A workshop to explore the archives

As part of the Explore your Archives week, Ceredigion Archives are running a response project asking people to respond the archives in any creative way the choose.

Ceredigion Archives holds over 500 years of history in a large room on the first floor of the library – if you haven’t visited already then I can definitely recommend it. It’s a wonderful place packed with stories. For a writer it is the equivalent of being a small child in a sweet shop.

People visit the archive for many reasons, predominantly searching for information about their family, often trying to unearth the family secret that a mother, grandmother, father has kept from them. Other reasons include trying to find the history of a property they have purchased, seeking advice on an old document they have found, working on a school or university project, wanting to explore the history of a building that is closing to commemorate it, or they have found the story of someone and wish to find out more.

This is a workshop designed around my working process to create and develop an idea.

Finding a way into a story at the archive is the starting point of this – it is likely you will be quickly drawn to an idea and also very likely you will find yourself distracted possibly in the distraction you will find a potential idea. It’s a journey just go along with it and have fun.

I have set myself the challenge of finding five real people, five places/ buildings, five periods of time and five imaginary characters who enter the archive. I intend to use each of these points as potential starting points and see what connects with me.

You can explore the archive catalogue on-line and also many items have been posted to the archive blog.

http://www.archifdy-ceredigion.org.uk/index.php

https://archifdyceredigionarchives.wordpress.com/

Exercise 1

Sit yourself in the archive room and look about you. Think about the years of history of Ceredigion that sit in boxes in the rooms. Think about the people over the year who have given material to the archive, wanting their family history stored and kept for future generations to look through. Take a look at the books around you, collections of local history and how to explore local history books. Take a look through the displays. The photographs of the local men and women who died in the 1^st and 2^nd World wars. Think about what you already know about Aberystwyth history, buildings that have intrigued, people whose stories have been mentioned to you. Make notes of any that come to mind. Do you have any particular interests or hobbies that might be a starting point? Talk to the archivists and ask them to tell you their favourite parts of the archive.

Take 10 minutes and just write as many words as possible that come to mind, write as fast as you can and don’t really think about it. Look about you – what words to you see. Write those down. Create a page filled with random words that you think about in the archive. Think about textures, sounds, colours, smells.

Exercise 2

Create five characters who enter the archive. Make these characters varied in age etc. Try to create things in the answers that make interesting opposition from the other characters

Write the name of the character, their age, are they male or female, where in the country are they from, what do they want to find in the archive, what five things are districting them as they look through the archive, think of a secret they have, what do they want in life, what do they need, what is stopping them from getting what they want or need.

Exercise 3

In this exercise we are looking to find 5 buildings and 5 real people of history.

Explore the on-line catalogue. Search for any buildings, places or people that come to mind.

For me the names that come to mind are the buildings Kings Hall (I was a student in 1990 when it was knocked down so I remember it and have long been fascinated by the years of incredible events that took place there), The Pier (another iconic building that fascinates me because of the years of visitors and I love that the starlings have made their home beneath it), Gogerddan (I live in Bow St and walk my dogs in the woods behind it), Nanteos (another crumbling estate with a fascinating history made even more fascinating by its new lease of life as a hotel) and  Rummers Wine Bar (for many years a customer but recently the revelation that it was once a theatre has become an obsession for me).

Search for any people that come to mind and also that might have emerged from the searches through places. Remember we are trying to find five real people and five real buildings. For me, my fascination with the history of Gogerddan and Nanteos has drawn me to Margaret Powell, Rosa Powell (the mention in the catalogue of unhappy marriage and divorce makes it irresistible), Marjorie Pryse but I am also keen to find the people who worked in those houses so I want to continue to search for more names. 

Once you have that list then ask for the boxes. This is the magical part, boxes to explore, images to look at, handwriting of people who lived many years ago, people’s thoughts, people’s interests.

It will lead you down other searches.

Exercise 4

What’s in the box?

The material in the archive is all in boxes. Material will appear tied up in string with bows like presents. The very action of opening notebooks knowing that it was written so many years ago and that many people will have visited the archive through the years to look through it as you do now is quite magical.

Type something random into the catalogue search and  find a random box to ask to look through. It could be a lost property list, it could be someone’s scrapbooks, it could be lists of ships in the harbour, it could be planning permission drawings, parish records. But every box offers inspiration, offers stories. Think of the person who wrote it, think of the person who lost the property. Why did someone write this? Who left it to the archive? Who has looked through this material before? Now just write, write random sentences and words, just write anything that comes to mind. Write dialogue. Write thoughts. Keep writing.

These exercises should results in the beginnings of many potential stories that could be told. We will need to form these into performance pieces. But more of that later for now just have fun finding stories.

The Explore Your Archive workshop

The Explore Your Archive workshop at Ceredigion Archives will be a practical exploration of the collections  and the creation of a response in any form to information in the archives. The workshop will be led by Sandra Bendelow and will offer an introductory session to the archives followed by a practical creative workshop and will take place on 8^th November 7PM – 9:30PM. Participants will be supported in having their work performed or presented as part of an event on the evening of 23^rd November  during Explore Your Archive week.

At Ceredigion Archives they have 500 years of Ceredigion history. A vast wealth of stories; lives, places, events, recorded in image and words.

A few chosen samples from the archive are available on the following link to give you a small taster of the incredible resource available to delve into

https://archifdyceredigionarchives.wordpress.com/eya2017/

We are looking for creative responses in any form; visual art, film, performance art, music, poetry, prose, film, movement, song, photography, craft and dance and we will support collaborations of any art form. We also welcome participants to the workshop who would just like explore and be inspired creatively by the archive.

Sandra Bendelow is a writer and arts producer creating platforms for new writing and new writers. For several years she has been producing a cross-artform project Response Time; a performed response to art, space and environment at The Gas Gallery, and also at National Museum Wales Artes Mundi, Aber Arts Centre to Tim Shaw. She was selected by National Theatre Wales as an Emerging Producer and a mentoring producer.

She runs the PlayPen project for Aberystwyth Arts Centre which is supporting 7 writers to write full length plays and teaches scriptwriting courses at Aberystwyth University’s Lifelong Learning Department.

The workshop will take place at Ceredigion Archives which is housed on the first floor of Old Town Hall ( the same building as Aberystwyth Town Library ) . The event during Explore your Archive week will take place throughout the Library & Archives. 

Introduction to Playwriting Course

If you have a great idea for a theatre play but no idea how to get started then you might be interested in this course for beginners. A two day course Introduction to Playwriting.

The course will be taught by Sandra Bendelow and Branwen Davies.

Sandra Bendelow is a writer and arts producer. She is currently on seed commission to National Theatre Wales for her project Secret Never to Be Told. Recent credits include Poo Karma and Arctic Exploration for Agent 160 and One Hour and Forty Five Minutes for Dirty Protest at the Royal Court Theatre. She recently produced a new play To Kill a Machine by Aberystwyth playwright Catrin Fflur Huws about war time cryptanalyst Alan Turing which toured Wales and will be at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August

Branwen is a playwright who writes in Welsh and English. Recent credits include ‘Suffocate’ for Dirty Protest/National Theatre Wales, ‘Llond Bol’ for Agent 160, ‘Gwagle’ for Sherman Cymru/Theatr Genedlaethol and ‘Lost’ for Scriptography Productions. Branwen has recently completed a practise based PhD at the Theatre, Film and TV department at Aberystwyth University where she is currently a teaching fellow.

The course will be an intensive two days of workshops covering topics such as finding ideas, developing dramatic character, action, dialogue and structure.

Following the intensive two days each student will have the opportunity to develop and receive feedback on their own original script.

The course will take place on 19^th and 20^th June in the Old College. 

For more information and to book a place on Introduction to Playwriting

It's been a strange few years....

It’s been a strange few years. I wrote this little monologue for Dirty Protest Theatre Company and it was put on at the Royal Court, and then at Theatre Clwyd and then at Dirty, Gifted and Welsh. It was all beyond unbelievable.

John McGrath saw my little monologue One Hour and Forty Five Minutes and asked me to work on a seed commission. National Theatre Wales also nominated me for BBC Writersroom 10, I didn’t get in but just being nominated, by National Theatre Wales, was beyond unbelievable. I mean, seriously unbelievable. National Theatre Wales? Me? A seed commission?

I was also asked to join the all female playwright company Agent 160,  and my first short play for them will be presented this weekend as part of Fun Palaces at Wales Millennium Centre. I sat in rehearsals the other day, listening to words I’d written being performed by Llinos Mai, thinking - I wrote this, it’s good, it’s really funny. I love my job.

Then on the 12^th October some scenes from my seed commission will be read at the 2^nd Dirty Gifted and Welsh. Now last year at this event as one of the writers being presented by Dirty Protest, because mine had been on at the Royal Court, feeling a little dreamlike, I watched the pieces being presented by National Theatre Wales and I looked at the writers and I thought, that’s where I want to be next year. To repeat last year I said that’s where I want to be and this year I will be. I know! Unbelievable.  

It’s all just been beyond unbelievable – I spend a lot of time thinking I am going to wake up and the last two years has been a dream.  Seriously I don’t think ever since Tim Price phoned me up and I stood in my garden (the signal is shit in the house) and he told me my play in a bag piece was going to be on at the Royal Court it has stopped being anything other than surreal. But I guess that’s what it has to be like because you spend your life dreaming this dream of being a writer and working hard to achieve this dream. Writing and writing and writing. You get rejections, you get knocked back, you keep on writing and you keep on dreaming. Then you sit in the audience and watch your play at the Royal Court and it all just gets very surreal because you are living your dream.

But then now I’m sitting at my desk working trying to get the scenes ready for Dirty Gifted and Welsh. Yesterday I wrote a paragraph and then sat back and re-read it, I burst out laughing and kept laughing for a few minutes because I was looking at it thinking – that’s either utter brilliance or complete bollocks and I really don’t know which it is. That’s the thing with writing – every time you start something new you have to find new ways of doing things. I could just churn out the same old stuff, the things I’ve got comfortable with but where’s the fun in that – if I wanted to do the same thing every day I’d work in an office. Who the hell would choose to that when you can live the dream?

Reasons why you shouldn't - and should go to see Flowers of the Dead Red Sea

I’m very excited today. I’m excited because tonight I’m going to watch Run Amok’s fourth production Flowers of the Dead Red Sea written by Ed Thomas which is being performed by Rhodri Brady and Matt Christmas. I’m excited because having seen two of their first three productions I am waiting with baited breath to see what this company are going to do next.

Now quite a lot of you are going to ask some questions after the first paragraph – Who are Run Amok? Who is Rhodri Brady? Who is Matt Christmas? Also worryingly a lot of people, even in Wales are going to say – who is Ed Thomas?

Let’s deal with the easy one – Ed Thomas is the co-creator, executive producer and writer of Hinterland. Yes that Hinterland, the one that everyone is talking about at the moment because it was filmed in Ceredigion and is ambitiously setting its sight to be the new Nordic- noir thriller. Who would have thought five years that Nordic noir thriller would be a genre?

I should state at this point that you shouldn’t go to see Flowers of the Dead Red Sea because you like Hinterland or Nordic noir thrillers, it is not Hinterland – there is no detective, no murder mystery – there is however two butchers in an extremely darkly comic and absurdist play.

Now long before Ed Thomas began to focus on television and film writing he was a playwright – he was a playwright in the 90’s in Wales, he created his own theatre company and then he gave up on theatre in Wales and headed to the safer world of television and film. You can’t really blame him – playwrights are ignored, playwrights are not produced, playwrights don’t have their voices nurtured – in Wales anyway. This genuinely is an extremely rare opportunity to see a play by Ed Thomas – it hasn’t been produced in over 20 years.

So Run Amok – who are they? Founded by Artistic Directors Izzy Rabey and Jonathan Patton – Run Amok has been on an impressive trajectory of performing ambitious, complex and challenging texts. They are a student company – a company of recent graduates, Jonathan is currently in London studying for an MA and Izzy is about to head to London to do an MA. Now though the ground is heavy with student companies in towns and cities with theatre departments, and those student companies walk through the ashes of student companies which have walked there before – from those ashes emerge the companies of the future. As far as I’m concerned that phrase emerging theatre – that’s where it’s from – it’s the companies that make it through those first few years of being a student company. I have absolutely no doubt that Run Amok are going to become one of the leading voices of Welsh theatre  - well they will be if we give them a reason to be, if we support them and nurture them. It is really hard being an emerging company in Wales, people don’t know the company, they dismiss them as yet another young student company. But Run Amok are different- they have one foot in London and one foot in Wales – though admittedly that foot is Izzy Rabey’s extremely rooted foot.

The foot in London is a good thing too because they have forced the work of a Welsh playwright into a theatre in London –  Welsh written and produced theatre is very rarely seen in London. Let’s face it it’s rarely seen in Wales. It is barely – if ever seen outside of Cardiff. Welsh theatre companies touring work – you can count them on one hand. Welsh companies touring work by Welsh writers – I’m really struggling now. Yes there are exceptions but as someone working and writing within the theatre industry in Wales – I really hope we can find our way to more than exceptions. But don’t go to watch Flowers of the Dead Red Sea because you want to support one of the exceptions – though that is a good reason to see it.

Run Amok are a company to be watched –not only in a watch a meteoric rise as you read reviews and articles about them over the next few years – but as an experience of live theatre. Live theatre which is guaranteed to make you laugh and think. Most importantly live theatre which will include performances from Rhodri Brady and Matt Christmas. This is the thing which excites me the most about going along tonight to see Flowers of The Dead Red Sea – I literally can’t wait to experience the chemistry between these two amazing performers. Performers who are new,  magically untrained and untarnished , and offer so much promise for exciting futures, put them together with the words of Ed Thomas , the direction of Izzy Rabey, scenographic design from Maisie Baynham and sound designed by Kyle Arrowsmith and you are absolutely guaranteed an amazing experience of emerging theatre at its very best.

Flowers of the Dead Red Sea by Ed Thomas, by Run Amok is at Aberystwyth Arts Centre 1^st May, Rosemary Branch Theatre 8^th and 9^th May and Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama Richard Burton Theatre 10^th May. The Aberystwyth Arts Centre performance includes a post-show talk with Ed Thomas.

Ed Thomas wrote new monologues as trailers for the show which were filmed by Pete Telfor for Culture Colony which you can view on YouTube here
Joe and Mock 

Follow the company at www.facebook.com/RunAmokTheatreCompany and @TheatrRunAmok

Dancing Words

For the last few months I have been producing a performed response project at the Gas Gallery in Aberystwyth. I have been participating as a writer and it’s been an interesting and educational experience.

Response Time includes performance makers from all disciplines ; performance artists, visual artists, installation, physical theatre, movement, dancers, storytellers . Response Time has thrown them all in together and put them all out of their comfort zones. Definitions of performance have never really had a place in Response Time with 48 hours to work people don’t really have time to define their work just to get on with it.

The idea of the project is to spend 48 hours responding to the art, space and environment and then pulling all the different responses into an hour or so of performance which we shared with an audience on the Sunday evening. During the week of the 4^th – 12^th April we extended the project to a week long response Replay Me Adleisio. The project received funding from Arts Council Wales which  allowed us to explore the model of the project over a longer period.

My role as a writer in Replay Me Adleisio was to work alongside choreographer Lara Ward and musician and composer Nick Jones to create words, movement and sound - working with 3 performers (Cet Haf, Gwion Llyr and Milly Jackdaw).

As a writer the project has put me so far out of my comfort zone at times it was terrifying – always exhilarating but terrifying no less.

Thinking about how I have worked over the six responses I recognise a journey I have been on as a writer. For the first two I stuck firmly with what I knew, I picked art and I created characters from it. I found myself drawn to the words in the gallery, the artists statements the titles of art and I looked for stories but as the projects have progressed I have found myself freeing myself from what I knew I could do easily and exploring what I didn’t know how to do.

All writers have processes, usually developed over a number of years, I know I have ways that I approach an idea. Exercises that I use to get an idea moving – develop characters, structure, themes. I have processes to develop the layers in a piece. I have processes to develop the different drafts. I have processes to explore the holes and plug them. I even have processes to develop the differences within each new piece. I know each new idea has to have a different way to explore its subject and style but I still explore those differences through an established process.

But what I found with Response Time was that none of it was any good to me. For the first few projects I produced something resembling my usual work but it was all work that was lacking. Some good dialogue, some interesting characters, some interesting situations but lacking. Somewhere around the third one I found myself doing something very different.

This wasn’t because I recognised the need for a new process, it was because I was starting to absorb other people’s processes. For me it has been the most useful part of being involved in Response Time as a writer has been watching how others work in particular the young and emerging artists like Vivian Ezugha , Hannah Pullen and James Baker – all of them young and inexperienced in performance an all of them from different disciplines but yet all of them producing amazing work every time they have participated because as young and emerging artists they have a refreshing lack of experience and respond and develop work with an admirable mixture of naivety and boldness. All of them threw themselves into the art, the moment, the response. It was watching them that made me want to rediscover that naivety and boldness of the youthful writer I once was. 

I usually spend a lot of time thinking about an idea – it is the most important part of my process is the days I spend walking around the woods with the dogs, gardening, cleaning, doing office work – all while my brain turns an idea over and over. Producing a 48 hour response does not give time for a considered response just an emotional response, moving forward with a gut response, an instinctive feeling. Then pushing everything I knew to one side and letting the words flow, not worrying about what the words were doing just letting them loose.

On the response project with Lara as curator I watched her direct pieces – pieces that were effectively short plays, and it was as though she made the words dance around the room. That was a thought that has stayed with me. I didn’t want to write plays for Response Time – I know how to do that already –for Response Time I wanted to see my words dance around a room.

For Replay Me Adleisio I wanted to see the words become music in the hands of Nick, not song – that’s very different –,  but music and I wanted my words to dance. Whether or not I achieved that doesn’t really matter, though I think it did, in fact not only that my words became a pathway for a parkour film and my words disrupted movement to become an improvisational piece.

I still love narrative plays and will be returning to writing one soon, and I’m looking forward to it, to get back into inciting incidents and mid-points but I am going to try to bring what I’ve learned in Response Time to my narrative play.  I will return to it thinking about dancing words and following my gut instincts because I know how much fun it is to be out of my comfort zone and back to being a naive and bold youthful writer whilst also knowing how much better it is to be that naive and bold youthful writer with the experience and knowledge of being a saggier and crinklier older writer.  

Writing course - creating characters and writing better dialogue

I will be running two workshops at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on Sunday 3^rd November and Sunday 1^st December 2pm – 5pm. Creative workshops in creating characters and writing dialogue for all forms of script writing and prose writing.

I’ve specifically chosen subjects which are constant queries from my writing for performance group. Basically whenever I ask what subjects do you want me to do exercises on, the answers are always character and dialogue – and no matter how many I do they always want more.

For me creating characters is at the heart of my writing process – for me everything begins with characters. I build the character developing their past, their flaws, their personal history, imagining the big moments in their lives and working through how those moments have impacted on them. Once the character starts to talk to me and a voice emerges then I know I’m ready to start writing – and because I know the character in such detail whatever problems I throw at them in the course of the play I know that their reactions and behaviour are real. I also find that through the process of developing character the plot and structure of the play will inevitably unfold – scenes, other characters will start to spring. But first, always first is character. Without the character it is just faceless people on stage spouting words.

Over the years I’ve built a mountain of exercises – my box of tools that help me get ideas for characters, develop characters, resolve problems through characters when something is not working.

When I read scripts I find that more often than not, the main problem is bad dialogue. Scriptwriters, prose writers – it doesn’t matter really. Dialogue needs to be just that – dialogue. Characters speaking to one another as they would speak, not how you want them to speak so you can push in a cheeky metaphor or say – look how clever I am with words. I don’t care about your metaphors, I don’t care how clever you are with words. All I’m going to think is – bad dialogue. Just thinking about that made me wince. Because that’s what happens, bad dialogue makes the listener, watcher, reader – wince. It jars. It reminds us it is fiction. It will stop an audience engaging and investing in your characters because they don’t believe they’re real.

I like dialogue, I like real dialogue, I want to hear characters speaking as they would really speak, not how a writer wants them to speak.  I want to hear characters with accents flowing through the patterns of how they speak. I want to hear characters speaking grammatically incorrect because that’s what they do! I don’t want to hear the voice of the writer, I want to hear the voice of the character. I also like how theatre writing allows us to play with dialogue, creating rhythms, patterns, music –characters not talking to one another but dancing. I want to hear noise and overcutting of dialogue that reflects the way we converse. I like poetic text, I like stylized text. But how do you marry the demands of a more poetic or fragmented style with the need for characters to speak realistically. These are subjects I’ve been exploring for years in my writing and again I’ve found exercises that help a writer to resolve these issues.

The workshop is for writers of all mediums – theatre, film, radio, television, digital writing and prose. The workshops will look at the difference and similarities in creating characters and writing dialogue for the different mediums and what we can learn about from the different mediums about creating characters and writing dialogue.

If you’re interested in more writing courses then please let me know sandrabendelow@hotmail.co.uk and I can keep you informed of any new courses in the future.

More information about me, my work as a writer and theatre producer here

To book a place on the courses visit the Aberystwyth Arts Centre website

 

http://www.sbendelow.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-this-blog.html

Cursed

Cursed by Sandra Bendelow. Image by Boz Groden
 

Cursed is an interesting one, a short play produced for the EarCandy project, an audio drama project from a web platform.

It was a really exciting project to be involved in, 13 writers exploring audio-drama, learning what works and doesn't by writing, recording and then presenting the plays. And also very importantly having the plays available so that anyone, anywhere can listen to them - for free.

But Cursed as a short audio drama was created from frustration. A story I'd wanted to tell but hadn't been able to find a way to tell it. It had been bugging me for a really long time. The story of the Bells of Santiago which I'd discovered on one of though random journeys on the web. You know the ones where you click a link and then click another, drawn along a pathway by interesting stories until there it was the Bells of Santiago.

Now bearing in mind that one of my writing obsessions is how objects become imbued with the history around them, a story about a set of bells that hung from a tower in a church in Santiago until a fire which killed over 2,000 killed destroyed the church in which they hung, at which point the bells were transported to the Gower to hang in a church for several hundred years before someone realised their origins and shipped them back to Santiago - yes that's a story which is going to interest me.

Izzy Rabey recording Cursed

It's a story about a horrible tragedy, fire and bells, so it always seemed to be a radio play.

I took the idea to a writing workshop with Kaite O'Reilly and used it as a base for writing exercises, imagining myself as the bell, voiceless, thousands of miles from my home, haunted by a memory of thousands of people screaming when they burned to death.

And yet still I couldn't find the way to tell the story. I still haven't. It's still there waiting for me to find a way in. I'm almost there but it's not quite there yet.

But in the meantime as I tried to think of an idea for a short audio play, the story of the bell came to me and I found myself creating a version of it, drawing some of the elements from it - Swansea, a church fire and then drawing some elements from one of my other writing obsessions - magic.

And so here it is a play about a girl and a bell, both cursed by a tragedy.

The bell magnificiently played by Robert Harper and the girl and every other character played by the amazing Izzy Rabey.

Getting the balance right

I’ve been thinking a lot about being a writer recently, mainly because I haven’t been doing much writing. I’ve been doing all the other things I do alongside my work as a writer producing, digital marketing workshops, running writing groups and of course when the mortgage gets too demanding and other projects aren’t lining up quite right to fill the bank account on designated days then I pretty much do any part-time job to hand which will fit around everything else in my life.

Earlier in the summer I worked in a cafe, at the moment I’m cleaning.

I used to have a full-time, decent wage earning type job and it was nice to not worry about bills about it was very difficult to manage production work and writing alongside it. I was made redundant - I had a choice to make and it seemed an opportunity to take a leap which I did. Mainly it’s been going really well with the things I do to sustain my writing - several creative projects heading in the direction of funding, more bookings for digital marketing workshops. As for my writing I’ve had a short play produced at the Royal Court. I’ll say that again because I like saying it. I’ve had a short play produced at the Royal Court.

My short play One Hour and Forty Five Minutes, written for Dirty Protest as part of their plays-in-a-bag project, was selected to be presented as at Royal Court’s Surprise Theatre.

I said it three times but who’s counting.

It was presented again at Theatr Clwyd’s Picnic Plays. It’s says on the website I’m an up-and-coming writer.

As most up and coming writers and more established writers know it’s difficult to earn a living from writing and I’m one of very many who find themselves needing to supplement their incomes. As I wander round town covered in bleach stained clothes at the moment I do find myself feeling the need to remind other people I’m a writer though I don’t need to remind myself.

The thing I know is that the decent wage earning type job I did for eight years may well have paid the bills easily but in eight years the job itself created exactly four ideas for scripts. Four – in eight years. Not a very good success rate really. All the other scripts I wrote in those years came from elsewhere – the magic box of ideas!

My play One Hour and Forty five Minutes was inspired by three months working in a cafe, and working in the cafe for three months gave me at least three other ideas for scripts and endless research on characters.  My play, produced at the Royal Court (okay four times) would not have been written had I not been working in the cafe. The idea germinated from a day of wandering about with a bag of sharpened knives.

My work as a cleaner has made me resurrect an old short play which featured a cleaner and it was a nice little idea but do you know what has made it burst back into life and become a sharper more focused idea? Working as a cleaner.

As I clean rooms imbued with the lives that have been lived in them and move abandoned belongings my head fills with fleshed out characters because they have houses, rooms to walk around, belongings to leave behind. I do workshops about creating characters and working as a cleaner has given me a new character building exercise – think about your character packing up to leave a house, think about them looking about them in an empty house, what do they think about, what are the memories of the home filling their mind as they switch the lights off, what belongings do they choose to throw into a black bin bag rather than take them with them, why don’t they want to take those belongings, what memories make them what to bin the belongings rather than keep them. Answer those few questions and I bet you have a fully fleshed out character.

I’m not really sure what advice I’m trying to give. A writer writes, that goes without saying. But also a writer feeds off everything around them. Everything is a source of inspiration, everything is a scratched note in a notebook waiting to find it’s way into a story. And if you're doing a job to sustain you while you work you really need to ensure the job is something that feeds not only your stomach but your writing. People talk about life/work balances but we're writers so the most important thing or us to check is our writing/life/work balance.

As new students start their courses at the university I see their eager faces filled with dreams of acting, writing, directing – as I walk passed them on the street covered in the dirt of their houses – and I hope their dreams come true but it’s likely their dream will take a little work, and a little work on the side. Many of them will abandon their dreams or drift from them towards careers they'll get the balance wrong and it can be really difficult to get the balance back once you start to sway. But it’s important to keep dreaming and keep doing whatever you need to do to keep the dream alive and give you enough hours to pursue it. And I think I’m not really advising anyone I’m just writing this for myself to remind myself it’s okay, two years ago I was an emerging writer, now I’m up and coming.

 

 

Objects as inspiration

Collection of shells
 

As writers we often find the same themes and subjects feed through into our work. For me I know that always my work has to have a strong female character either as a protagonist or antagonist, the flaws of relationships feature predominantly, female friendship also heads up many ideas but also too there is subtler repetition of themes and metaphor. Feeling isolated from ones environment, not being able to find your voice, suppression of abilities occur as themes regularly in my work and I know that nature, my garden, water, accent and bodily functions have been plundered for metaphor quite regularly.

Recently I have found myself very specifically on a course of repeating either a theme or a source of inspiration. The flooding that wiped out so many villages near to me last year in particular Talybont started a creative bent that made me feel almost guilty that I had sourced so much inspiration from something that caused so much heartache. A feature film, a radio play,  a short theatre play and a full length theatre play are all in development in either my mind or on my desk as a result of it. The themes of flooding, destruction, hopelessness of man against nature just kept sparking more ideas and offering more for me to write. But then I think that is what we do we look at the senseless things about us and rewrite them so that we and hopefully others can make sense of it.

My last few projects though have found a repetition in a different form. I was approached by an artist Ruth Hogg to work with her on a piece for the Crash Test scratch night. She had an idea for an interactive performance theatre piece and she wanted me to write in response to her idea. Her idea was to create a mandala of objects that the audience could select and build. Each object would have a part of a story linked to it and based on the placing of the objects would be the presentation of dialogue. The audience would thus control the order of the performed pieces and also the emotional impact of the story. It was an interesting challenge to write in response to objects - those objects being a dead lightbulb, butterfly wings, shells, pigments, pebbles, driftwood, feathers, petals and seaweed. Ruth talked to me about stories she had thought of and then I went away and created two characters, and because I didn't have long then I inevitably pulled from my bag of writing tricks one of my predominate obsessions and a relationship in the process of breaking down emerged. I found writing around the objects a really useful exercise though, something that held the dialogue together, created metaphor and added layers to the piece.

The object focus continued though as I found myself writing a short audio drama for the Scriptography Productions project. I love the idea that objects are imbued by the history that surrounds around them and so I created a play with the ability to see the history of an object if she touches the object - she sees the joy and also the pain of thousands of stories embedded in objects and as such is cursed because there is not enough joy to overcome the pain the fills the world.

Then objects haunted me again when I asked to write for the Dirty Protest Theatre play-in-a-bag project. The remit being all the props for the play have to be in a bag. After a moment of inspiration about this I began a search to find the objects that people treasure most, the objects that they would save in a fire, the objects which with their loss would cause emotional devastation. And so again I've found myself responding to objects.

So if you're stuck for inspiration and trying to find an idea or maybe even trying to add more depth to a character try this as an exercise. Think of five random objects that your character would hate to lose, write about why they would be a loss, what is the importance of the object to the character. or if you're struggling with a scene, place a random object into it and let the characters talk about the object. Or take a look at the mandala objects - create two or three characters and create scenes which features each of the objects.

But also though think about what are your recurring motifs, themes and obsessions. It's important to know what they are and either embrace them as strengthening your voice as a writer or avoid them as a challenge to push yourself onto a new pathway of writing.

Cursed, my short audio drama for the EarCandy project will be available to listen to from 2nd June after 1pm here

Women in Wales who inspire me: Kaite O'Reilly

I am very lucky to have many females in my life in Wales that inspire me on a daily basis. It is undeniable that I respond to strong, opinionated, straight-talking women in my work and life. It inspires my work and invigorates my life. However there is one woman in particular whose work, friendship and mentoring has been insurmountable in terms of the inspiration it has given me.

As part of the first year of National Theatre Wales Kaite O’Reilly adapted Persians for Mike Pearson and I can still remember the chills the Messenger speech sent through me as I engaged with the words she had written spoken, on a small TV screen, by Richard Harrington. She deservedly won the Ted Hughes award for poetry for her adaptation, though she still denies that she is a poet even though the poetry of every single line of her adaptation takes your breath away with it’s richness of metaphor and rhythm and poetic eloquence.

Her next collaboration with National Theatre Wales, In Water I’m Weightless was stunning, not simply because of the depth of the imagery embedded in the writing and the force of the dramaturgy but also because you couldn’t leave the theatre without having had your views on disability radically altered.

Her knowledge of theatre texts is astounding and constantly reminds me that no matter how busy or how few hours there are in the day, as writers we should always be reading and seeing the work of others. The depth of research she undertakes for every project is mind-boggling, in writing Leaner, Faster, Stronger she became an expert on genetic and bio-engineering so much so that it was hard to remember she was a playwright and not a scientist. For Persians she read every single translation of the play including ones in languages she didn’t speak!

Her energy is simply frightening at times, on courses at Ty Newydd with her I watch with awe as she powers the group through a day of workshops then will be the last one at night drinking, laughing, singing.

She doesn’t sit back and wait for an agent, director or company to bring her jobs she creates ideas, develops them, she goes knocking on doors to secure the commissions or the funding to ensure that she is working on her terms and producing the work that she wants to write.

She works in collaboration with performers and directors embracing different styles of collaboration, performer led with Good Cop, Bad Cop, director led with Phillip Zarilli and John McGrath and the performer/director/designer/writer melds of the Llanarth Group work.

She debates on forum and panels about the development of new writing or new work but her strongest argument for why writers should be firmly embedded in the development process for performance is proved in her work. She proves with her work that writers should be part of the idea process, the development process, the devising process and the rehearsal process.

She cares fiercely about everything, a quick glimpse of her blog http://kaiteoreilly.wordpress.com/ and you will see her writing about disability, feminism, arts funding amongst a host of other issues whilst promoting the work of other companies and artists like Maya Krishna Rao, Sophie Partridge and Agent 160, whilst also providing inspiration for writers.

She makes me believe that I am a better writer and person then I probably am and it is in living up to her belief in me that I find my way through days when the writing seems too hard and the work seems too overwhelming and so become a better writer and a better person.

She has held my hand firmly, given me the occasional prod, shove and kick up the arse, through every step of my journey setting up and running the Writing for Performance group, setting up a theatre production company and as a writer working on my own projects. Even when is chained to her desk working to a deadline or even when she’s on the other side of the world she always takes the time to support, inspire, challenge and sometimes determinedly push me into action. I know that if I asked “how many women are currently being supported, inspired, challenged and pushed to write, direct, produce, create, do something by Kaite O’Reilly?” the list would be endless, and it wouldn’t just be Wales or the UK it would be throughout the world. Because I know it is not just me who is lucky enough to be firmly embraced by her support but a whole mass of women who are embraced by this very special writer, teacher and woman.

Getting my head around too many hats

I’ve been struggling to find subjects to blog about here for some time now and have come to a realisation that this blog doesn’t sit well with the work I am currently doing as a result it needs to change. Strangely I have been making the mistake with it that inexperienced writers so often make in their scriptwriting. I have been trying to force my voice into the subjects I think I should be writing about to suit the audience and market as opposed to just writing about what I want to write about.

In the years since I began this blog I have developed, thankfully, into a very different writer and indeed person.
I have set up and run a very successful writing group and launched a theatre production company. As a writer I am still treading the pathway described when I began the blog working on my scripts for TV, theatre, film and radio but also I have become increasingly interested in developing my writing practice for theatre along more collaborative and innovative digital platform based aspirations. My work is increasingly not just about developing myself as a writer but developing other writers and developing projects that allow my work and others to be produced.

The other thing I have realised is that the separation I created between the different aspects of my work, the needs to earn money through digital marketing and freelance project work, the running of the writing group and the running of the theatre company is less applicable as the strands merge and impact on what I’m writing, what I’m doing and where my interests lie.

You know that moment when you introduce yourself to people? I have three or four of those introductions in my head and draw on the most appropriate one according to the room. But in economically challenged world of fast changing technology where a unique voice is ever more important I need to recognise that my diversity is a positive aspect.

I can see that in projects like EarCandy for the writing group all those diverse aspects of me are required. I am not a writer on one blog, a producer on another and a digital marketing person somewhere else. I need to stop changing hats and recognise that I need a hat that suits all.

This week I have been preparing a tender for a digital marketing film project, writing a short radio play, designing a digital marketing course for creatives and submitting a funding application for a collaborative text/choreography project. I run two facebook pages, three blogs and two twitter accounts and I’m about to launch another blog, another twitter account and another facebook page.

But what’s important is that here on these pages I’m not trying to force myself into being the writer me but that I use this blog to just be me. I am very aware that though I talk to other creatives about the importance of making sure you’re on-line presence reflects your creative practice and your personality, I’ve not really been practicing what I preach, nag and cajole other people into doing.

And so a refreshed website and blog is needed here, I need to stop separating out the strands and let them merge. I am Sandra Bendelow and I’m a writer and producer. I run the Aberystwyth Arts Centre’s Writing for Performance Group for whom I’ve produced three showcases of work and the next project for the group EarCandy is an audio drama project from a web based platform which will include stories using social media as a platform. I launched a production company Scriptography Productions in November 2012 and produced a new play by Catrin Fflur Huws, To Kill a Machine, about Alan Turing which was presented at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Sherman Cymru Foyer and was also presented as part of a science cafe event at Swansea University. As a writer I work in all mediums, and through all those mediums my work is about gritty realism, narrative drive, physicality and the extraordinary. I am especially interested in interdisciplinary platforms including digital mediums. I also run a small company offering digital marketing services and courses for creatives and I am extremely passionate about social media both for marketing and creative output.

And though I will be blogging elsewhere about the Writing Group, about Scriptography and about my digital creatives work - here on this blog I’ll be sharing thoughts about it all including those moments when juggling becomes jibbering.

Watching sunrise over Hackney Marshes

Since the end of September I've done a workshop or conference or training event every weekend except one; Dirty Protest workshop with Tim Price on structure, Ty Newydd Mentoring project with Kaite O'Reilly, Radio Writing masterclass with Alan Harris, London Screenwriters Festival and Radio Writing masterclass with Dan Rebellato. In the midst of this I've launched a production company Scriptography Productions, organised the first scratch night and been dense in production preperation for the first Scriptography Productions project a new full length play by Catrin Fflur Huws called To Kill a Machine. With all this going on there hasn't been time to even write a blog let alone creatively write. Every single one of the events has been brilliant.

Tim Price, writer of Radicalisation of Bradley Manning for National Theatre Wales amongst others and also writer of Switch on ITV2 at the moment (if you haven't watched Switch then do, immediately), talked about inciting incidents, mid-points and obligatory scenes that really made it click for me in terms of using it in theatre structure. I realised that a play I've been struggling to end was a struggle because it either has the wrong beginning or I need to write a different play.

Kaite O'Reilly, well she's Kaite O'Reilly, and as a seasoned attendee of many of her courses at Ty Newydd I knew what to expect and as always she delivered beyond my expectations - she was as always a goddess of writing tutoring, the weekend was the usual rollercoaster of exuberance, genius and straight-talking. I would not be the writer I am without her, her mentorship and her friendship is immeasurable and she's just so bloody lovely, and amazing and inspiring so yes that was an incredible weekend.

Alan Harris, writer of A Good Night out in the Valleys for National Theatre Wales and also many other plays and also writer of one of my favourite radio plays Gold Farmer came very highly recommended. Everyone I know who has been tutored by him sings his praises and always he's described as being really lovely. Yes, he was both a great tutor and really lovely. So I was very happy to have given up my Sunday afternoon for him and also to have stayed sober on a Saturday night so as not to be hungover. That's high praise indeed. He shared several of his radio plays with us and made us analyse the beginnings, think about why they were commissioned because of how the idea was pitched - he didn't actually tell us they were his plays though - sneakily entertaining.

London Screenwriters Festival was a jam packed weekend of whizzing about from room to room. Simply too many highlights to delve into in any detail but favourite talks were Eran Creevy, Frank Spotnitz, Katie Himms, Kate Leys and all of the writers at the writing for soap session who really made me want to write for serial drama.

Dan Rebellato, writer of My Life is a Series of People saying goodbye who shared some real insights into the process that went behind writing several of his plays for radio and also made radio writing seem even vaster than I already thought it was.

So there you have a crash course in my crash courses. Not a one of them I would of missed but I got to the end of it and thought fantastic - some time to write, finally. I decided that I needed to stop going on courses not because I know it all, because the things I really know about writing you can write on the back of a postage stamp, and because I think we can always learn more from writers talking about their writing no matter how experienced we are. But all this training is bloody pointless if I don't have time to write, so I've banned myself from courses because the only way I will ever learn anything from these courses is if I use them as ways in to learn from my own writing. I need to remember that I am, after all, the expert tutor of my writing.

The other thing I came away from all those courses thinking is that my favourite thing about being on writing courses and events is that I really love talking to writers about writing. Take the London Screenwriters Festival, the thing I really loved was spending more time with people I'd only briefly met before like Rhys and Anne-Marie from Wales Screenwriting Posse and Janine who I briefly met at the Dirty Protest workshop and being able to spend even more time with the Aberystwyth posse, Julie, Sean, Debbie and Rachel. But I also need to stop talking about writing and get writing because though I dearly loved the chance to spend more time with friends, talk to old friends or meet new ones unless I'm actually writing new plays I won't have anything to talk about.

Then one final thing, learned from the last few months, came from the thing I did whilst at the London Screenwriters Festival - I met up with a very good friend of mine who I've not seen for about three years. I stayed with her on a house boat in London and loved it so much on the Friday that on the Saturday I stayed there again. It was an amazing experience that made me see London in a whole new light, literally a new light on the Sunday morning as I watched the sunrise above Hackney marshes. Whilst on the boat I had at least two if not more ideas for plays which made me think, (I challenge anyone to go through Islington tunnel at almost midnight on a houseboat and not come away with some ideas), that yes as writers we need to be writing but we also need to be living. And yes it is possible to sit at your desk day in and day out imagining worlds but surely we need to occasionally lift our heads from the laptop and watch the sunrise over Hackney Marshes?

Fairly random thoughts on scripts that are a pile of shiny shit and 50th birthday parties

So I jumped and now I’ve been writing full-time for two months.

My script for the Red Planet prize made it to the top 25 but unfortunately no further which was good but not good enough. The script, after a thorough re-draft, also made it into the top twelve of the BBC Drama Wales Award but also no further and though it’s great to think my script put me in the top 12 in all writers in Wales (strictly speaking – all writers in Wales who submitted but if you’re a writing in Wales and you didn’t submit to such a huge competition then you’re a bit silly and frankly worth ignoring) it still didn’t put me in the top six which leaves me with two issues which I’m contemplating as I sit at a very large table in a very large house we’ve hired to celebrate my friend’s 50th birthday. So along with contemplating my two issues I’m wondering when I got so old that I have friends who are celebrating their 50th birthday.

It seems only yesterday I was dreading my 21st birthday party arranged by my mum in the hall above the local snooker and pool club hall and wondering if anyone was going to come because I was horrible and everyone hated me. But now look at me I’m 43, I have friends who invite me to spend a week with them celebrating their 50th birthday so I mustn’t be horrible and they mustn’t hate me. Must they?

Parties are on my mind– firstly because I’m at one and secondly because I’m writing a short play for the Sherman Cymru Scriptslam on the theme of After the Party which has to be sent by the end of today. So better get back to the point which is my two points or issues.

Firstly, writing a script which is better so that next time I make it to the final hurdle rather than falling over just before the finish line. I didn’t fall flat on my face at least which is my usual experience of competitions. Flat on my face in a pile of cow shit. The script being the cow shit though at the time I didn’t think it was a cow shit I thought it was a pile of perfect gold.

Secondly, what the hell to do with the script that is good but not good enough because I absolutely love the idea, the characters and the story and if it did so well, it’s clearly not a pile of cow shit though also it’s not a pile of gold.

So firstly making sure the next script is a pile of gold. Let’s start with not forgetting the things that have been learned through the process of writing the script – write scripts which are fun for me. That is certainly the case with the next script as it’s a subject that has been percolating in my head for about 10 years, almost as long if not longer than the last one.

The idea for the next script is well into development, characters, structure, narrative, plot have all been developed. I’ve already written the first twenty pages. I have started to redraft the first ten pages to ensure that the start of the script has that very special attention required to make it shine like gold amongst the spec scripts. After a brief break to complete the draft of a theatre play, I’ll be heading back to write the first draft through to the end. Then I’ll redraft it as many times as is needed to make it what it needs to be, to make it better than the last script to make it the best script it can possibly be. The fundamental part of all this is the fact that I making sure that the script of finished well ahead of the next Red Planet competition. I want to give myself months to think about it, write it, redraft it, think about it some more. Because the main thing I learned from my flirtation with success is that it’s better to give yourself twelve months to write a script than one month. Pretty obvious really I know but the simple fact is that though the script was made into what it needed to be and was better than my last script it wasn’t the best it could possibly be.

This slides me nicely into the second of my issues, almost like I’d planned it. What to do with the script now? It’s getting there but it still isn’t the best it could possibly be and that’s going to take some more work. But it is still a good script, clearly because it made it into the top 25 of the Red Planet competition and the top twelve of the Drama Wales Award. Sorry - but just thought that was worth repeating.

Once it is the best script it can possibly be then I plan to send it as a spec script to a few places that accept submissions, maybe a few agents, maybe a few TV companies, maybe it can open a few more doors.

But what’s more I’m going to think how I can tell the story in other mediums I genuinely believe that the story could work as a radio play, as a novel, as a film – telling the story differently or telling different aspects of the story but it’s possible and a challenge and I like the challenge of trying to write the story for different mediums. And I don’t like stepping in cow shit.

Running through open doors and jumping in without armbands

Recently I’ve had cause to reflect, in far more serious terms, on my writing career. In general the last few months have been a series of - doors opening and doors closing – shall we say. So the doors opening have been all writing related, I’m through to the last 20 of the Red Planet Prize, I was chosen for the Spread the Word Emerging Writers project, I’ve had interest expressed in several projects, the production side of my work with the Writing for Performance Group has been expanding – all great and all positive momentum. The only frustrating thing has been the lack of time to be able to get on with projects and make the most of the open doors.
Don’t get me wrong I do write in all the available time I have, I’m not one of those writers who whinges about having to write when working full-time and then sits watching 6 hours of television of an evening and a bit more at the weekend. I write every evening and at least one if not two days at the weekend (largely dependent on hangover, occasionally gardening). I use all of my holiday time for writing. I have not had a holiday since...you know I really can’t remember the last holiday I took. I take time off to write around deadlines and the only away time I allow myself is Ty Newydd writing courses. So when I say not enough time to write I really mean, not enough time to write.

But then we get to the door closing - notification that the non-real-job will be coming to an end and I’m being made redundant. I have to admit I never saw it as a bad thing although I should have done. I spend all my time wishing that I had another job (scriptwriter of course) so it’s never going to be that bad when a job you do to pay the bills, that gets in the way of the job you really want to do, comes to an end. But I have a mortgage to pay and a very expensive vodka habit – by that I mean I drink a lot of cheap vodka not limited amounts of expensive vodka which would just be silly since it’s been scientifically proven that some of the cheapest brands of vodka are actually the purest!

Immediately my decision was to take a few months – or however long my severance package allows – to write. It will only be a few months but a few months that will give me those extra spec scripts I need, the proposals written up, the outlines finished.

For so long now my book of ideas – ideas written down onto pages in a notebook, usually in the form of loglines, occasionally in little flowcharts of ideas for scenes, sometimes notes of images, often a character description – has been overwhelming me. It has felt like an overloaded in-tray and an overloaded brain. I’ve wanted to push them from the overloaded brain/in-tray and into the nicely organised portfolio of ideas ready to be pitched or written.

But now I can do that. There is probably a very valid argument about me looking for a job and keeping the money for a really rainy day, after all I’ve been at this writing lark for a long time, and a few bits of good luck in competitions doesn’t really amount to an indication that you might earn actual money from writing, so maybe I should just keep at it in my spare time....but could those people (mainly my Mum) just be quiet for now.

I basically had a choice of jump in or keep paddling and I’m on the verge of jumping. I am at the end of the diving board but I’ve never liked jumping in out of my depth so I’m holding my nose and checking that there are people watching out for me in case it goes wrong.

So here’s to making a big splash end of July. I’ll drink a vodka to that. But then I’ll drink a vodka to anything!

Writing in different mediums

I write in different mediums - radio, TV, film and theatre. Each time I write a new play then I fall in love with the medium in which I’m writing and swear of all the others as lesser relatives – until I get an idea in a different medium and then I go through the whole process again.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the differences between each medium and more importantly the differences in process for each one.

I spend a lot of time testing out working processes for one medium and seeing if they transfer.
I believe very strongly that they are each a very unique medium and when writing is at its best they are vastly different creatures which require different processes. I think very few writers are genuinely masters across several mediums. There are a few examples, Abi Morgan is one that leaps out because I’ve recently seen The Hour, watched Lovesong and read Shame.

Also just for the record I want to state the obvious, TV, film, radio and theatre are all different.

I know it’s obvious but I get really frustrated with writers who don’t seem to notice. Yes, it’s all telling stories BUT it’s telling stories in very different ways. And yes you can pull some elements from one medium to another specifically to add something to that script. So yes, write a very filmic script for TV but know that you’re doing it as opposed to writing a film script and calling it TV. I see so many people saying things like, I’ve written a theatre play but someone said it would be good as radio so I’ve changed it a bit and sent it out and they’ve rejected it. Well yes, they would reject it because it isn’t a radio play. Or, I wrote this feature film but now I need to send something to a TV writing competition so I’m redrafting it a bit and sending it in – and guess what, surprise, surprise, it doesn’t win. Well yes it wouldn't win, as it’s a feature film crammed into a TV screen. Laughable I know but more than anything it makes me angry. As someone who loves all the mediums with equal passion I get very angry with people who have so little respect for the medium that they are writing in that they think, ‘changing it a bit’, will make it work.

Each of the mediums requires incredible and particular skills of writing, skills that are unique to that medium. Yes, some of the skills are transferable but some of them are very specific.

Even things that seem transferable are not - writing dialogue maybe? No. Dialogue for theatre, film, radio and TV are all very different.

A story demands to be told as well as it can possibly be told. As well as it can possibly be told in that medium. ‘Changing it a bit’ isn’t going to do that. Delving back into the core of the story is required, searching for the truth of the story, finding how that truth can be brought to life as either radio, theatre, film and TV. Each medium will demand very different things of the story and very different things of the writer. Listen to those demands.

Blog hopping

Kaite O'Reilly asked me to talk about setting up the Writing for Performance Group at Aberyswtyth Arts Centre for her blog. Here are the results of my blog hopping

Stop thinking - start enjoying

Somewhere around the beginning of the year, I got through to the 2nd Round of the Red Planet Prize and my head has been spinning ever since.

February I think? Yes, I think it was February everything has been a bit of a blur since then.

When the email landed in my in-box I think I went into a state of shock. I definitely lost count of the amount of times that I re-read the email and then questioned it, Really? I got through? Really?

The thing is I spend a lot of time talking to people about dealing with rejection. I’m very good at talking people through rejection, making them see how they shouldn’t take it personally, how it’s not a sign of being a failed writer, how it’s best to take it on the chin and move on, and the thing is I’m good at helping people deal with rejection because I’m brilliant at dealing with it myself. I have years of experience at it, I’ve had lots of rejections but thing I realised this year was that I’m not very good at dealing with acceptances, I’m not very good at making it through to the next round because it doesn’t happen very often. So yes, frankly I went into shock. And then I got on with writing the rest of the script. I wasn’t one of the forward thinking ones who’d submitted an already finished script. I looked jealously at various tweets about polishing scripts. Polishing? No I was a long, long way from the polishing stage.

The thing is I can admit that without the Red Planet nod I wouldn’t have ever got on with writing anything beyond the first 10 minutes. The script was always a passion project for me. An idea I’d had and filed under – one day I’ll write this.

It was always there in the back of my head though, the world of the script shaping itself, ideas being added, thoughts on character journeys.

It has a large budget, larger than most things on UK television at the moment. I have no idea what channel would be interested in it, I have no idea what current slot would be suitable.

But as I wrote it - and realistically with my vast experience of rejection and knowledge of the skills of so many writers trying to get through to the next stage – without anything beyond a vague hope that it might get through, I realised how much I was really enjoying writing it. Every day was a joy to sit down and write it. Yes, there were the usual battles and frustrations of trying to achieve what I wanted to achieve with the script but above all else it was just bloody good fun.

Lesson learned for the future for me is definitely to stop thinking about it all too much. Stop thinking what scripts show my voice the best, what scripts make me more marketable, what scripts are more likely to be picked up and just write the scripts that I want to write for no other reason than I think they’ll be fun.

The point is to have scripts that are the best possible scripts that I can write and so surely that can only happen if I’m having as much fun as I can possibly have writing because they’re the scripts I’m really passionate about writing.

So for a while now I’m going to stop thinking about budget, genre, market, trying to second guess a million things to work out which is my best idea and just got on with writing the scripts I really want to write because I think they'll be fun.

Constructive Criticism or honesty; which do you prefer?

Learning to take feedback and reading other plays – is a vital part of improving yourself as a writer. It is said, repeated and repeated some more but so it should be.

I have realised in the last few weeks how incredibly lucky I am to be part of a writing group (actually two writing groups now). One of the things that happens automatically when you’re in a writing group is that you give and receive feedback so inevitably you get more experienced at reading plays and taking feedback.

Over Xmas I had a manic few days reading 3 TV scripts, whilst also trying to get my project done which involved drafting 2 beginnings before making a final decision which to submit for the Red Planet Prize.

Then this week began with an intensive 3 hour session, reading 4 plays and then offering comments for the Spread The Word scheme.

I came back from it exhausted; physically and mentally. But also exhilarated to be part of such great groups. As a writing group we’re all very comfortable with one another, we trust one another, we respect one another. Often feedback can be frustratingly constructive, smothered in positivity for fear of causing offense and inevitably it is pointless feedback.

I want to know what it wrong with my writing, what needs changing, what was confusing? I want to hear strong opinions not wishy-washy ones so that I know what people don't like about my plays. With the Writing for Performance Group, and also the sub group in Screenwriting which has now spawned from it, the feedback is raw, it’s argumentative, it’s feisty. It’s easy to come away from one of the feedback sessions feeling like your work has been torn to pieces and lies in shreds at your feet. But that’s what it’s about. Make notes of all the comments, pick up the shreds of your work and dignity, skulk back to your study and make the script better.

Although I can take credit for setting up the Writing for Performance group, I can’t take credit for the dynamic of the group being so successful. It is more sheer luck that the group is full of excellent and highly opinionated writers who are happy to offer something that is closer to curt criticism, occasionally cutting criticism but above all honest criticism.

And that’s a good thing. Actually, no it’s a great thing. The industry isn’t going to give you constructive criticism and protect you in fluffy cotton wool – it’s going to reject you without a single word of explanation, over and over again and that’s if you’re lucky. More than likely it will tell you your shit, your writings a joke and you have absolutely zero talent. It may even laugh at you – to your face. Even if you reach the top of the industry it doesn’t get better, it gets worse – supposed fans, peers and morons alike will spend hours dedicated to telling you exactly how rubbish your script was and how they could have done a much better job than you. The comments boxes that litter the world means that caustic criticism is the default setting for feedback nowadays. So deal with it or get a different job.

Some other and much wiser words than mine on feedback from Kaite O’Reilly

Lock-in Day

I have to admit that I approached the lock-in day with trepidation. A whole day at the Arts Centre locked into a room with my fellow writers and also a 1-1 tutorial with Sarah Woods and Sian Summers to be grilled on the final idea pitch. Also a lock-in that doesn't involve alcohol. Also aren't there health and safety guidelines about locking a group of writers in a room together?

We'd been asked expand on our two page pitch to a fuller document to send in advance and then answer questions on it. I didn't manage to get mine as completed as I would have liked. I got most of the story down though and two of the characters break downs done and then by the Saturday session I'd got all the characters apart from two down. The antogonist eludes me slightly and in fact he still does. He's a bit foggy still but I'm getting closer to him I think. Also until the morning of the lock-in my TV journalist had eluded me, though on the morning of the lock in I watched a BBC news report on divorce stats and suddenly Pauline became clear though her name is now completely wrong.

My tutorial session was great, lots of queries that forced me to clarify things, it was suggested I should explore farce - and funnily enough I've just started to read One Man, Two Guvnors. In a happy trip through of coincidences that seem serendipitous I spotted this discussion

http://community.nationaltheatrewales.org/profiles/blogs/is-pure-comedy-worth-less-than-high-art.

I have no idea what the farce formula will entail, how it will strengthen or indeed box-in my play. But I look forward to exploring farce over Xmas. As I've got my parents with me for Xmas there is already a huge potential for farce especially as my living room has two entrances and my dad is partially deaf!

I came away from the tutorial feeling confident - but that I had a mountain of trailing strings to tie together.

After the morning tutorial I spent the day focusing on plotting and moving the story as well as trying to find the undercurrents. Basically I played with post-it notes for about an hour. Post-it note work is not to be taken lightly or mocked, a hell of a lot can be achieved with precise placing, maneouvering and colour coding schemes. By the end of the day I had a pretty good idea of the whole play and worked out what the play is about which is a pretty useful thing to do ahead of starting to write.

Now all that's left to do is write the whole thing by 6th February.