Stranger on the shore...

Had fun with these two and a few others on Saturday. Now? To the edit suite!

Don't look north...

I might make a fleeting appearance on the Humber's version of Look North jabbering on about new writing and Hull Truck tonight, if I've avoided the cutting room floor and they could salvage any words I might have said between the stuttering. If you're interested - and if you are you must be my mother - you can see it here give or take a few hyperlinks. This is one of several regular pieces about Truck as the new building braces itself for the company's arrival and also coincides with the venue's three-night long PlayWrite festival, which I'll be attending as a paying member of the public and not in the hope of someone coming up to me to tell me they saw me on the telly stammering for 6.7 seconds, nor to nobble all these new writers rising through the ranks (although, hey, there's an idea!).

High...

Let's see. Hmmm. Today, I went to the top of a lighthouse. Yes, I am scaling the dizzy heights. At the beginning of July I meet with ITV. At the end of July I meet with the BBC. No doubt by the beginning of August I will be working out how to deal with rejection. But until then, I can dream the wildest dreams once more!

Party...

So, last year I was involved in a short film. I wrote it then, on the shoot, I made lots of cups of tea for everyone and hung about like a right melon with nothing to do. It's not great but neither is it the worst short film that's ever been made. I wanted to call it just Party but democratic decision making being what it is I lost out on a majority vote that favoured It's My Party (too Helen Shapiro for my liking). I was expecting Party to do the rounds at various short film festivals but our producer never appeared to get round to organising that beyond Bite The Mango. So, before it heads into obscurity, here's your chance to take a peek:

Winning, wandering, writing...

A Google Alert popped up in the inbox to let me know that someone had posted a blog post about me. Only they hadn't. The blog subject was my namesake over at Hull City, who'd cracked in a goal today in a 2-0 play off win over Watford to move the Tigers well-within reach of a Wembley appearance. Well done DW. A winning day for the city - as well as the aforementioned, Hull FC and Hull KR both advanced in the Challenge Cup. With the taste of victory in the air and the sun shining we wandered around town aimlessly, pausing for drinks outside a dockside tavern.

Somewhat miraculously, I've written two short film scripts this weekend. A distraction, if nothing else, from writing what I should have been writing, which was adding the finishing touches to an outline for a new play. Despite the lack of words on paper/hard drive the new play is bubbling away and is jostling for position in my addled brain, preparing to burst out of there.

Reading: Yukio Mishima - Confessions of a Mask. Listening: Mystery Jets - Twenty One; The Courteeners - St Jude; Does It Offend You, Yeah? - You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into; Tokyo Police Club - A Lesson In Crime.

Winners...

Watched the first half of Hull City's victory over Barnsley in Blackies club, in Brough. Lots of oohs and aaahs and applause as the game unfolded on the big screen. And lots of comments about the tufty unkempt turf over at Oakwell Road. I listened to the second half on the radio in the car - the Tigers coming away 1-3 winners and shifting up to second place in The Championship. Father would have been overjoyed, having suffered a lot of barren, frustrating years as he slavishly followed a club that rarely repaid his faith. Three games to go. Lots of twitchy bum moments for fans between now and the end of the season, I should think. The prefix to the game was a meeting about the new play. I felt like a writer again for a short while, as I feverishly spluttered out my barely-formed plot, ably supported by several pages of notes. Anyway, a positive chat that made me feel good. Keep the whole of 2009 free for now - if all goes according to plan the play will be performed at some point next year.

More jalapeños...

Today's highlight was an outing to get some Mexican food. A table for six and lots of burritos flying around. Splendid. This weekend there's been further progress on the boxes front and various odds and sods stored haphazardly in the garage. Yes, a garage. Don't get the wrong idea - the garage is almost as big as, if not bigger than, the property we're now living in. We're using the garage as a sort of glorified dustbin while our other glorified dustbin, the car, remains parked on the wrong side of the up-and-over door.

Did some work on one of two new plays. Had to - there's a meeting looming and still not much of a plot. Or there wasn't. Now there is. Sort of. I also headed off and bought a new domain name relating to this play with a bit of a plot's title. Which, given it's a working title and a script is still an abstract notion, may well prove to be a fiver wasted. This purchase was prompted by the stumbled across knowledge that On A Shout's .co.uk and .com versions were parked back in December. Just a coincidence, I'm sure. But I like my working title, which is four words long. And the .co.uk of it now belongs to me. My vanity knows no bounds.

I am watching Mark Lawson Talks To... on the frankly superb and lifestyle-changing BBC iPlayer. I've been aware of Lawson's many ticks for quite some time but this show's two static cameras approach (no shot-reverse shot noddy shenanigans here, it's all very commendably anti-fake magic of TV) to recording the interview seems to exacerbate Lawson's twitchiness and blinking. And what is it with his left hand? Why does he keep curling up his fingers and staring at his finger ends? Wouldn't it be better if he went and bought himself some nail clippers and shed whatever it is that's bothering him/me/possibly you?

Reading: Norma Farnes - Spike: An Intimate Memoir

All talk...

As you can see from the blogroll on the left (unless I've had a redesign and moved it) I read the feeds of far too many "writing" blogs. I'm afraid I'm growing tired of them, though. Like the craziest, wackiest of writers' groups, nobody out there appears to be doing any actual writing. There's a lot of talk about style and genre and voices and characters and assorted hints and tips and news about this competition and that competiton (competition? Bollocks to that) but, well, is anyone applying any of this advice and churning out any words? Is anyone selling anything? Getting paid? Making it? Maybe I'm reading the wrong "writing" blogs.

All quiet...

Inevitably, at some point, I'll return to talking, albeit vaguely and like an uneducated berk, about plays. I am working - or, rather, not working - on two new commissions and it would be rude not to keep you informed. Yet there are commercial sensitivities, now that I've moved up to big school, and not much in the way of plot right now. So I shall keep schtum. Suffice to say I remain a playwright. My father would be proud - I once built him a small screen wall (that still stands to this day) at the end of his driveway and I recall him telling me, as I mixed the necessary sand and cement and splash of plasticiser to keep the fancy petal shaped blocks apart (it is a misconception that mortar holds bricks and blocks together, it serves to keep them apart. Think about it, go on), that what I was indulging in (and had become my career, thanks to a lack of options in Thatcher's glory years) was the work of a mere navvy.

In previous blogging years I would have revealed much more about my daytime routine. Yet, as a freelance media guru, I am at work in a mysterious office, out of which all wonderments of marketing and PR and design spring forth, and I can't really spill the beans about any of it. Shame, as I'm dealing with the kind of people and organisations that would make for exceptional blog entries.

So, that explains the intermittent service and the preponderance of telly-related posts.

Demons...

Funny times, as the thing with my name on takes place across town while I sit here watching Eastenders and Coronation Street with one ear on Hull FC losing to Warrington. Enough to drive a man doolally. I am reading David Peace's The Damned United, kepping my eye on adopted Hull lass Aggy Deyn's activity at New York Fashion Week and wondering if this exhaustion I'm suffering from and unable to shake off is going to be a permanent state. I am, and this is obviusly related to the exhaustion, also fending off the terrible black dog. But, no matter how much I attempt to embrace the present and the wonderful moments happening here in the right now, I can feel it moving towards me. Christ, I'm such a cliche. A holiday would be nice.

Shout, shout, let it all out...

Emailed over the latest and almost final draft of the play to the theatre. There's never a satisfactory sense of closure with email, as the minute you press send there's the distinct possibility that, within seconds, it will get snared up in an organisation's over-zealous spam software - and with a surname like mine that happens more often than not. So I arranged to hand deliver a hard copy, like wot I imagine was the norm but a few years ago before everything started to travel down telephone lines. Passing the brown envelope containing the necessary 110 pages of A4 over to the director, the handing over of a baton if you like, was a delightful moment of relief and release. And I know it's in safe hands. Rehearsals start on Wednesday. Although I've offloaded the paperwork, I'm now getting angsty about the start of that process and, as the days click down to January 24th and the play's first appearance in front of an audience, I'll get increasingly nervous, wondering how the paying customers will react. Only then will we know if it's any good. Funny old game I've got myself into - the only time I'm truly happy is when I'm belting out the first draft, when the magical moment of stuff appearing on the page seemingly out of the ether with my fingers just being a glass on a Ouija Board-style conduit happens. The rest, my, it's bloody hard, brain-boggling, madness-inducing work. Still, it's not like a big long shift down a mine shaft so I shouldn't complain. And it's a dream come true, so I shouldn't complain. And there's a part of me that loves the pain too, so I shouldn't complain. So I won't.

The Hull Daily Mail have been very kind to me and included On A Shout rather prominently in their "What We Rate For 2008" entertainment feature, which is blinking lovely and I'm very flattered. I don't take press coverage for granted - I mean, for starters, who the fuck am I? And I didn't exactly leave the paper clutching a folio of glowing references. So it was nice to find the play leaping off the page at me. Nerve wracking too - I read "expectation is high for the Hull playwright's latest work" and emitted a "shit!" then promptly nabbed the clipping from M's mum's newspaper for filing away.

Religious Christmas message...

Rumours that we were struck down by lightning following the recent nativity scene abuse are totally unfounded. Just unavoidably drawn away from the blog by work and festive shopping. The former the necessary evil to fund the latter. I had the joy of heading to Argos early this morning to make a final purchase. "Is it a Christmas present?" I was asked. "You'll get fed up of asking that today, won't you? I would think they all will be today." "You're probably right," said the young Argos-tender. Seemingly, the thought that this day might bring out the Christmas shoppers hadn't really struck him. I went in a few other shops and realised that this young chap, in his efforts to talk to me, was actually a rarity. There's a worrying trend, in retail, for those that staff the tills to talk to each other when you're paying for goods. I find it rather annoying that they're not actually giving me any attention when I'm forking out good money for the over-priced shit they're selling. Still, when consumerism and capitalism collapse next year we won't have to worry any more about ignorant, couldn't-care-less sales assistants, will we? Oh, sorry, recession, what recession? Must remember to stay on-message.

Since September 2007 I have been Hull College's Writer in Residence. Which would have been cause for much celebration and a slight increase in my paltry excuse for income if a) I had actually done some writing and b) had I been in residence. Neither of these things occurred, although I refuse to relinquish the swanky job title. If I were to come up with some kind of related New Year's resolution, it's that I actually do something to justify the grandiose position I almost find myself in. I did get a Christmas card from the college, so it would appear that I am still on their radar. If you are a student researching my credentials via Google or some other search engine, do please remind your staff what a wonderful resource I could be.

Tony Blair is now officially a Catholic. Nice that a warmonger (ain't they all?) can take solace in a bit of organised religion and atone for his sins. And it doesn't come much more organised than Catholicism, where they do seem to have the best ceremonies and rituals in the wacky world of Christianity compared to, say, the spit and sawdust efforts of Methodism. As M sides with the Pope I'll be heading to a Catholic church on the morning of Chistmas Day, where I'll be getting my annual fix of Peace be with you and shaking the hands of those around me. Yet I think I have more issues to resolve than TB before I can undergo a conversion. Politics and religion, what am I thinking? It would be nice, would it not, if we could have a PM that was, say, a Hindu, a Candomble or a member of the Bahá'í faith. Just for a change. Is that more or less likely than Nick Clegg moving in to No 10?

Theatre business...

Cast went to extraordinary lengths and rolled into town today for a read through of the play (actor Ed went to the additional trouble of baking cakes!). Everyone was extremely enthusiastic and all went very well but, of course, there's still a lot of work to be done. Then we shot up to Spurn for a team excursion on the lifeboat, which was as fun a way of getting to know each other as can ever have been dreamed up. A very good day, wrapped up nicely by the theatre's Christmas party, which was our first night out of the house together since the arrival of the famous Finn.

Come back to what you know...

Back to Spurn for a photocall for the RNLI's Compass magazine. Funny times for a writer - the play, conceived between my ears when out strolling beside the River Humber and written, mostly, on this machine now resting on my lap and in my dining room, is now taking on a life of its own. People are taking a serious interest in the words on the page, it's no longer my play but our play, I'm a very small cog in a big machine. Which is how it should be but it's a bit like handing over one of your children to a foster carer.

Somehow, 15 minutes into our coffee-fueled chat, I ended up taking a fitness test involving stepping on an off a box to a pre-determined rhythm and designed for lifeboat crew. Apparently, if my pulse had been two beats per minute higher I would have been asked to step down from the crew - if I'd been a member of the crew, that is. Thankfully, I'm a writer and it's perfectly acceptable for me to be totally unfit and a borderline heart attack candidate. No, it's not - I must sort myself out.

Spurn Point Warden Andy Gibson - man in charge of the nature reserve - confirmed, as we drove in, that local history group SKEALS had block booked a huge chunk of seats for the play and will be arriving en masse in a coach. Which is just one of many nerve-wracking nuggets of information keeping me awake at night these days.

A gent from KCFM - head of news Wesley Mallin - arrived to interview coxswain Dave for a feature about emergency services. Which was very opportune for us, with press officer in tow, and we ended up being interviewed too for a separate piece. As I'm still mentally ordering my thoughts on the latest draft I was probably at my incoherent best. Apparently it will be broadcast over the weekend.

Tags: On A Shout, writing, Spurn Point

Lifeboat chat...

Interesting few days for the play - a rather intense period of redrafting and knocking the thing into the kind of shape that I'd describe as "finished" if I didn't know better (with rehearsals not starting until January 2008, there's still time for several more drafts). So, all that was done and then we met with someone from the RNLI to discuss the play in more detail. Scary stuff, when you find yourself in a room with five other people who are all talking about something that was written well, here, in this room. I had to keep mentally nudging myself to take part in the conversation as I was finding the out-of-body nature of the meeting rather fascinating ("ooh, they're talking about my play," was a recurring thought). As usual I don't think I was too coherent when I did open my mouth - I talked about the sea being the main protagonist, I think, and people and place and mortality.

Tags: On A Shout, writing

Nuts...

Interesting allergy advice on the side of a bottle of Tesco Apple & Raspberry spring water:

Recipe: No nuts
Ingredients: Cannot guarantee nut free
Factory: No nuts

So, with a recipe containing no nuts and munufactured in a factory containing no nuts, Tesco cannot guarantee that nuts aren't being slipped somewhere in the mix. Or is it Tesco customers, or even their supermarket staff, who are slyly slackening the lids on spring water and dropping the odd cashew in here and there?

I am not up to much but the writing after a few hectic days of real life. We are calming down here now after a dehydrated M had to spend some time in hospital to refuel, be poked and prodded by heavy-handed doctors and avoid contracting MRSA. She is fine now and the baby was never in any trouble. Aside from the all the worry of not quite knowing what was wrong initially, we had a nice thirty minutes when M was undergoing various tests listening to a prolonged mix of his little heartbeat via the miracle of ultrasound.

Fired off a redraft of On A Shout tonight. A week later than planned after last weekend's near meltdown (which followed the loss of a bag containing a hard copy of the script which was, rather predicitably, covered in all the notes I needed) and a subsequent rethink of where the play was going. It seems in good shape to me now and is all ready for a reading. As for me, I feel none of the elation that completing a draft usually brings, instead I just feel ready for curling into a ball in a place far, far away and not surfacing until 2010 at the earliest.

My Leeds experience is over and a new one, in Beverley, has begun. All work that might, one day, actually start making a dent in the mound of outstanding bills. I would, of course, prefer to be writing full-time. But, at the same time, I'm not going to apologise for having to earn a living once in a while.

Tags: pregnancy, Tesco, writing, On A Shout

Shameless self promotion # 1,078...

My latest 'official' blog is now online at the Hull Truck website here.

Tags: Hull FC. writing, Hull Truck, On A Shout

Pitmen...

If you were to draw up a list of northern stereotypes, you'd quickly get through the flat caps, Yorkshire pudding and pigeons and find yourself scribbling down "miners". I've never kept pigeons, never worn a flat cap but I have eaten Yorkshire puddings. And I was in Doncaster, at a place called Edlington, during the mid-Eighties miners' strike. I wasn’t a miner and got nowhere near a pit – I was working for a builder and we were building a massive extension at the back of a bookies – but the contract began at the start of the strike and ended when the strike did. It’s a peripheral experience that’s stayed with me – watching the miners march through the streets of Edlington to the tune of their own colliery band, brave in their Thatcher-imposed defeat and knowing their days down the pit were numbered was incredibly moving. I, and a lot of other people, applauded these men, who were, after all those months on strike, looking unusually clean. We also knew that we were witnessing the end of an era and the end of Britain as an industrial power.

I’d never dream of writing about miners. Indeed, when I first got involved with the theatre I’ve been lucky enough to have stuff performed at, I remember giving a heartfelt monologue to a roomful of people that weren’t interested in what I had to say that would basically boil down to something like, “I don’t want to write about the north. I don’t want to write about the working class or working class heroes. I don’t want to write a work play. I don’t want to write about any specific place. I want to write bigger, universal stories. Set in…erm…rooms and that.” Then I wrote a play about an all-Hull rugby final, then a play about a Hull rugby player, and now I’m writing what may well have been a work play about some blokes from up the road. If I’d lived in Doncaster when I was putting inkjet printer to paper, I no doubt would have written a play about miners. So, I suppose, scratch that ‘I’d never dream of writing about miners’ – it’s probably coming to a theatre near you in 2009.

Except, I can’t write one now, as Lee Hall, of Lee Hall fame, has beaten me to it with his Pitmen Painters, which sounds like a damn good play based on real-life events. And, of course, it’s not really northern. It sounds as universal as they come.

We've got this divide, that existed for the Ashington miners and is still there today, between what one lot of people seem entitled to in terms of culture and another lot aren't. There's this terrible lie perpetrated by those who sell us this rubbish that only certain people can have access to great culture and the rest don't need to know about it and wouldn't like it if they did.

I’m writing this from the offices of an opera company. Hmmmf. There's an interview with Mr Hall in today's Independent.

I like the cut of Lee Hall’s jib. But I’m not sure that what he says about the Northern voice happens to be true.

There is a particular Northern voice, one that understands the absurdities of the world and comes across in a comic way.

I’m sure those in the south understand the absurdities of the world and can get it all across in a comic way too. Can’t they?

No return...

So I finally got to the end of a redraft of On A Shout. It's in much better shape now, a trifle lighter and lives with the theatre. Miraculously, as I chopped and changed the last 25 pages, I also churned out a short film script.* A productive few days and, of course, I'm getting paid for the play. But I must learn to say 'no' when people ask me to write these other things, especially when no money is forthcoming, as it is not good for my sanity. Especially when they tell me that they're not sure about the short film script when I went out of my way to finish the darn thing. Although I'm a relative newcomer when it comes to writing stuff for the stage, I've been getting paid to write things since, ooh, 1995. Yet still they ask me to write for free and look aghast when I tell them that I usually get paid for such work, as if I'm having them on. But enough is enough is enough, I can't go on, I can't go on no more.

*This rather peculiar habit now appears to be a bona fide part of my writing process - for every play wot I wrote, I've usually written another one that I've tucked in the drawer not knowing what to do with it. It's the daftest activity displacement, writing when I should be writing, but what can I do? And, quite obviously, I don't get paid for these additional scripts either!

Grim up north...

Shall we not mention my Hull FC prediction? Well, go on then. Woefully off the mark. Given that we came nowhere close to the Robins on the pitch maybe it'd be better to campaig for Rovers to suffer a points deduction now Paul Cooke's been charged with "making an alleged illegal approach to another club prior to the expiry of his contact, without permission of his registered club."
Bit of a meeting re short films today, all the way up the road from the Grand at Leeds' strong-beer stronghold North. And talking of short film, you better go and see this.