Roddy Doyle and Joyce compared...

To the theatre to deliver some rewrites - condensed a couple of scenes to get things moving faster. The new opening worked well, but I headed off after a couple of hours as I had to be at a meeting to get the lowdown on some creative writing workshops I'm running, which start next week. Due to the pre-solved 'investigation' I've got a bit of time on my hands so, after the meeting, I put up two shelves in a fit of over-enthusiastic DIY, then stocked the shelves with books. It's a sort of overspill section from the shelves we have in the living room, so Animal Farm nestles next to Howard Marks' Book of Dope Stories, Sarah Waters' Affinity is just a thumb-flick away from a pair of Albert Camus novels, while works by Terry Pratchett and Frank Skinner sit at the end of one shelf like a guilty secret. While doing all this I noticed that James Joyce's Ulysses is the same thickness as Roddy Doyle's Barrytown trilogy, although I don't envisage being able to use that piece of knowledge anywhere other than here. Anyway, I've been suspended from what I now consider to be my former daytime job due to the unhealthy interest I was showing in my own play (hence the pre-solved 'investigation'), so there'll no doubt be more DIY in the coming weeks. I'm also planning to catch up on a massive collection of Asian DVDs I've never had the chance to watch. A writer's life, eh?

Reading: Kenzaburo Oe - A Quiet Life