Fringe First
I noticed that on my ‘about Ellen’ page on the website that Jean, my web whizz, wrote that I liked to keep people waiting for my diary entries. She’s right - I’m not a natural blogger and I still don’t know my way around Facebook, though I seem to have two separate sites and keep joining people twice! I don’t like to witter or twitter, but when I’ve got something to say (or crow about) then I’m happy to do it. So here goes:
Breath has been shortlisted (with 14 other books) for the Coffee House Poetry/London Fringe First Collection prize.
I’m thrilled - it must have helped, doing the reading at the Troubadour, home of Coffee House, in May. Final winner announced at the Waldorf Hilton in London on 28th August. I’d be amazed if I won, but just being shortlisted is a great boost.
Cain and Abel was a triumph - all the dancers and actors upped their performance 200% over the three nights and all the technical wizardry worked - so we had flames for the offering and the Tag mysteriously creating itself on the LED screen. My son Fred and I wrote the words, and my son Johnny created all the music - we are the Von Rap family!
Fred also played God - he wasn’t terribly keen, and thought his friends would say he’d got above himself. But he controlled everything and gave all the cues from the decks up in the God Balcony, so it made sense.
We’ve been told there will be a DVD available of the Mysteries - contact the Gala Theatre for more details.
We hope to perform Cain and Abel again at a festival or suitable venue - watch this space. The young dancers and rappers loved the process and were telling us -This has changed my life. That’s what makes the hard work all worth while; that and the really positive feedback from the audience. It got very cold in the evenings down at the Sands, but our vibrant, lively show kept people hooked and engaged, so that’s a sign it was working too.
Currently my 10 minute play Promise is going to be performed down at Writer’s Block in Middlesbrough on Friday 2nd July. Anyone interested in getting involved in the arts should get themselves down there - it’s buzzing with all sorts of opportunities: film, puppetry, plays, animation. There’s a Writer’s Block Facebook page, so look out for it.
Tomorrow, New Writing North is taking all the Northern Writers Award winners down to London to meet agents and publishers. The six of us from Fast Track Fiction are also going. We had a very useful session last saturday with Ian Fenton on Pitching - we all had to stand up in front of the whole group and not only ‘sell’ our novel, but sell ourselves. Stressful, but by golly, it made you work hard - three minutes for your pitch, no rambling or straying off the point. A bit like speed dating, but with more at stake.
Writing our pitch was a useful process in itself, making us think hard about our novels, having to sum up what they are about in a few words. It made me realise that I wasn’t really as clear about my main character as I thought I was.
Debbie Taylor has given me lots of really useful pointers, and as I knew I would, I’m having to completely rewrite my first draft. My main character Mulberry was too passive, and I was so determined to Show not Tell, that I didn’t tell enough, so Debbie had no idea what it was about ! At least I wasn’t the only one - she said we all did it: we withheld information that we didn’t need to.
I’ve now started the story much earlier to bring in more background context and establish the character more clearly in the plot. I’ve been writing it in ‘close third person’ but I’m now wondering whether to try it in first person. I always feel that if I find my character’s ‘voice’ I know exactly where I’m going - I think that’s the legacy of starting as a writer for the stage. I like writing dialogue too. But that’s all very well; what the agent or the publisher wants to know is Can you finish it?
If we’re lucky, we might get asked to send the first three chapters and a synopsis of our novel. Great! But not much use if the agent or editor want the rest and it’s not there. But hopefully they will see our ‘potential’ and help us to achieve the finished product. At least everyone there tomorrow knows the score - we are there because we’re new writers who’ve been identified as having talent, and they are there because they’re looking for talent.
Now it’s just a question of what to wear so I make the right impression, and they remember who I am... I’d better go and iron my outfit.
The Time Has Come
Phew nearly Mysteries time. What a month.
The reading at the Troubadour was a triumph, though I say it myself. I got a lot of very positive feedback and promises of more readings and sold 7 of my 10 books, so I was pleased. The other readers were good too, we all sold books. The Troubadour has a strong core audience who are very serious listeners and generous with their money!
I was staying with a friend who is a solicitor at The Guardian, and she offered to show me round the building on the Tuesday 11th May - and also took me in to the morning’s regular staff conference. Of course it was packed because everyone was discussing what would happen with the hung parliament, so all the top minds and journalists at the Guardian were putting forward their thoughts - you couldn’t move for bodies in the room, they just kept squashing in. A very exciting event.
Meanwhile back at the Mysteries - we had a disaster when one of our major dancers fell and dislocated his shoulder, so very last minute we’ve found a replacement, who’s just as good, but not a lot of time to rehearse him in. He’s a dancer so there’s no problem with the moves, but learning lines on top is a challenge. All the costumes are dyed and now have a Cain or an Abel tag sprayed across the t-shirts. We’ve got a taxidermy sheep for one of the offerings - all the girls said Eugh! it’s creepy.
On the day of the last rehearsal, Saturday, our director thought she’d broken her finger and had to go off to A&E to have her ring cut off. Luckily it wasn’t broken, but it broke up the rehearsal somewhat. Sunday night we were down on the Sands plotting lights at 11.00 in the evening! It was wonderful to see the full stage - I think it’s going to be very impressive, but accessible too. And the lights can twirl about, change colour or pattern and all controlled by computer. It’s very clever. We just need a chance to rehearse in the actual space, with all the props and set - that is happening tonight in a Technical and Wednesday 26th May on our Dress rehearsal.
We’ve got one our older dancers, who is a Design and computer whizz student to put some of the choral raps into a video format so that the words will come up in sequence on the LED screens at the side of the stage, and when the words aren’t up. there will be camera operators sending live feed to the screens. I’m just worried the dancers will be tripping over them. But I expect they are professional enough not to get in the way...
I thought I was just writing the Mystery play, but in reality, I’ve been Mrs Right hand woman, director’s assistant, stage manager buying costumes, organising the tag graffiti, sound technician and music advisor, and administrator for transport arrangements. It’s fun - it’s Show Biz - but it’s full on. And I’m a fretter - I worry about all the little details, so I wake up at 4 in the morning thinking S**T, I haven’t hemmed the Tag material (In fact I got a very good friend to do that on her industrial sewing machine, thanks a million Jane!). Now I’m taxi person, taking my son and others to Durham. I think I shall be more nervous than them.
And in the middle of all of this, I discovered to my delight that I have been accepted for New Writing North’s Fast Track Fiction course! This is designed for writers with a first draft of a novel, to help them get a finished draft, and give us advice on approaching agents and publishers. I have a first draft of a novel for 12+ year olds, my first in prose as opposed to in poems, so I really do need a good eye over it. I’ve tried to make it very plot-led. In fact the plot was leading me, so I ‘m not sure if I’ve got to the end, or the end of a first book in a series. Debbie Taylor, ex Mslexia editor, is our mentor, and she really is the business. It’s a bit difficult with my head full of Cain and Abel at the moment, but after Saturday, I can focus on my writing once more.
And if anyone is tempted to buy tickets for the Mysteries, don’t be put off when it says sold out - it is for the two shows at the Gala and the Cathedral, but you should still be able to buy tickets for The Sands - the other eight performances, including Cain and Abel. My advice is wrap up warm, it got quite cool by ten o’clock.
The Time Has Come... if you want to know what that refers to, you’ll just have to come along. See you there?
May Day, May Day!
April seems to have been one long set of rehearsals and performances.
We gathered for a meal on the 5th Anniversary of Julia’s death, and sat around remembering happy occasions and looking at photographs. We raised a toast to her and talked about planning a literary event in her memory at some point. Then today, trying to sort the huge amounts of boxes of tapes and cds that I brought with me from the old house, I found a cd called Waiting Room - what’s that I thought? I played it and there was Charlie Hardwick singing Rendezvous Cafe - it was the BBC recording of Julia’s blog, edited and adapted for radio, with Charlie reading Julia’s words. Lovely.
We spent a week at Northumbria university getting Cain and Abel up on its dancing feet - wonderful and exhausting (for me) the young dancers would do gruelling hours of rehearsal, then to relax, they put on music and did more dance routines! We even had them speaking lines, reluctantly at first, but once they felt comfortable with the idea, and realised no-one was laughing at them, they just got better and better. Though I say it myself, I think the ending of the play is really quite moving. I am now trying to tidy up (hence the sorting of boxes) as I’ve got family and friends all wanting to come up, to see the Mysteries and stay. It will be a lovely get together.
I was asked to be part of the panel on the Friday 23rd April for the Looking North Conference at Northern Stage. Erica Whyman chaired it with aplomb, but I was charged with putting forward the ‘strong female perspective’. No pressure then. I soon realised that it would be easy to let the other confident, interesting men take all the air time unless I spoke up. I managed to make a joke: Erica was taking a straw poll of the audience - who had adapted their accent to fit in at any time of their lives, and where did their accent come from? I recounted the time I went to hire a car and the receptionist said ‘Oh, you’re from the Radio.’ I read some of Wall, and then after an open forum discussion the speakers went out to dinner. I got to sit next to Martin Wainwright and opposite Fernando Pereira and his wife: we had very interesting discussions about Northernness. In Portugal, the north is the cultured, economic hub and the south is simply the European’s holiday destination. I also had a fascinating discussion about mixing family life and art. The Pereira’s had decided not to have children, as it would conflict with time given to art - and even then, they still found it difficult to agree who was going to take time out to cook! You can cut every extraneous activity out of your life and still not have enough time for your art.
Unfortunately I couldn’t get to see his film Permafrost or hear their discussions as I was at another Cain and Abel rehearsal. I was also launching an exhibition at the Grainger Market called Herstory, that had arisen out of workshops, run by writers and artists (of which I was one) and inspired by International Women’s Day. We sat beside etched glass cubes, and decorated screens, covered by our group’s life stories, drinking cups of tea with a huge range of women: young mums, schoolgirls, elderly ladies and families from Afghanistan. They all got on well, it was a very positive occasion. Then on Sunday 25th I was reading at the inaugural event of Free as a Bard - a new poetry night at the coast, run by Iron Press at The Trojan Rooms. I was on with Valerie Laws, Eileen Jones, Paul Summers and a singer Karen Banning. It was really well attended on a lovely balmy evening. I wish it all the best - it’s good to have new venues giving readings.
By Monday 26th April I was tired, but that was the beginning of the new term! May is a funny month with it’s two bank holidays. I used to go on the May Day march every year, religiously. I find it rather a depressing event now, and anyway, I have an excuse for absence this year - the Hexham Book Festival, where I will be sitting on a stage with three men (again) talking about the North East Literary History book, entitled ‘Fix This Moment.’ I contributed a chapter on Women’s writing in the region; I was asked for a title, and couldn’t think. Then Colette Bryce suggested using Linda France’s new collection title - You Are Her - taken from a public map, with missing letters. Great idea and Linda was very gracious about it.
On the tenth of May I’m zipping to London to read at The Troubadour - a first for me, along with a night of Flambard poets. So if any friends of mine are out there - do come along. And the end of May sees the realisation of all our hard work: the Durham Mysteries. I think the whole event will be quite spectacular, but I may have to lie down in a darkened room for a day or so afterwards.
Life, death and the drinks in-between
We’ve been gathering together our group for Cain and Abel, the Durham Mystery play scheduled for the end of May. We’ve been holding exciting rehearsals with Fred teaching them how to rap the lines, and a fantastic Bad Taste Cru doing the choreography. BTC are break dance champions from Northern Ireland, now based at Dance City, and when the beats, the raps and the dance steps all come together I get a tingle down my neck.
Sometimes it’s a bit like a Marx Brothers film, with Fiona MacPherson the director, me, Fred and two lads from BTC: Connor and Darren, each trying to give instructions. (Most of the time I’m just operating the on/off switch on the cd player, and try to keep out of it.) We’ve got a female Satan, who is a sympathetic character as opposed to the patriarchal Old Testament God, and a group of about thirty young people ranging from 11 to 25 year olds. We’re going to make use of this by having lots of Cains and lots of Abels, who will ‘grow’ in size through the performance, as we start with their birth (Eve the first mother) through to the first murder and death, when Cain, in a fit of jealousy and passion, stabs Abel. We’ve got a great Graffiti artist from Leeds designing our Cain ‘tag’, a son of a friend.
I remember when our boys were in the early teenage years, we’d be phoning each other up, worrying, sharing the latest ‘bad boy’ stories and supporting each other when we’d had to visit police stations and were waiting for court hearings. Now, here they are, turning their youthful experiences into current cultural capital. Bad Taste Cru brothers Darren and Connor have similar stories of their young lives in Northern Ireland - nobody thought break dancing was a legitimate activity, and certainly not one to make a living at. They are now in demand world-wide, workshopping and dancing in Brazil and the USA. This is really the story at the heart of our Cain and Abel; if a boy gets off to a bad start, makes a mistake, even a terrible one like murder, is he going to be marked for the rest of his life, never given a chance to change or redeem himself?
The theatre are building a huge outdoor stage, and anticipating an audience, picnic style seating on the grass, of around 3,000! Anyone interested in the Mysteries, play dates 27, 28, 29th May 2010, there is a website. www.durhammysteries.co.uk
Tim Dalling and I did our music and poetry show ‘Life, death and the drinks in between’ at the Cumberland on Thursday 4th March. I hunted out the old Blue Room tablecloths and we had tea lights and themed sweeties: jelly bones, hearts, eggs and letters. I really enjoyed performing with Tim, and I think we got the right balance between laughs and seriousness; we started with my poem Breath, about birth and worked out way through to Death, and ended with Tim’s setting of Sean O’Brien’s poem Absent Friends, which I absolutely love. We got the audience to write their own epitaphs, which we read out - one of my favourites was ‘At last, I’ve started my diet’ and we also got each table to see if they could make words out of their sweetie letters. Kincy Baps was my favourite of these. We made enough on the door, and by selling CDs and books, to cover our expenses and have a bit in our pockets too. We’ll not get rich, but it was a good tryout, for a show we could sell further afield. We just need to get our publicity sorted.
I’ve been running some writing workshops for Beginners, thanks to New Writing North. I tell people that a writer is someone who finishes something. Everyone has drafts of poems, or half written stories in their files - the trick is the graft, the determination to bring it to completion. So I am trying to take my own advice: I’ve given myself a deadline of the summer to bring my novel for young people to a finished first draft. I’m trying writing in different settings, to get away from my desk (and emails) - I’ve been into Heaton Perc, one of my local cafes, and the city library, or even my front room. Off I go.
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