Guerrilla Tactics

I’ll admit that I am still licking my wounds over the result of The Play’s The Thing. But one thing that it has done is make me more determined to secure a professional production.

That has made me review the way I write and the way I submit.

Watching the programme with my wife, she suddenly saw that I desperately need my own dedicated and private writing area. Not an easy feat when you’ve got small children. But she is a very talented costumier and dressmaker and realises that she need her own area to make what she does. As such we are now making a sewing room and a studio… It all sounds fantastic, but in reality, they are both very small areas… But they are our areas!

As for submissions. I’ve followed the rules. And so far I’ve not got anywhere. So why not break the rules? What is the worst that could happen? I guess it’s just that they enter the circular filing cabinet a little faster than the ‘normal’ approaches.

Hence, I’ve dispensed with the synopsis and sent off a pitch letter.

Okay, I’ve done that before and was luck enough to have three of my manuscripts read by respected agents.

But this time, the pitch is a marketing piece with a hook. A hook that I hope will intrigue the recipient.

Let’s see how that goes.

Now all I have to do is finish my new studio and get back to the serious business of completing these Work In Progresses that are haunting me!

Friend or Foe

Friend or Foe
A writer’s imagination is their greatest asset.

It’s also their worst enemy.

The problem with imagination is that you can’t turn it off. That is a real boon when you’re behind the PC plugging away are turning an idea into a play. But in the dusty recesses of the mind when you’re not tasked to the eyeballs it can be counterproductive.

I aspire to be professionally produced. But my imagination takes to a path where I am an old man, still slaving away and never realising that goal.

It also takes me down tracks of fantasy, where I am discovered, be it from a pitch letter, synopsis, meeting a director that’s visited the website/blog, read my posts on the forums I visit…

I now realise that I have no desire to be famous. Thank God! Playwright’s have famous names, but who knows what Willy Russell looks likes? (Willy even joked that Liverpool taxi drivers mistake him for Alan Bleasdale!)

I want that break. But my imagination either takes me to fantastical discovery or failure.

It’s a trend I have to break, to make this dream a reality.

Bitter, Twisted, Conspiratorial, But Most Of All – Determined!

I won’t go into the crap that is my medical state at this time – suffice to say that it’s brought on a downer.

But you may have noticed that the first episode of The Play’s The Thing went to air. And it made me mad.

Not the fact that I didn’t make the shortlist. Not the fact that I didn’t get to meet the Production Team. It was the fact that ‘I’ think that I was beaten by poorer plays.

It’s been suggested that it was because my synopsis was crap. And the quality of my synopses isn’t up to the mark yet – and I’m devoting too much time to learning how to write a better one.

Bit that wasn’t the only selection criterion. There was the 15 min extract, your profile and your reasons for writing the play.

But the part that hurt was one play was just plain stupid! Even the panel said as much – and that beat me to the shortlist.

It has made me question the way they conducted the second sift – but the selection process we view on the screen, I can’t call into question. But why is it that none of the final 30 had ever written a complete manuscript before? Why did none of them know next to nothing about the practicalities of the stage, including what lighting can do for them?

I know! I’ve gone all conspiratorial – but hey, it’s made me angry. And Anger is good!

It’s made me want to get a pro production more than ever!

More of this rant tomorrow! And I can point out that supposed arguements that are breaking out, aren't really arguements.