Author diaries

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30 June 2010 Entry: "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.