Mermaids and Drowning Women

Ever thought you may have bit off a bit more than you could chew? I definatly recon I have now with this one. My first scene is so shitty and the whole concept and idea has so much potential that I just cannot fufill! Well not without anal planning and a psycho's view of theory and structure anyway...
I just feel that this idea landed on me and I just can't do it justice!
My plot is really weak - best I suppose to just keep the structure and plot simple (if I get too elaborate I'll just screw it up!) so its a 4 act play - 4 monoscenes (different to what I've ever done before)
1. a collage scene - the three main characters speak about their stories and how their stories differ from what is usually percieved of them - its a collage sceene because the speach is peppered with bits of shakespeare, fiction, Hans Anderson and Biographies... Its me being lazy and pinching bits!
2. Ophelias story - acted out with the one actor and more of a monolouge
3. The Mermaids Story - same as
4. Kirsten Pfaff's story - same as

The Mermaids story in Liniar, Ophelias is in a spiral structure - hte epicentre and starting point is when she is potty and Kirstens runs backwards to give a futile "happy ending"

The stories are told in chronological pattern bringing the audience right up to present day (ish) with KP's story - reinforcing that the issues are still prelivant (made up that word, aint i clever!)

The women however do not speak to each other, they speak over each other and fail to see how similar they are.
aaaggghhhh!!!!
Any ideas anybody?

Prawns, Playtime and Bobby Brown

The Collection of short stories that I seem to have writtern by accident! here is the rundown:

1) Aeroplane - two women go to see their best friend who has got a good job working at a university in New York. The two arrive arround Christmas and suprise their mate who has shaked up with a bright young student. Its more about how someone moved away and left an entire life and hten the life catches up with them. (unfinished)
2) Pretty in Pink - about a male narrator who is so bemused about the eighties revvival that he failes to notice that a girl who looks like Molly Ringwold with Madonna's dress sence in the "Papa Dont Preach" video is comming onto him. It's more of a comment on retro and how men react to women (unfinished)
3) Toyland - we all know this one - there is a link to it somewhere on me blog! thinking about renaming it "Rose White, Rose Red"
4) Becca and Crake - Actually quite proud of this one, even though its unfinished its actully got the potential to be a really good peice - Becca goes away to university after breaking up with her boyf, she meets Crake and therefore "borrows" somebody elses boyf for company over the term
5) The Colour of Magic - about tripping in 1996. This one was placed in the leicester library competion a littlte while ago. It's really about manipulation.
7) Snow - about a guy who in "Fight Club" style trades in his life to be a looser. Its about freedom and where it really lies.
8) Bobby Brown - a sweltering hot summer and a relationship happens between the narrator and her friend I actualy tried to create a happy ending romance! Its really about letting go and taking the plunge
9) Bernard - a re-telling of Sid and Nancy. It's a funny, weird story about passion and sex and destruction
10) Fuck me Doll - a story about being a bit like a totally fucked up female (a bit "courtney Love") and coping with life. Its more of an experiment in place. I'm trying to create a world from the littilist peices up.

I need to sort these out, polish them, finish them and sort it all out!

The Sphynx

right here is the thing:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunity/sphinx.shtml
So my play is entitled "Mermaids and Drowning Women" and my characters are Kirsten Pfaff, Ophelia and The Little Mermaid.
Thngs to bear in mind:
1) the mermaid gave up her tounge so she could be with the prince and he still didnt want her
2) mermaid also had difficulties walking
3) ophelia went doolally due to Hamlets spurning of her
4) check out the Millias painting of Ophelia and the story behind Elizabeth Siddal
5) Pfaff was a talented musicion but she was also a junkie
6) Pfaff went out with Eric Edlanson who also went out with Courtney Love and Drew Barrymore
7) Pfaff has (little) biography availiable
8) Pfaff was eventually replaced by Melissa Auf Der Maur.

So in a Jean rhys way I am writing about women as the underdog (again) and certain evils that send the women off the deep end

SYMBOLISM
1) the mermaid is the only one out of them who can swim
2) mermaid is also the only one with a "happy" ending as she gains a soul.

Should I set this in "middle time" where there are "doors to the worlds of the women? or should it be in a contempory setting?
Perhaps best to look at the first scene of Top Girls by Caryl Churchill.

Visions of Marmee and Pops

Allright, Whatever! I have begun a new story from a childs pov. She muses on her parents relationship and how she came about. My real theme for this is roots - where you come from - that type of thing and it begins when she finds a photo of her mum and dad when they were Nineteen.
Pops has the impending threat of uprooting the family to annother town / country for his work and thats the underlying implication of this peice. Nancy (kids name) htinks about where she came from and reiterates the love story of her parents.
Here is the story A-Z
Marmee (or Ashlyene) was in a "perfect couple" situation with a fella called David.
Ashlyene meets Pops (or Camberwell) and they have a short liason when she and David are going through a rough patch. The photo Nancy finds is from this period.
Ashlyene and Daivid get back together and she finishes with Camberwell.
David dies in some melodratic, horrific motorbike accident
Eventually Ashlyene has annother relationship - a long distance one with annother fellow (havent thought of a name yet!)
It turns out this bloke is married
She then meets up with Camberwell again and has a bit of a rebound
She gets pregnant and has Nancy
They all pretend to be a happy family.

And in further news I know that I need to tighten chapter 5 of the novel (bit when my narrator comes downstairs and she sees Arthur - she thinks about him a lot and tried to guess what is going on in his brain but she dosent present him to the reader as a person - he needs to bee "seen")
That was a reminder for me!

Depressed

I feel nihilisticly depressed, but to be honest I am probalbly just tired - allthough I have done nothing with myself, apart from watch Big Brother, loll about in the sunshine, work and write.
It feels like a giant pressure is building up in my brain and if I don't enjoy myself soon I'll just explode. I did try to enjoy myeslf and went out last weekend to a traveller type thing, but just sat on a crate looking really miserable. I don't really know what my problem is... running the risk of sounding like a mardy bum, pretentious artist type... Perhaps I just dont like people much.

Anyway - Ambrose interviewed me - if any of you lot want to know what I look like its here:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=346856&no=297540&rel_no=9

and I know I look like a lesbian and sound like one but I'm not!

heres what my friend said

you sound soooooooo clever not like someone who gets confused using an automaticcoffee machine like when we were at uni! Also it does sound a bit gay youliving with lucy, it makes it sound like you two live together in a creativelesbo lovenest bet lucy loves that!! xxx

More on Dada

Righty ho! I have decided to write the Story from Tzara's POV. He looks at his girlfried and debates over the relationship. She is called Florence (thus named after the great city for art and a direct contrast for anti-art) and she is a prostitute that dosent want to be a whore anymore. She has got herself involved with Tzara and as they are poor, cold and starving he encourages her to go out and sleep with Hugo Ball who owned Caberet Voltaire. He has a bit of a paddy (or ephinany - cant spell!) when she has gone and decides to make the jump from part time nihilist to fully fledgged member of Neichze's army! His love for Florence and his jellousy clouds his artistic and philosophical judgement and He thinks somthing has to go - that something is Florence. Th perspective moves back and forth in teh time of their relationship, covering how they first met, their current situation and hte infancy of their relationship.

PS: has anybody noticed how much like Hitler Tzara looks here?

Momentum

ok, so after the whole "gggahhh!" I had with Momentum and feeling totally rejected it turns out they do like me after all, they just had my old address and old phone number! I had to email about my feedback and they kinda like me in some resepcts! I feel less hatrid towards theatre as a medium now!

my story

well the Tzara story is doing my head in! grr! ok, I have now relised I know very little about Dadaism and even less about fictionalising a character from history and reality! I recon I need to set it a little earlier, about 1917, but I know nothing about Zurich at that time! How lame! Right so far his girlfriend was somebody kinda respectable, but she moved to Zurich, gets into poverty, gets into modeling for painters (the porn industry of the day!) meets Tzara, falls for him in a motheringly way, he has a crisis between how he feels for her and his anti-art causes, then he abandons her, desolute, in Zurich as he swans off to Paris.
Thats my plot.
I just know nothing about my characters.
Tzara must be a bit of a conflict junkie - he must be a bit of the tourtuerd poet / soul. Somebody who can only thrive when he is miserable and can only commit to one thing. he is all "my art or my girlfriend?" Aslo setting it in 1917 Tzara is only 21 so he can be confuesed about what to do with his life.
The Girlfriend - she should be a little older than him, but not by much. She could mother him and pan to his whims and gets shit on for it as he recons he needs more of a kindred spirit type (?)

Leicester's Manuscript Reading Society

Now, please don't judge, I know that everyone who is there is a lot older than I am (and could possibly ever dream of being) but I had to read for them and so took a section from my novel that deals with objectionable content such as cocine adicts, crack inspired violence, theft, menacing boys etc.
It was quite scary to read something that is peppered with swearing and drugs out in front of a load of Mills and Boon style romance writers.
But the weird thing is they really enjoyed it and asked me to become a member. Apparently my writing is fresh and original (to them) and one of them gave me a flyer about a Short Story contest (first prize = £1000 - I really could do with the money, 2nd prize = some gay gold pen, I could sell it at Smack Converters, but I dunno how much they'd give me for it) anyway, the story has to be in the vein of a historical peice so I'm now "inspired" to write something about Tristan Tazra and Dadaism and his illegitmate girlfriend, ie: what would you make of the world if you were Tazra's whore? "Tristan, Honey, please don't throw rancid meat at people. Its not nice."
I could make her coloured, but I'm now thinking that perhaps its too Jean Rhys in the "Lets Call it Jazz" story.
Well it would be set in Zurich in 1919. when Tazra is just getting into dada, she could reffer to him by his real name. His nihalism could shine through, not only is this fellow disgruntled with art, he's disgruntled with everything ( very Punk) and she is torn between being the person he wants (a narcisistic mirror to his own nihalism) and the person who cares for him. Basiclly he shits on her heart and she gives everything up for him (her virginity) and in the end he fucks off to Paris and abandons her.
I always thought that about Tazra when I saw pictures of him in art history classes. He looks like he could be a right bastard.
I was also thinking about Dali's surrealism exhibition in Paris (?) I think there was some kind of naked lady involved. perhaps I could write about the naked lady?
No, I recon Tazra is the key.
But when they say historical, would a fictional account be enough? Fuck it, I'll just send it in and see where it takes me.
Hope I dont win the pen.

What I'm doing now

Well, after being completly disenchanted with theatre at the moment I'm working on the novel that I labour and Love so much. The plot is thus:
there is a female narrator who has had a very unequal relationship with a young academic called Arthur. Arthur has fucked off and left her for his own sanity and career. Arthur is a posh boy, one of the nice boys who Prince William would know, but he is a complete fuck up. He's like one of the people that Jarvis Cocker would love to sing about all day! anyway, he comes back just as my narrator is getting herself sorted and crashes into her life again. Now he has a girlfriend, an MA and a crack problem and all her problems resurface like crazy paving.

Basically, its a novel about regression - regression, peter pan syndrome, not wanting to grow up etc is the main theme and games - childish and otherwize. I took the formule of a chick lit and made it darker and cynical - I wanted to 'Sylvia Plath' it up a notch. Nobody would really want to read it, I guess - other than cynics like me, or people that hate romance, but I love writing it so there!

Hello World!

Well I seem to have joined in with the craze of the blog, but this is more like a work thing for me. Damien Walter suggested that having a blog would be a really good idea as I'm attempting to apply for a "Grants for the Arts" grant at the moment so I can finish off my first novel to publishing standard and really give my work teh best chance it can get. This blog is to help me (kinda) focus myself on my writing and where its going - mapping the progression of my development as a writer I suppose and maybe in a few years I can come back and see htis post and say "wow I've come so far..." more like "wow wasn't I daft!"


Well anyway, I'll give a summery of my writing up to date:
I graduated from the University of Leicester with a B.A. in English
I whilst at university I wrote articles for The Ripple newspaper - people didnt like them and there would be an ongoing war between me and some other reporters about my stinking attitudes to marriage and suchlike - at least people actually read my articles and were appalled enough to comment!
I interviewed Freda Warrington - a local fantasy writer - for The Ripple. She was my hero when I was fifteen and I did blush!
I studied a poety workshop under Kris Seifken while I was there for a semester and it was the only thing that would get me out of my shell as a writrer! Kris reconed I should do an MA in creative writing at UEA. I think he was quite impressed with me, but I hated creating poetry.
I was accepted into Nottingham Trent Uni to study Creative Writing as the youngest applicant in 2005. I was going to study fiction under Graham Joyce, but I dont have three grand so didnt bother. I
began studing drama under the Momentum Young writers programme in 2005. I studied in total for a year under Emma Rosoman who was the Writer in Residence at The Nottingham Playhouse - she works for the Royal Court now.
Emma took my first play "Sing, Sing Death House" to the Royal court and I was well chuffed! still not heard a whisper from them but hey who cares! at least one of their 50 resident writers thinks I'm ace!
I entered a short story called "The Colour of Magic" into the Leicester Library Short Stories competition 2006 and came joint third! I got to read my story out in the local Borders. Apart from being the youngest there I felt a bit bad as they set the mike up in front of the kids section and my story was full of swearing and drugs.
I attended the Hopefield Hall (kinda) resedency in Leicester - got to meet all kinds of people: radio publishers, lit development workers, comercial agents, grant providers, independent publishers etc
I just got interviewed by Ambrose Musyia (spelling incorect and apologies Ambrose) for an article on emerging writers.
Now I'm going back to concentrating on my first novel as it really needs the care and attention.