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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
   

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.