how to make the arts council hate you!

Firstly just keep applyin with stupid ideas that need funding. Today I woke up after a unsatisfying night out with every intent to work on starchild and the cave but was just itching to dive into a funding bid for a future project that i've been discussing with a few people. So i loaded up word and began with comic sands and, i dont know how they do it, but each question in the proposal requires the same answer over and over again. is it normal to keep repeating yourself like a drunk tramp on the form? is it designed so that a sleepy arts councilar can read it and eventually get the drift or am i just doing it wrong? probally the latter.

PMT induced mardyness last night, but what do you expect when you go out for a drink with your mate and she just invites yours, and your boyfriends, exes along? ghhhha! night of the living dead romances i tell thee!

Starchild and The Cave

is the working title of hte play I am developing for the playwrites studio. It's really good that I got offered this placement, but its also really bad 'cos I feel that it's gonna consume a lot of time. Stephen Lowe told me that a play takes as long as it takes to write and I have a feeling that this one might take longer than any other play I've written.

Mermmaids and Drowing Women didn't take that long. I knew where I was going and the structure was pretty much straight forward (which is odd, 'cos I was totally terrified about writing it!) Starchild and the cave is much more abstract and odd and weird and has very weird characters and is the first time I've tried to write a play with 5 characters.

and the 5 are:

• Starchild - male, part boy-part man. he has the notion that he is fairly new into the world and is quite nieve. He's a bit like a middle class boy that has just come out of private school into the real world. He likes to give off the impression that he needs looking after, but is actually quite manipulative and weirdly, wize beyond his years. he is born from the Sky and his main pourpous is to become a beautiful comic thing up in the sky. He knows this, but seems quite resistant to the idea - although his resistance is futile. Starchild can bestow things onto other characters (apart from the sky) at will.
  
• The Cave- female, her main pourpous is to become a cave. she knows that she needs to harden against the world and against forces like starchild. she is humanoid and feral and lives in the wilderness. She needs to settle in one place to become her fullest potential. she is the only character that needs to eat. she hunts and gathers food and offers it to other characters who dont need it. she (ideally) has no language that can be understood - apart from Starchild bewstows the gift of speach onto her that she despises. she is halfway through her journey of fully becoming the cave, but resists and wants to regress.
  
• The Sky - the sky is Starchilds mother - it is more of a female force than male but is essentailly beyond gender. She is both a benevolent and kind force. She knows that the cycle is that starchild must become a consmic thing in the sky as others have come before him. She is unsupportive of Starchilds fassciantion with the cave, insisting that hte tree and the cave are "other" to her and starchild. she abhores temptation and can be recked with malice. the only person she shows compassion to is Starchild. she listens to the tree, but sometimes will not take it in.
  
• The Tree - is more beyond male/female than the star is. it sympatises with both starchild and the cave and acts as a mediator between them and the sky. it dislikes the serpent and seems to be the only one that sees it. it has a solitary apple that hangs from its highest branch that symbolises love and purity. the serpent is after the apple, continuiously. the tree moves its branches to waylay the serpent and truly beleves that it can hang onto the last apple forever.
  
• the Serpent - is a non speaking part. it is a metaphor for temptation and corrution in all the characters souls. its main pourpous is to get the apple and eventually, as it gives up the apple will fall from the tree and it will have no intrest in it, which is the worst part for the tree.
  

Why has my post gone into italics? I can't seem to switch it off! Damned blogger!

Anyway - i really need to know and understand why I'm doing this and where the damed plot is going. I'm totally unsure about a lot of things. It's obviously a whole metaphor for realtionships and suchlike, but I dunno... might just end up being pretentious wank

I'll Probally Get a Spanking for this...

...From "the Boyfriend", but to be fair, we have been having some minor problems of late. you see, we were mates before we got together, like, not overly close mates but we met and kinda hit it off on a purely platonic level. To be fair I didn't notice him at all, seeing as I was with "Hans" and all (look back at previous posts if unsure).

And cut a long story short we were the type of people that are quite sociable before we were a couple, like I remember one night when we went to smokescreen and I was dancing like an arse and he was doing star jumps in the corner, that type of thing. And he lived quite close - literally round the corner - so we were always bumping inot each other, even when going to the shop and stuff. and his haousemates and my mates are all friends and stuff, so much so that even my housemate (the odd one with the cheese diary - no. I don't know what thats about either!) and his brother (who he lives with) started going out.

and then like, when we got together, i think we both relised that, deep down, we're actually social idiots! Like, not in a good way. We kinda spend too much time together, and thats why I dont get much chance to write or update my blog and stuff. Esp. at the very begining, which is fair enough with the whole honeymoon period and stuff.

So today i decided to tell him that we need to spend some time appart. Not like a "I think we should have a trial seperation-on the lead up to our divorce" way, just the odd night apart so we can do our own thing. And I felt really guilty about bringing it up! I mean, one of the main reasons why he's always over at mine these days is because his beroom window is broken and its really cold to sleep in there at night. Also, some of his housemates are a bit bonkers and argue all the time and annother one is a bit of a freeloader, but thats annother story... But we're giving it a go and he seems to like having the night off to watch some old men in waistcoats play snooker and I can read / write / update blog etc and he seems to be coming round to my way of thinking.

But it really made me think how a good relationship can be spoilt just by rusing it! Seriously, back in the old days when you had to be with someone and get married like, straight away, what was all that about? and couples who are religious who then get married 'cos they want to get laid without sin? and just normal couples in general who rush stuff and cut themselves off from other friends simply because they want to be together all the time - and I think there might be a play in this somewhere where the theme is about rushing things... cue heavy meatphor and stick them all up a tree talking in spanish and you got annother award winning Sabrina play!!!

My perfect man <3 <3 <3 HAR HAR!

Well, as I seem to be writing a play about relationships and such things I decided to dig out an old notepad of mine from about 2003 (when in a very dodgy relationship - or just after, I can't remember) that had a very odd list in it compiling all the aspects I wanted in a bloke. It's very scary when you read it and look at "The Boyfriend" hmm... sometimes when you get what you think you want you just dont want it anymore (joke)

Anyway - here is the list in its original format:

My Perfect man! harharhar

intelegent, mad, be able to consume large quantaties of booze and not be upset when i do, middle class - NO working class bums this time, fun to be arround, good in bed, caring, kind, considerate in an unconventional way, some sence of style, some type of career and ambition, a bit eccentric, rich, oppinionated, sensitive, not minding my male friends, physically attractive to me (ie, tall / malnurished!), big hair would be great - NO MULLETS, large hands, to wash, spots or some imperfections, must like curry and i can be his own personal goddess!

A MAN LIKE THIS DOES NOT EXIST!

Christ! how nieve was I? Appart from the tall, rich, big hands bits I got what I wanted...