draft of the one-act done and dusted and even typed - oh, how she tries.  If only trying were half the battle but apparently it is nothing of the battle at all.  I'm also working on the first 10 pages of a script for a competition and that HAS TO BE DONE BY TOMORROW.  So, perhaps ... I MIGHT DO THAT TOMORROW!   There's also a house to clean and a play to be watched and I would really like to see one of the dozen or so great fucking movies that are out at the moment. 

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Rock on

Back to the dreaded cash job tomorrow but with hopes of a trip to the Big Apple sometime this year, I am looking at this as a means to an end or an unnecessary evil or something that I have to get through in order to get to that beautiful shiny place.

With the prospect of more money coming in, there was an overwhelming need to go spend some. And spend I did. But on good things, not things I will look at in a few weeks with the exclamation WTF? I bought myself a seat in Robert McKee's Story seminar because I need to do more of these things. Important, career things or some such nonsense. 11 hours a day for 3 days. I don't do anything for 11 hours a day except sometimes sleep. Sounds like fun ... or some such nonsense.

Have also declared after two weeks that my new method of getting writing done is an unqualified success and someone should give me an award of some sort. Productivity has now become my bitch. I couldn't be happier.

Finished the next short play which was to be called Heart but was pipped at the post by Act Accordingly. Done, sent off, onto the next thing , which is ... a new play based on an old play which I wrote for NIDA back in 2005 and tried to squeeze it into a ten minute play but failed so miserably I'm still licking my wounds but I persevere. I think it's going to be around the 40 minute mark. And it's better than anything I came up with at NIDA.

Rockin it? You betcha.

Friday, January 9, 2009

New play

Managed to drip a long first draft of new play with could be called Heart but who the hell knows onto the page. It's way too long and I'm not quite sure how to fix that but I guess that's my job. Now, it's time to get it onto the computer and work some damn magic on it. I kinda like it though. It's funny. Well, I think it's funny.

This morning is all about the rewrites and if I get the nod that I have to go back to cash job next week then I may take myself off to the movies. Or work a bit more. Who knows?

Thursday, January 8, 2009

I’m so smart

Have had two blah blah days writing. Haven't really got my groove thing on or some such nonsense. No more. Enough. I have to get a short play done by tomorrow (or the world will end, rampant disease will infect my community, some such nonsense) and I've been dancing around it for the last couple of days. It's a ten minute play and has three characters. I knew what I wanted to say with it, I knew the basic structure of the thing, I had the characters loosely mapped out … in short, everything I needed to write a first draft. And then … blah. I paced, I moaned, I grumped through the hours until it was time for cocktails.

And then it hit me. If you have three characters in a ten-minute play, you need two of them to have some sort of prior relationship, or else you waste too much time trying to get them to talk to each other or figure out who each of them is, and you never actually get to the story you're trying to tell now.

This is my one and only playwriting truism. Enjoy it.

The end of an era

Sad news. Our beloved goldfish Kevin gave up the ghost and travelled upwards to the big goldfish pond in the sky. M and I are devastated. Absolutely devastated. We had this fish for a year and a half. We loved him more than was healthy to love a fish. A five dollar fish at that. M and I sat around for a long time trying to comfort ourselves, telling ourselves what a good fish he was and whatnot. It was all a bit naff if you weren't a part of it all.

I woke up yesterday and went out to the living room. Before I could remember I said "Hi Kev" as I do every morning. All that was there was an empty goldfish bowl. It was the saddest thing I ever saw. I know, I know, it's a goddamn goldfish. I get it. But it was Kev. And Kev was no ordinary goddamn goldfish and you weren't there so you don't know.

So I hightailed it down to the market and bought Little Sam who is very cute and never stops moving. Unlike Kev.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Productivity and I are BFF

Finished short play, now called Linger which has been duly sent off to the other side of the world. It's based on/inspired by the statement "You're good enough to eat". So there. I rock, no need to dance around it.

Also have written first draft of another short play called Revolution which I'm about to type up, rewrite and also send to the other side of the world. Totally rock, no need to dance around it.

Have started to make notes about a long one act I'm going to write very soon about baby farming. I think it's going to be great. Morality, women, babies, and the men that think they control all that. Awesomely rock, no need to dance around it.

Also watched the most fascinating documentary about Dr William Freeman, the man that invented the lobotomy. Wow. And I thought I had an ego. Did you know the youngest person he performed a lobotomy on was 4 YEARS OLD!!!!. Unbelievable. He also performed a lobotomy on a 10 year old boy who didn't like to go to bed. Yes, I don't feel like dancing either.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Who loves me?

Well, if they're handing out awards for most productive first day of the new year, I would like to humbly raise my hand and nominate myself. Things achieved yesterday:

  1. One Cloud – Typed up, rewritten, sent off to four theatres. DONE!
  2. New short play – Started to write this on Wednesday and got about 8 pages in and realised that nothing was happening and it was all a bit slapstick and not in a good way, in a totally ridiculous way that made me want to do bad things to small fluffy animals. Anyway, rewrote that yesterday and while still needing a bit (read: a lot, a lot, oh god, a lot) of work, has a first draft and is kind of strange and lovely.
  3. Served up quite the most fantastic antipasto platter to ever set foot in Footscray.

Diamonds. Chocolates, trips to New York … you decide what the prize should be. I'll get back to the list of things to do for today.