Tuesday, October 31, 2006

This is how I feel about Theatre


Read it.
Its bang on the money.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2006/10/from_page_to_stage.html
and i cut and paste it too just cos it really sums up how i feel


Where are all the good new playwrights?
Theatres tell us that new writing is at the top of their agenda. But their schemes sure aren't working.
Lyn Gardner
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October 30, 2006 04:46 PM Printable version
A decade ago this week British theatre was enjoying its greatest flowering of new writing since the Jacobeans. Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking had just opened at the Royal Court Upstairs at the Ambassadors, just one of an abundance of new plays written by emerging talents such as Martin McDonagh, David Eldridge, Simon Bent, Nick Grosso and David Greig who all premiered their first major plays during 1996.
A decade on, all those writers are going strong, but where are the emerging talents of today? My guess is that they are clogged up somewhere in Britain's burgeoning playwrighting schemes unable to find their way out. Over the last few years many theatres have put in place extensive play development programmes, yet despite these schemes there has been a tailing off in good new plays by great new writers since the heady days of the mid-90s.
While many new writing theatres and companies have seen an upturn in the number of plays they receive and generate through such schemes -in some cases more than 3,000 scripts a year - from where I'm sitting it often doesn't feel as if there has been a similar upturn in quality. Perhaps - perish the thought - all that play development schemes do is to encourage not particularly talented people to write more and more plays. The danger here is that genuine talent will be missed because with so many plays in development it gets increasingly hard to see the wood for the trees.
Theatres have always worked closely with writers. Very few plays - whether by new or established writers - pop through the letterbox in perfect shape. The relationship between writer and literary manager has historically been a crucial one. But in the past the plays that were developed were being developed to a purpose: the staging of that play. The meetings, the drafts, the workshop and the rehearsed reading were all part of a process that was leading towards production, not an end in themselves.
Over the last 10 years a new play development culture - based on American models - has taken root in British theatres and it is now so firmly embedded that it has become an industry in itself. These schemes are not always hungry for new talent and there is little evidence that they are producing better plays. Those who have jobs in this growing industry have a vested interest in the schemes continued growth, as do the theatres who have squeezed money from public or private sources to fund such schemes often in the name of access. But, if playwrighting schemes worked, every new play you saw would be outstanding. They are not.
Theatres are understandably keen to broaden their pool of writers. Most theatres still see a 30/70 ratio of women to male writers, and black and Asian writers are woefully under-represented. Access is important, but what's the point of providing access to schemes to develop plays but not to the stages themselves? It's like teaching people to swim but then denying them access to swimming pools. There is something cockeyed about a theatre culture that has put so many structures in place to develop plays and so few to stage them. The opportunities to get work staged--and it is only when a play is in front of an audience that a playwright really learns how their play works - are simply not keeping pace as the pool of writers.
Theatres know this, and yet still they hang onto plays trying to keep their options open. Play development should be about enabling writers, not tying up their talent in a queue of unproduced plays. It is often a mirage, a substitute for real action and commitment by a theatre to a writer and his or her play. It provides the theatres with an opportunity to tick all the right funding boxes while offering playwrights very little at all - except misplaced hope.
Being able to list the significant writers that it has discovered has always been part of a theatre's identity and history, and there's nothing wrong with that, but funding pressures mean that competition for writers and plays is increasingly intense. The more play righting programmers there are in place, the more the schemes have to justify themselves. It leads to the creation of a culture of "ownership" of plays, with theatres sometimes exerting pressure on writers to ditch the play they really want to write and generate a new idea "in house" so that the theatre can argue that it was only by the writer being in their particular programme that the play could have been written.
If playwrighting development programmes really worked wouldn't we be seeing more emerging talent than we did a decade ago when such schemes were rare? Maybe there are just not enough good new plays to go round and perhaps these schemes are simply a way of disguising that fact and making Britain's new play culture seem more buoyant than it really is.
If you are a playwright, work in play development or are regular theatregoer I'd be interested to know what you think, but I'm beginning to believe that however many playwrighting development schemes you put in place real talents such as Sarah Kane, Caryl Churchill or David Eldridge will only come along a couple of times in every decade.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Other Writers


In some weird Freaky, Haloween inspired way I am going to be nice and put links here to all local writers that I know. It might not be the case of "if you like my stuff, You'l like their stuff" but its promoting writers that I know just from doing the circuit around Leicester
Firstly, Lucy Wade's Blog http://lucyannwade.blogspot.com/ is annother writer Development Blog like mine. She's a pretty nifty playwrite.
Alex Mack has a little blog in the same vein at http://morpheanramble.blogspot.com/ and, no, he can't turn himslef into Liquid Metal nor does he look like Harold Bishop!
Alexander Walsh has a blog too http://alexanderpaulwalsh.blogspot.com/ and he'll probally go all squiffy about me posting the link here.
JW Bennett is a fantasy writer who has possibly see me get changed and has definatly seen me on the toilet (!) www.freewebs.com/waxlyrikal is his website.
Kaye Axon has a pretty good site at http://www.fusiveweb.co.uk/Default.aspx?alias=www.fusiveweb.co.uk/kayeaxon She's a poet and short story writer.
I tried to get a link to Damien Walter's site but for some reason it wouldnt load...
Freda Warrington is a local fantasy writer also http://members.aol.com/FredaMike/index.html
I've never actually met her, but interviewed her once for an article. I also was very inspired by her when I was about 15, then I saw a picture and was scared...

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Just going back to the hat thing


Following is a blog entry by annother writer (whom I shant name)

"A gentleman's hat is his castle
There's something that happens at every party I'm at,And that is that somebody steals my hat.Why is it that so many otherwise responsible and law-abiding people seem don't seem to perceiveThat it is unacceptable to take another fellow's headgear without so much as a by-your-leave?You wouldn't dream of pinching somebody's coat or shoes or anything like that,So why don't the ordinary rules of respect for other people's property seem to apply to the hat?Everybody thinks it's a jolly good laugh to pluck it off your head and mill around wearing it,And they don't give a damn that they risk creasing or tearing it.Turn up at any social event sporting your prized fedora or trilby,And I guarantee you that by the time the party is over you have no idea where it will be.Sometimes you find it on the floor all out of shape because it's been stamped on,And once somebody took mine and ran out the door into a waiting taxi and I found out later that they had taken it home with them to Southampton.But that's not the worst of it, because last weekend I went to a friend's housewarming and wondered whether it was a good idea to take a hat at all, but I decided I'd risk it -And something happened that took the biscuit.Towards the end of the night, when people had started to make their excuses and leave and most of the beer was gone,I noticed that my hat was no longer on.So I looked all over for it, and eventually found it laid carelessly on the counter in the kitchen,Half full of sugar, which I tried to tip out but it got all mixed up in the band and the stitchin'.So now my hat feels all sticky andrough,And sometimes some of the sugar gets onto my hair and looks like dandruff.And if you lick it, it still tastes sweet all down the right side,But I suppose I'd better look on the bright side,Because if I ever become a secret agent, and they send me to the desert on a secret mission,And I forget to take any food with me, I'll still have some form of nutrition.So the day may come when I'm grateful to the drunken idiot who ruined my favourite trilby, and feel like I want to buy him a drink and give his back a pat,And if that ever happens, I'll eat my hat."

Now the real story was this bloke turned up wearing a trillby and a tanktop and I was pissed. Someone put the hat on my head. I did not want the hat, and the tanktop wearing one asked me, in a non polite way, to not smoke in the hat (alltho I saw him smoking a pipe wearing the offending article) and as I said before, I was pissed.
So I poured suger in it and I dunno why he seems to think it was a chap, cos he was glaring death looks at me all night. He knew it was me.

and the reasn why I put myself through this shit?

When Ambrose interviewed e for OhMyNews, he asked me why I write and for some reason I decided to review this question. In the interview I said its cos my brain would explode if i didnt, but I think there may be other reasons too...
Its a big IN YOUR FACE to everyone. Its a revenge act.
I write to piss people off, I write because of every boyfriend who ever annoyed me, every teacher who said I was a bit thick, every doctor who tried to put me on medication for my bi-polar personality, every lecturer who called me a retard, every playground bully who scraped my knese, every best friend who turned on me, everyone who ever said anything bad about me behind my back, every girl who stole the boy who I liked, every boy who said he loved me and didnt, every boy who wouldnt fuck me, every parent figure who wante to stifle me, every german who bought me dangerous toys, every smackhead who ever stole from me, every one who made me feel like shit, every singer who I became disenchanted with, every prson who stabbed me in the head with a biro...
Its for all of those and its a big FUCK YOU.
you know who you are.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

My Scary Story


Well, After spending all of yesterday trying to write a story about The Voices in Nancy Spungens schitzopherenic brain I watched a programme about Twins and then restarted my scary story and began writing about some conjoined twins who are going to be reattached but one of them is actually a clone and hates his all-powerful twin and he's slightly feral and actually a clone...
I kinda like this story, but I don't think its really very scary... Its actually gone more sci-fi (alltho I no nothing about sci-fi) but I'm enjoying writing it!

Its all getting too much!

Its like one good thing and then one bad thing. Like one after the other at the moment! Being a writer meens I'm skint, and I mean REALLY skint. I cant afford to pay any bills so when I (well Lee) found some money today it was really good... a whole couplea hundred quid good, and Lucy suggested the best thing we do is pay off one of the bills of impending doom that keep flying through our letterbox like there is no tommorrow. So I went and did the first cardinal sin and actually opened one of the fucking things and it was HUGE! I mean really big (I mean, Like I've NEVER seen a utility bill that big and thats saying something considering what I do for money). So we paid off a measly $200 (excuse the dollars - this keybord thinks a pound sign should be represented thus: #) and now I'm totally worried and thinking that I'm gonna have to grow up and get a proper job and work full time and NEVER have any time to write and totally have to wear a suit to work and possible kill myself from total GGGAAAAAHHHH!!!!
I spoke to Jacek Laswoski at the Arts Council today and now I have to go up there on the 31st to see them (good) but my boss is being a cunt and leaving me little bollocking post it notes around the office (bad) I heard from Damien today about my arts proposal (good) but all the heating and computers are fucked at work (bad) I now know what I need to spend the grant money on (good) its bills (bad) I am on my period (good) but now stupidly ill and feel like I might die at any moment (bad)...
Sometimes I just want the world to stop so I can get the fuck off!

Monday, October 23, 2006

Tripods... no, not coming to eat us until Tom Cruise rescues the planet again!

Tripod Mag want submissions. Someting about "The ALternative" by 1st Dec 06. Well, this project seems to fit my style of writing as its often described as a bit "alternative"... annother thing that I quite like the idea of is writing about Leicester... Like Angela Carter I love writing about place but corrupting it and claiming a city as my own through exaggerated fantasy! So I recon that the story I described aboutin yesterday's blog entry might become a bit of this story... let me see what bit of Leicester should i scribble about? The beautiful bits or The Narb and exagerate it until it sounds like Highfield's crack baby? methinks the latter...

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Scary Stories




Well I now have to create a "Scary Story" and as I was going up to Tesco's today I got a few ideas for a story... its possibly not exactly like the whole "gonna be the next Mary Shelly" thing (i.e not scary) but I had many images of things that really sum up the past couple of days...
1.Waking up cos your crying - its like your eyes begin drowning
2. Cutting out flowers from tinfoil and sticking them all over a council flat. Walls, celing, floor
3. Joining a cult
4. 2nd hand vintage dresses that are too big for you
5. Big 60's style bed hair
7. A lesbian flatmate who wears see through white pedal pushers
8. Arms laced with filthy, scabby track marks
9. Picture of the Real Nancy Spungen - now this is because I had seen the "Sid and Nancy" film with Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb in it and I really didnt relise how amazingly ugly and yuk the real Nancy Spungen was until I saw a picture of her. Oh yeah - ttry to guess which pic is the real Nanacy Spungen... its actually really hard! They were considering casting Courtney Love in the film before she was famous but I think I would have had to turn the film off in the first 5 mins if that had happened... Chloe Webb's "Siddddddd!!! Sidddddd!!! Get me some drugs" is bad enough!
Now I need to work in someting supernatural and I suppose I have a scary story...
As you may all have guessed. I have no idea what I am doing!

Friday, October 20, 2006

I have been proper shit

recently 'cos I was really ill all last week and totally off my food (weird for me) and was shivering whilst wearing 4 blankets. And work moved (utter farce) I should write a fucking comedy about it... It really was.
There was total problems with contractors, a near hysterial cheif officer and rats. Luddites used to live in the cellar... Mental. Like, really, its stuff I couldn't make up even if I tried!
And annother work related thing, writing for me is all about letting those merderous thoughts, I keep telling myself we all have, have some type of create leeway out of my brain. Writing stops me being a sociopath.
So I thought about writing a story about my boss. Man, you really wouldnt believe the type of person she is. She's like, nice and stuff, but really "sorted" and "together". She's into god and married and head of TSS and only my age. Nothing seems to faze the woman. But a really evil gremlin that lives in my brain wanted to kidnap her and place her in a world that is totally alien for her, the type of world thats just designed for having fun, not wholesome, fairground fun, like dangerous, nasty, illicit fun! It would be fantastic to see if she could adapt (or freak out - as I suspect she would) I dunno. S'just an idea at the moment, but is something I recon would be good as a little aspect in hte rewrite of my novel.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Let Them Eat Cake

Is a 3rd wave feminist ezine that I have been roped into banging an article out for... So its gonna be good old reliable
"Riot Grrl vs Girl Power" blah, blah, blah

Jean "Binta" Breeze


Yo! Went to see Jean Breeze last night and it was really coolio, but after the crates of free wine that were so kindly donated by Bloodaxe publishers, I feel a bit rough...
And it was totally nice of them to donate the stuff...
Oh yeah, Jean Breeze is now based in Leicester (of all places) and seems to be having some thing to do with te Adult Education Centre... which is really funny 'cos it implies that the Adult Ed Centre is like a really "happening" place to be with new writng and stuff... and it's kinda not. It's the type of place that has some really good romance novelists... but they are all really serious about it... and you wouldn't expect any of them to have £60 haircuts! Its like the total opposite to Momentum!
Oh and speaking about Momentum, it's begining again and I don't know who my mentor is and I just hope they are as cool as Emma Rosoman! I hope it's not Francissle, cos I'll be tempted to bring food to every session just to feed her up!

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Femininity



Well as I'm in the process of pimpin' my blog I relised that when typing the type of theme, title of post or work into the little funky image serch thingy on Google. It kept coming up with rather dark, femine images... Even the heart I chose for Valentines Day is an "urban" grafitti (I do mean BBC "urban" here!) peice. Anyhow I think the point I am trying to make is that seeing the of my writing, chosen by myself, and kinda en mass in visual form really hammers home the type of direction, style and theme I'm heading in... and this freaks me out 'cos then I start to think "is this the type of thing that is likely to get published? Is this the type of thing which will sell?" and I suppose it shouldn't bother me, 'cos I'll write what I wanted anyway (due to being the stubborn, headstrong fool that I am). I just think if I dont start writng trash I really am going to die in poverty... just less romantic 'cos it'l be Leicester and not Paris!

Saturday, October 07, 2006

pimp my blog!


Hi everyone! I am currently in the process of pimpin my blog and the only photos on my heardrive are from my grad ball! See if you can spot my sick!
Pretty girl on the left is my best mate Flange!
(Yeah and I'm looking very chinese in my dress!)

Ps: for more stupid pictures please look at past blog entries!

Friday, October 06, 2006

Ladyfest Submission Guidelines

Dear Artist,

Ladyfest Leicester 2007 is promoting new female writing in the East Midlands. The event will take place the beginning of October 2007 at Quebec, Leicester. Ladyfest is a Music and Arts festival that is a celebration of female creativity, talent and womanhood. It is an event that encourages female artists to perform and create in an environment that is supportive of women. Ladyfest wishes to present a diverse mix of different work from female writers and artists. We are specifically looking for short pieces of prose, micro stories, poetry, performance poetry, scenes from plays and MC’s. Ladyfest Leicester promotes awareness for women’s charities which get little recognition from the media. All proceeds from Ladyfest will go to Women’s charities. For more information regarding Ladyfest Leicester please see our MySpace. www.myspace.com/ladyfestleciester07

Submission Guidelines for Ladyfest Leicester 2007

All submissions to be via email, either in the body of an email or as an attachment (enter email address)
All submissions to contain easily accessible contact details; name, telephone number, email and address.
All submissions to be typed double spaced, in a sizable font, in Times New Roman or Tahoma.
All submissions to contain page numbers, the title of the piece and the name of the author as a footer or header.
Poetry submissions to be no more than 40 lines.
Prose submissions to be no more than 3,000 words
Play submissions to be one scene from a play – please include a brief synopsis of the play.
Submissions from female writers only. Transgender writers are also welcome. Male-female collaborations are welcome. Please do not submit if you are a lone male writer. This is due to the nature of the event.
If you are an MC please email us with your contact details and one of us will get back to you.
We regret to inform you that we cannot provide feedback on your work.
There are no restrictions on style or theme.
There are no restrictions on where the writer is based.
Writers have to be 18 years of age+ due to venue restrictions.
We will contact you via email to inform you if you are successful or not.
There is no entry fee.
All writers retain Copyright.
Deadline March 1st 2007

We hope to hear from you soon!

Charisse Sayers, Literature Co-Coordinator
Sabrina Mei-Li Smith, Literature Co-Coordinator

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Man! I need a holiday!


I am begining to really think that I need a holiday. Its really getting me down being in Leicester. I went to a toyland-style party (and they have been lamer and lamer since the original party Toyland was "based" on) on SAturday night and I really just couldnt be bothered... I mean like really just didnt have the energy to do anything.
And I really think I need to get away. Its been over a year since I last had a holiday and, lets face it, I've been working really fucking hard for a year on both writng and eviljob.
I might go to Norwich and see people (allthough they done know about it yet!!!!) but have been warned that I may be allergic to everything around there!