Short stories and 1979
I am getting back into regular writing after the whirlwind of nights out at the Fresh Fiction events at Live Theatre. Before that it was Live's own programme of new plays and events, plus a day at the BBC as a follow-up to the Ignite writing for radio course I did last year, so my own writing has been pushed to one side.
I did have one other welcome distraction last week, an invitation to read at Tales of the Decongested, the monthly short story event at the Poetry Cafe in London. I'd submitted my short story because I knew I was working in London that day anyway (so work would pay for my rail ticket). Then I ended up having another meeting the following day, which was even better as I could stay overnight.
Short stories are still very new for me, so it was great to have the chance to read one - it's also on their website now so you can read it too.
I really enjoyed hearing the other five stories. All were very different and it made me realise how traditionally linear my own story was. As part of my mentorship with Sara Maitland, I am trying different styles of writing and will hopefully wean myself off thinking that the first person is the only way to tell a story. Being in London with no ironing, washing, vacuuming meant I had time to work on a new short story, so that's my first "homework" done. It's funny, I had the idea for the story six years ago and had a few attempts at writing it, but nothing worked. Now I realise it needs to be told from two viewpoints.
Today I've been searching the internet looking for music and headlines from 1979. At the BBC day I pitched an idea for a play set in that year. It was well received, which means that's now at the top of my writing list. Of course, there's no guarantee it will get any further than being read by a producer, but it's worth having a go.
My own musical memories of 1979 are Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits and Lucky Number by Lena Lovich. How could I have forgotten Supertramp's The Logical Song, Bad Girls by Donna Summer or Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive? According to one internet chart My Sharona by The Knack was that year's top song and although I never really liked it, that's the song that's stuck with me today. Typical.
Out of my head
Its been too long since I last wrote anything here. I think I was chuntering about Transco and the evils of privatisation way back in December . Everythings fine now of course we still have gas, the light switches on when you want it, and today we have been connected to something called Blue Yonder which sounds pretty transcedental to me and hence I'm all for it. ( see later for a bit of blue yonder thinking) So how's the novel going ? My reply when people ask me is, to say the least, evasive. Like I always have to cough when I answer or stare at a patch of wall fixedly trying to think of something witty to say. It usually comes out as something along the lines of (cough) " Oh, you know." or " Fits and starts" Sometimes I just say " Don't ask" and people generally don't ever again . The truth is I've finished 30, 000 words and haven't enjoyed writing most of it. So ... I've spent the last 6 months for a couple of days a week doing something that I'm not getting paid for, that I'm not enjoying and nobody is interested in reading, is that not dumb or what?
Two weeks ago I had a revelation... rather than give the whole damn thing up (and I have been tempted at times,) I decided I had to work on my attitude to it. The reason why I dont enjoy it is that for much of the time I'm sitting trying to write and telling myself that its crap. Hence we have the basic simple flaw, the piece of granite in the stilleto shoe...the critical sawing voice that craps on about you've never done this that the other your a useless jerk...pitiful self loathing drivel actually. So Mary .. its time to shape up. so this is what I did...
I went to the Spanish Pyrenees for a week with a group of strangers, slept in a bunk bed, ate a lot of peas , (many steeped in mayonnaise) and bent my body into some very odd positions for 4 hours a day.. I'm talking Yoga here, and meditation and strange concepts I've not come across before like Mulla Banda and Pryanyama. I feel great now...and am looking forward to getting down to some focused work. Big thanks to John Murray for acting as a fiction consultant to me and the buddhist boys on the retreat for imparting some of their tried and tested methods for calming the mind and aiding concentration. I'm writing this on Saturday night at 9.50 pm when all good writers should be downing the vino or disco biscuits but hey not me... two slices of Vienetta have done the trick on that score and actually I've got to sign off now so's i can sqeeze another short session of meditation into my blissed out day.
Bye for now.
Peace and War
My trip to West Yorkshire Playhouse was like an odd mixture of package holiday, conference and freshers week at university - lack of responsibility, no home routine, sitting around with lots of strangers, drinking (on my part anyway) and the nagging feeling 'when is the real work going to begin ?'
There was a wonderful mix of folk - writers from Serbia, young writers from Leeds, and three of us 'older' writers from Newcastle and Warrington. All we had to do was turn up to prearranged workshops, talks, theatre visits and rehearsals of the extracts our own plays. I saw more theatre in that ten days than I see in months normally, and we had ready made discussion groups to dissect it all straightaway. I particularly enjoyed Huddersfield by Uglejesa Sajtinac, about post soviet Serbia, which had resonances on the industrial decline and lost hopes of the North East, and Ghost City by Gary Owen at the intimate space of Theatre in the Mill, Bradford, about 24 hours in the life of Cardiff City. Very bare staging, just lots of short interwoven monologues. It was great to have a piece of my own work getting up on its feet - like a baby lamb, you see its weaknesses but also its potential.
Also, meeting other writers and getting feedback, encouragement and support are great motivators. You end up facing the eternal truth - nothing's going to move your work forward unless you get off your backside and do it yourself.
After last week's 60th D Day commemorations, I was musing on how my childhood was completely informed by war even though I was born seven years after it had ended. Our dressy up box was full of bits of khaki uniforms, 'bombsite' was synonymous with 'playground', we played games at night with torches, a very scary type of hide and seek we called 'Gestapo', and I only realised when I was older that the poker for our stove in the kitchen was actually a world war one bayonet. I thought everyone had 'swords' to poke the fire with - it was only later that I shuddered thinking of what it represented.
Then last week my brother was reading a sunday supplement magazine, only to see a picture of my father, commander of a tank crew in Bayeux, taken three weeks after D Day; presumably an official photograph and not one we had ever seen. My father had been on what he called a 'mopping up' exercise, although that domestic word belied the experiences he encountered and rarely talked about. When we were little and asked the inevitable question 'Did you kill anyone?' he would usually reply 'I hope not', which never convinced me or satisfied my innocent gruesome curiosity.
It was only a few years before his death that he finally began to write about it: - the terror of men facing battle and as their commander, even though he was just as scared, how he swore at them to keep going, desperate to avoid disarray that would endanger more lives, how he saw men killed by 'friendly fire', a more common experience than is often acknowledged, and the death of a close companion. The love he felt for this man was more than just friendship; he hinted at a much deeper, physical emotion, but whether he meant it was brought about by the circumstances or whether this was a side of himself he suppressed in peacetime, I've never been sure about. I have my parents war time letters but I haven't been able to bring myself to read them yet.
I realise my generation are now the age where we will be asked by schoolchildren 'Do you remember the war? what was it like?'
Readings and races
Can't believe it's so long since I added a diary entry. My excuse is that I've been busy. Coming back to work after being in Malawi was really depressing, just the thought of spending so much time at my desk at work when what I really want to do is write. So my meeting with Claire Malcolm of New Writing North and the writer Sara Maitland was really welcome. Sara is going to be my mentor for the next 10 months (if all goes well) as we work on my short stories. I'm really looking forward to this and as part of my research am busy reading more short stories than usual. I've just finished Sara's latest collection On Becoming a Fairy Godmother and Daphne Glazer's The Wardrobe. Enjoyed both, although I think the clothing theme in The Wardrobe became a bit samey, probably because of the order of the stories.
I've also been busy with poems. I enjoyed writing my sugar poem, Strip, which is now in the Poem of the Month section of this website. Last week I ran two workshop at Blaydon West Primary School as part of the Blaydon Races Festival. We were writing about races and running, which was particularly relevant as the day before I'd taken part in the Race for Life at Saltwell Park in aid of Cancer Research. Thanks to Claire for suggesting it and for her company. We walked, we jogged - and maybe next year I might run. Thanks also to everyone who sponsored me, especially Denise.
I'm busy producing booklets of the kids' poems for their reading at Blaydon Library on Tuesday 8th June. Mustn't forget the refreshments - or the fact I've still to sort out what I'm reading at Gateshead the following evening.
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