Being your own Fairy Writing-mother

It’s been a while. For once my inactivity here is not due to inactivity in writing. It’s been a very active few months. Not as much writing as I’d like, and it’s pretty skew of the plan for 2011 that sits on the wall facing me BUT to focus on the positive - things are acceptable.

Focusing on the positive;
I’ve written the first draft of the 30 minute play for the mentoring project,
I’m up to 20 minutes on the first draft of the TV pilot,
I’m at 9 minutes on my redraft of a short film,
a HUGE project that is developing in my head and on the walls of the study.

However my biggest achievement in the past few months is setting up and running a monthly writing for performance group. I’ve been talking about it for, well..... years is not an exaggeration and finally I got off my backside and did it. Not only that but I’ve booked the Writing Group in for a showcase evening of small plays at Aberystwyth Arts Centre in October. So a rehearsed reading of a short play of mine, will be shown to the public, in October. Along with my play will also be plays by the other 9 members of the group and I’ll be producing the whole event, finding performers, directors, marketing the event – everything. It feels good to think that 10 new plays will come to life in October. And it’s because I got off my backside and made it happen.

There’s been a lot of inspiring stories about in the magical world of web and social media that helped me to think – stop waiting for this magical hand of the writing fairy to reach out and whisk you to a world of full-time writing and get off your backside and be your own fairy writing-mother.

Just a few of the stories of writers making their own dreams come true are listed here
Danny Stack – wrote, produced, directed, edited, promoted his own web series Liquid Lunch. http://www.liquidlunch.co.uk/
The story of the making of the comedy web series is here along with many, many mountains worth of writing advice http://www.dannystack.blogspot.com/.

Danny Lacey, the epitome of getting off your backside and doing it yourself really. Follow his blog or his web show. He isn’t waiting around for someone else to lead him along the pathway from obscurity to success he is literally hacking down those trees and making his own road.
http://www.stadamedia.co.uk/dannylaceyfilm/

Kristi Barnett http://www.kristibarnett.com/
And her trans-media project @KarenBarley
http://www.pyromag.com/entertainment/9394/a-twitter-tale-follow-to-take-part/
In Danny Stack and Tim Clagues's UK Scriptwriting podcast she talks about the motivation behind getting off her backside and doing it herself. I especially like this project because she is using multiple platforms and attempting to create a unique way to tell a story. http://ukscriptwriters.podomatic.com/

Not that my little showcase is anywhere near the scale of these projects but I’m heading in the right direction and I’m doing something about getting my writing out there.

What do you regret most in your life?

At the moment I’m developing characters for two projects, both for theatre.

The way I develop characters varies slightly from project to project, sometimes the characters emerge fully formed, walking, talking, farting but sometimes the idea has emerged from maybe an image or a situation and so I need to hunt to find my characters.

Always though I’m looking for a distinct character voice and always I’m looking for the character to surprise me because they do or say something I don’t expect.

Character developing is sometimes called hot seating which is a good way of thinking about it. Simply put your character in a seat and ask them questions. From the straightforward - What's your name? Where do you live? What's your home like? - to the ones that dig a little deeper - What is your strongest childhood memory? What is the most embarassing moment in your life?

I like to think of it as a journalist interview. I’m the journalist and I want to get my facts right but also I want to befriend my subject and get them to reveal unusual things about themselves. Because each project is different then my focus will be slightly different and I will want to really test my characters about certain aspects of their behaviour. The play I’m working on at the moment has “regret” at its core so I’ve added to my usual list of questions, what do you regret? I like this question so I'm going to keep it in the repertoire.

Because my characters main arc through the story is to admit that she does regret something, at first she says, I don’t regret anything. So I have to press her more about what she regrets. I also have to think about what can be said to this character or done to her to make her admit that she regrets something. So in this one question not only am I developing the character but I’m creating ideas for scenes.

Not all writers do detailed character development, some writers like to learn these things about their characters as they write, they want to let their character react to situations as they write and see what they do. For them the process of character development and first draft is intertwined.

Also some writers do far more detailed character development processes asking a thousand questions and knowing every aspect of their lives in minute detail.

For me I like to find a balance of taking the character through these exercises until the character is vivid and alive in my mind. Until the voice is strong and clear. Basically for me there is a point when the character and the story start to interact out of my control and I know that it is time to start writing the play.

The thing to ask is, are you happy with your characters? Are they two dimensional? Are they vague figures moving a plot around? If they are then your character development process needs freshening up.

The list of questions I ask comes from a combination of many exercises that I’ve done or read over the years as well as trying to add my own style of process to it. But more than that it comes from the questions I would ask a stranger in real life. Surely that’s the point. I want to get to know this person. So I ask, what is your name? Then I ask, do you like your name? This is something I do a lot in "real life" because I'm fascinated by names and what they mean to us. I hate my name. Sandra is very mundane and it's also a Viz character. Sharing a name with a Fat Slag is never going to be good. My surname Bendelow resulted in me being called Bendylegs thoughout childhood. So there you go, a question as simple as - What is your name? - has revealed quite a lot about me.

There is a great on-line tutorial from Cheryl Martin at the Bruntwood Competition site with advice about characters, including a great selection of character questions

If you want a really detailed character questionnaire, then try this one at the Script Lab

But don't forget to make the questions right for you and your process. Also make the questions right for each project. Asking what a characters home is like is great but if your character is a teenager then asking about their bedroom is like is so much better. Then go further, what posters do they have on their wall? What is the most important item in that room to your teenager?

It's important to think about your own interests though because this can be a quicker way to create and connect with a character as you develop them. I did theatre design courses and did a lot of costume design so if I ask a character what their favourite item of clothing is then it very quickly creates a whole character for me. If you love music then picking their favourite music will work for you. If you have a vast knowledge of art then ask them about their favourite artist.

The three workshops I’ve done with Kaite O’Reilly have looked at the importance of the questioning process, of letting the ideas from the answers flow into raw material. Most importantly exercises relating to character development get you writing and words on a page are better than an empty page.

I think it’s really important with these exercises to push beyond the obvious and really try to be true to the character. You might ask a question, something quickly comes to mind but then you need to ask yourself is that really what they would say? Also ask yourself is the character telling the truth, a stranger asks us a question and we say something that seems to reveal something but is it really the whole truth?

In many cases you have to try to imagine what your character would say after they’ve become really comfortable talking to you, or after they’ve drunk too many glasses of wine because that’s when the real truth comes out. Ask me a question sober and I'll tend to say something for the sake of getting a laugh, after a few glasses of wine I'll be revealing deep, dark secrets, but also probably trying to get a laugh.

My main character in this project has built up a lifetimes of walls to stop admitting even to herself that she regrets what she did. I have to get her to admit to herself that she regrets her actions even though that acknowledgement will cause her pain and will cause her to realise that years worth of her life has been built on a lie to herself.

So as I ask the questions, I know she is lying to me, I’m letting her say what comes out first, but I’m trying to prod further, I’m trying to find the thing that could make her crack and reveal the truth to me.

This way the process starts with doing a character interview but it quickly moves into creating raw material for my play. Some of the things that I am writing will be used in the play, but most of it will be discarded as back story. But all of it will make the character "real".

Most importantly though it’s fun. This is one of the best bits. Making the character come to life on the page is why I love writing.

Playing with a play

This weekend has been my most productive weekend in a long time. On Friday I had a one page outline of an idea, the idea was a very floaty one, a vague idea of a situation, a couple of blurry images, a sense of a character but nothing particularly concrete. By Monday I had worked my way half way through a notebook, created five characters, a story, a structure, a style, a theme, oh and a sub-plot too.

Now the most obvious reasoning behind this is to think I laid off booze over the weekend hence avoiding the subsequent morning spent on the sofa half-watching whichever soap omnibus I stumble across first, followed by devouring my body weight in KFC, followed by guilt ridden late dog-walking, followed by guilt ridden OCD style cleaning. Followed by an early night and locking myself in my study on Sunday to desperately try to catch-up the lost hours.

Admittedly for anyone that knows me, it would be a good guess. However this is not the case, in fact my alcohol consumption over the weekend was 2 bottles of wine and four large bottles of Crabbies alcoholic ginger beer. And I specify alcoholic ginger beer because I’m still amazed every time I drink it that it is alcohol. Seriously? It's alcohol? But it tastes so nice, so refreshing! I really like Crabbies.

The very simple reason behind this productive weekend was the fact that I participated in the first instalment of my Writing for Performance Mentoring Project with Kaite O’Reilly. Unfortunately it’s not possible to go to Ty Newydd every weekend so I have to find a way, without the support of Kaite O’Reilly and 8 others writers, to do the same every time I have a new idea.

First of all question the idea, pull it up and hold it to the light, turn it inside out and give it a good shake. Or put it simply, ask - what the f**k?

I had to think why was the idea important to me, why did I care about it, what was I trying to say, what did I want people to think about my idea? What was at the heart of my idea?

Although at first I wasn’t sure about any of the answers I found that the questions stayed with me as I circled the idea in workshops. Some of the workshops were about character development, some were about structure, some about theme.

I thought about the world of my play, the characters, my protagonist, my antagonist, my secondary characters, the characters who will never be in my play but are part of the world of my play.

Looking back through my notes I drew lots of diagrams throughout the weekend, each with a word in the centre, each time the word at the centre was a different word. In fact on Saturday alone my central theme changed 4 times.

It was as though I was building my play with blocks but first of all I had to build the blocks. Some blocks stayed firm and others wobbled but slowly I had more blocks. All of a sudden things slotted into place and then I had answers to my questions. And then I had a play. It felt as though it had just popped up like magic but it hadn’t, I’d worked really hard but it felt as though I’d been playing.

All of the exercises we did though were about playing with ideas, not worrying about what we were writing, or if what we were writing was right but just writing, playing, having fun with words. Exploring our creative worlds, exploring our characters, exploring our themes. Most importantly I knew I had to get on with it, keep throwing words at pages, keep throwing ideas out, cutting things, letting things change.

The project means that in 2 months time I have to submit a first draft of the play to Kaite who will return it with notes then we have approximately another two months to re-work before we return for a weekend in September to work on the final draft of the play.

So, okay, this weekend was a well structured and well thought out workshop weekend designed by Kaite O’Reilly who is a brilliant playwright, a great teacher and a lovely women but I hope to be able to repeat the success of the weekend alone in my study. I’ll play with an idea, have fun with it. Though maybe I’ll keep the bottles of Crabbies.

This is an answer: More Sex, definitely

Currently I am working on a new TV script, which I hope will be my entry for the next Red Planet Prize. After my epiphany late last year about how I’d been treading water for a while as a writer, I wanted to just focus on writing, above all else, for me. Writing about subjects that really interested me, in a way that really interested me. For me that has to be the juxtaposition of the very ordinary on the very extraordinary. I’m happy with how this idea has evolved but I had a problem in that it revolves around 3 couples and the impact that a fairground ride has on their life and love. The problem was finding a way to establish the relationship of the couples quickly. Then I read, the always-brilliant Lucy V Hay writing about wanting more sex – in spec scripts.

It seemed so obvious. Establish each relationship with a sex scene. So damned easy and yet I hadn’t thought about it. But I had thought about it. I’d thought about the couples sex lives and even made notes about it but as I’d played through the establishing scenes in my head I’d not chosen to use them. Strange really.

Thinking about it further I never have sex scenes in my scriptwriting but in my prose writing days I used to always have sex scenes to establish and reveal truths about relationships. So what’s happened? Have I become a prude in my more formative years? Well, no. Ask any of my friends and one of my favourite subjects, for general chit-chat, deep and meaningful conversations or just idle jokes, is sex.

Also sex is a prevalent theme in a lot of the recent scripts I’ve either been developing or writing. Last year I wrote a radio play about sisters discovering their father’s porn collection after his death. This then led me to develop a theatre play, Dirty to Me, which is about a sex therapy group. So I’m writing about sex constantly but not writing the sex it would seem.

So I'm answering Lucy’s call. My script is being re-written to include the sex scenes. In addition to that, an idea that’s been floating in the back of my head for a while about female friendships after the break-up of relationships is going in for an overhaul. Previously the sex lives of the four women were going to be a part of it but now it will be well and truly full-frontal. It’s working title is Rebound Shag Man.

I'm also a great believer in the mantra, the bad things in life make good writing, so it's good to know that on this subject I've already done the research and all those dreadful, funny, wierd and surreal sexual experiences can now be of value, in my writing.

Procrastinating on Process

One of my main forms of procrastination is thinking about writing process. I spend lots of hours thinking about whether my writing process is the right process for me. I also spend lots of hours reading about other people’s writing processes.

As procrastination goes, not writing because I’m thinking about how to write is better than some but it’s still just wasted hours. Towards the end of 2010 I came to the conclusion that I needed to draw the explorations of writing process to an end and come to some conclusions. Let’s face it I’d have enough years of writing so there really isn’t any excuse for not knowing exactly what process suits me best.

I need a writing process that allows my "unique voice" to steer the writing. It’s great to know other writers tips, exercises, shortcuts and methods but they’re not writing my project, I am. Admittedly most of my writing process is taken (COUGH) -stolen- from other writers but I’ve adapted everything ever so slightly to suit my writing process. Most importantly I've stopped using processes simply because a writer I like uses that process. Yes, I might like them as a writer but that doesn't mean that something that works for them works for me. I have to start having more confidence in what I feel is right for me as a writer.

As I've started to work on my new projects this year I'm trying to stick to my process because;

1. I need to have a writing process that works for me. Obvious but needs to be stated,

2. I need to have a writing process that fits with how I write logistically. (i.e., lots of small writing sessions, gaps between writing days,

3. I need to have a writing process that allows who I am to be beneficial to the writing (i.e., I work best with limited time, I work best with a deadline, I like organisation, I work best when I multi-task),

4. I need to have a writing process that takes my flaws as a writer and allows them to be strengths (i.e., I overwrite, I overthink, I make things overly complex),

5. I need to have a writing process that works for all the different formats in which I write; Theatre, TV, Film and Radio. The constraints and strengths of each format might be different but the writing process should still be the same,

6. I need to accept my writing process and stop trying to fight it. I can’t sneak up on it, take shortcuts, fool it or force it to do something it doesn’t want to do,

7. I need to have a writing process that takes me through to final drafts of projects to ensure that I have a portfolio of completed specs,

Now admittedly this blog, and the ones that I plan to write to follow could be classed as procrastinating on process, but at least it was brief.

A few links to further thoughts on writing process

Jonathan Peace on Scriptments and working faster

Lucy Hay on time management

A great interview by Sally Brockway with David Allison (writer of Red Production Co's Bedlam) about Boy meets Girl which includes some great thoughts on his process.

Focusing on writing and NOT making new years resolutions

I haven’t blogged for a while. I’ve had a few ideas for blogs, thrown a few thoughts about, even started a few blogs but then I’ve been distracted by another thought that seemed would make an interesting blog. Truth is this is very reflective of me as a writer. I get very enthused by a new idea and rush off into development notes. I draw out the ideas for the story and then just before I start the actual writing I get another idea and off I go again. Or I see a competition deadline that sparks an idea so I rush off a half baked script in order to meet a deadline which at least gets a script on paper but it’s not really a finished script. So I’m surrounded by lots of developed ideas waiting to be written or half-written scripts, or drafted but not completed scripts. In the last year I’ve completed to draft stage a radio script, 2 short film scripts and a television script which doesn't seem that impressive for a whole year. I know that I need to get more focused on writing the scripts and re-writing the scripts and getting more scripts ready to be sent off as examples of my work. I want to be able to say – that script is finished and I wouldn’t change a single word in it.

Now I don’t believe in making resolutions because I believe if you want to change something in your life then you should do it, whatever the time of year. New Years resolutions are made to be broken but a change you make to your life at any other time is something that can be seen through. It is merely a coincidence that my new philosophy of writing is being birthed within days of the end of the year.

Or rather it ties in to the fact that my birthday falls on the 2nd January so getting a year older brings with it the inevitable thoughts of the declaration that I made aged 35 that if I hadn’t made it is a writer by the time I was 40 then I was giving it all up. But then I also used to say when I was 18 that by the time I was 26 I would be married with two children then I grew up and realised I believed in neither marriage or children. But I do still believe in writing, and I long since realised that I write because I love making up stories. I have a mortgage to pay which means I’ve also accepted that I do have to do that day job so I have a limited number of hours in which I can write but then who doesn’t and who wouldn’t wish for more hours of writing. But I’m not being very smart about the way I go about the writing and I need to get smarter.

So for my new plan. I’ve written a list of the projects that I currently have in development or waiting for re-draft on a large piece of paper in front of me. 10 projects in total (7 in development and 3 scripts that are waiting to be re-drafted). Amongst the 7 projects are a feature film, 2 tv scripts, 2 theatre scripts, 2 radio scripts. This time next year I want to look at the list and say – those scripts are finished and I wouldn’t change a single word.
So next week I will be starting the first draft of my new television script. I will be focusing on that and nothing else until the first draft is finished.

Be Bold

Back from my Writing for Performance course at Ty Newydd with the ever brilliant Kaite O’Reilly. I did intend to write blogs from Ty Newydd, but I was just too busy writing, learning, exploring process and meeting lots of lovely, interesting, supportive and inspirational writers.

Whilst there it felt as though things suddenly fell into place.

Ever since I listened to the Writers Guild podcast by Jack Thorne, amongst the many great things he said, the thing about working out your truth as a writer has been bugging me.

One of the speakers at the course was Mike Pearson who talked about his From Memory project - this made me think about my first novel now buried, with the copious research notes and rough drafts, in several boxes in my attic. A strange thought occurred to me, did I bury my truth as a writer with that novel?

The morning after I woke up thinking about my truth as a writer and the first thing I did was scribble a few things about the subjects that haunt my writing.

Now I’m fully aware that a lot of this is sounding, to phrase it as nicely as I can, a bit wanky! “Truth”, “burying” and “haunting”. A rash of metaphors waiting to be drawn out in a piece of writing. I do apologise.

Anyone would think I’d been on a writing for performance course in a house supposedly haunted by Lloyd George for a week.

But then that morning Kaite gave is a set of questions to think about;
What are your tendencies as a writer?
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
What needs to be addressed right now?
Is there some action you need to take?
What may be the way forward?

In the midst of these questions Kaite used the phrase “treading water”. She asked have we been “treading water” as a writer?

That was it for me, that was the truth. I’d been treading water for years, and occasionally sinking, only to make it back to the surface and tread water some more.

I’d been giving voice to characters, I’d been giving voice to stories, I’d been telling the truth of others but I’d lost my writers voice and lost track of my truth as a writer. I’ve been putting words on a page but I haven’t been putting me on the page.

It’s not just about getting specs out there it’s about getting my voice out there. It’s about making sure that my voice is loud and clear and shouts louder than all the voices.

I thought about the radio play I’ve just finished, the radio play I’m developing, the theatre play I’m developing and I can see the empty spaces in them but I know how fill those empty spaces.

Over breakfast one of the writers on the course said to me, be bold. And I will be from now on.