A jubilant forward roll

Dear Mum,

My first draft is complete! Woop Woop!

The ending scene was my nemesis. I sat in front of my laptop for several hours, desperately wracking my brains for an ending, any ending, to materialise as a light bulb suspended above my (thumping) head (ache).

The BBC Writer’s Room website offers tips on solving writer’s block from literary professionals. The main lesson learnt was that, a bit like heat rash, there is no single technique that will solve this mental ailment.

Bugger. I was hoping for a groundbreaking solution.

Delving in a Freudian manner (“Oh joy,” I hear you say) my writer’s block really was, in fact, me simply not being 100% sure of my premise or my plot. When jumping on the Writer’s Room wagon and journeying merrily through my writing venture, I continuously put off thinking of a conclusion.

This was because I was not 100% sure how I wanted it to end, and my lack of any ideas meant establishing a single conclusion and sticking to it was very daunting.

And then, as I scowled at the screen, loathing my script and this entire mini-project, it came to me.

It is not a dramatically profound ending, nor a hilarious final scene. Au contraire. We’re a long way from the bodies in the pond of ‘Keeping Mum’ and the heart-warming students’ salute of ‘Dead Poets Society.’

But it is a complete script of my original work all the same – with a beginning, middle and, at last, an end.

I’ve still got a pretty long way to go. I need to edit it, work on more arresting dialogue in places, tighten up the technical cues etc.  

So you can be expecting a few more steps before I made the bold leap into posting the script.  But, rest assured (as I’m sure you’re all lying awake worrying about it), I’ve a little over thirty pages of script.

I’ve got exactly three weeks before the deadline. I need to get my skates on...

A hop, skip and a jump

Dear Mum,

Well, as hoped, Plymouth offered solitary confinement (with yourself and Grandma, of course) in which I had little excuse but to type furiously.

As a result, I’ve 28 pages of my first draft and two jaws of softly rotting teeth thanks to the quantities of fudge, Victoria sponge, cheesecake, chocolate éclairs and ice-cream that hobbling grandma (having just undergone a hip operation) determinedly pushed toward us.

Again thinking of Pippa presently being encumbered by that blasted student pest – The Dissertation – I nostalgically returned to that own stage in my life, when grudgingly typing about one’s chosen topic goes hand in hand with tucking into sweet treats.

It is not the student environment alone. Any computer based activity, such as an office job or typing a radio script, is not nearly as bearable, fulfilling or, I believe, successful without a plate of tasty morsels as a companion.

What I have written is a first draft. There are parts and speeches that I think really are quite good, and there are other pages that are twaddle and the only environment they would prove useful would be in Tom Stoppard’s toilet.

I haven’t yet reached the play’s conclusion.

I would imagine a lot of writers find the beginning and the end of their writing the most difficult bit. But writing an ending to my script is an unfeasible task.

I have no idea how to end it. I have a vibe I’d like to convey, but that’s it. (I doubt Shakespeare thought to himself “Now to end ‘Twelfth Night.’ I’ve no idea what to write but I do know I want it to have a lovely, loving, warm sort of feeling, with some happiness and some justice and some nice, contended feeling for the audience.”)

I enjoyed the three films we watched with Grandma, or ‘Silver Spice’ as I affectionately call her because she is far more glamorous and sophisticated than I am. Father of the Bride 2, 84 Charing Cross Road and Keeping Mum. As you and I carefully selected, nothing with unruly violence (Grandma tuts and sympathetically says “Oh dear” throughout), gratuitous swearing (words like that were not used forty years ago) or scenes of a sexual nature (because, well, it just makes for a wholly uncomfortable evening for everyone. See Warning: contains unsavoury material for more information).

The Father of the Bride films always seem to be aired when we’re in Plymouth.

I would like to live in 84 Charing Cross Road. A shop of maturing texts, showing the ageing symptoms of being thumbed by previous generations. Dropping literary quotes into my correspondence (I’m confident my friends wouldn’t enjoy this as much as I would). Typing playscripts at a typewriter. I think Helene Hanff and I would’ve been great friends.

And then there is Keeping Mum. Probably one of my favourite films. Partly because I do enjoy a typically British sense of humour. Partly because Maggie Smith is simply glorious. Watching three generations of women bury bodies in a pond with my own Mum and Grandma I wished I could produce a similarly genius screenplay.

I’m as likely to achieve this as I am as likely to resist polishing off the tube of mini eggs next to me (having just now consumed the last egg).

Quite a large step actually

Dear Mum,

I’m feeling rather smug, which, rather like the conclusion to last week’s blog, is probably a bad omen.

I’ve spent the last week studying The Writer’s Room website, absorbing as many tips and nuggets of wisdom as my post-student and so slightly out of practice memory will allow me.

I now know radio and TV scripts differ hugely. Consequently, I’ve fiddled with Microsoft Word on my computer to make structuring my script easier (which, combined with the absence of an L key now makes typing up any other document mission impossible).

I have read scripts, listened to radio plays and worked my way through a disgustingly large quantity of cream eggs.

Listening to Pippa talk about writing her dissertation made me nostalgic for this time a year ago. Immersed literally in Oxford World Classics, online journals and photocopied essays, and metaphorically in the industrial worlds of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, I was pretty miserable. I loved my topic but, holy Dickens, writing about it was wretched.

It was the constant questions that cavorted about my mind. ‘Am I structuring this  properly?’, ‘Is this reading really what Collins intended?’, ‘Will my lecturer dislike that particular quotation?’

The most challenging question, however, was ‘how do I start this?’, a question Pippa is currently asking.

“The best thing to do, Pips,” I said with patronising hindsight, the graduate lecturing the student with empty insight, “is just make a start. Write something, anything, down and you’ve got something to work with, even if it means you re-write the whole thing later.”

Utter hypocrite. I hadn’t written a sodding word of my own. I’m made endless notes but nada in the concrete scripted dialogue department.

Realising this, I set to.

It was of comfort to know that, tomorrow, you and I are driving to Plymouth. Looking after your own mum after her hip operation, we will be house-bound and without any internet or Sky Plus to distract.

Rather like Mortmain in ‘I Capture the Castle’, when Cassandra and Thomas trick him into the medieval tower, I will be isolated in an undisturbed sanctuary, which I’m hopeful will offer nothing but the opportunity to write.

Inspired by this, I took Cassandra's advice and typed ‘the cat sat on the mat.’ Next thing I know... Ta-daaaaa!! I’ve got six pages of script.

I’ve at least another twenty-six pages to write and, to be honest, the six written pages are pretty rudimentary.

I’ve got one month to go. *Gulp*. If you could imprison me in a tower, Mum, with nothing but writing equipment I’d massively appreciate it.

Oh, and don’t forget the supply of cream eggs.

Another small step

Dear Mum,

You are in fact sitting downstairs with three girlfriends. I am upstairs. Lying on the floor, a bit miserable. A vacant screen glares at me, a cruel reminder that I have not written a single line.

I have been wracking my brains about this script. I’m pretty sure that I had an epiphany moment upon the brink of slumber last night. I remember thinking “YES! It’ll be the next ‘Friends’, the next ‘Miranda’ the next ‘Vicar of Dibley’.

When my alarm clock clanged awake and stirred me from my own slumber, my first thought was “Chocks away! Let’s get this script written.”

But I couldn’t and still can’t think of what struck me as being brilliant as I drifted through limbo. It was probably a load of drivel. Something that one would only think is the next ground-breaking drama when they’re dreaming of lions and tigers and bears (oh my!).

At this present moment, anything is a welcome distraction. Such as playing ‘hide from the parents’ with your friend’s three year old son. I’ve alphabetised my bookshelf, carefully chosen a new photo for my desktop background (one can’t rush into these decisions) and watched a YouTube video of Ryan Gosling breaking up a street fight seven times.

I did what you suggested and drew up a mind map, which was about as illuminating as picking bits of fluff off my cardigan.

No offense is intended. I’ve never found a mind map or spider diagram (whatever name you want to dress it up in) particularly helpful. If anything I find it very prohibiting – seeing my ideas tangled about in lines and arrows, a confusion of conscious contemplation. It’s a reminder that I’m no further in devising a clear plan.

When revising or brainstorming, I’d want points to be carefully listed in bullet points. Perhaps a bit of colour coding, nothing too elaborate. But logical, neat and coherent.

I’ve used this technique instead. I listed any ideas I had. Locations, characters, anecdotes.

I did have a eureka moment when looking at my list and deciding I could probably best write a radio drama or radio sitcom.

In celebration of my break-through I ate a cream egg and watched the video of Ryan Gosling breaking up a street fight. I then checked his IMDB profile. And typed his name into Google images.

A short while later, by Joe, I got it! I don’t know how exactly I arrived at the plot idea. But here I am, surrounded in a world of my own creation. Ideas buzzing around me, tickling me for attention and whispering in my ears.

Well, that’s a bit embroidered. I’ve a few characters in mind, a setting, a premise.   

In Mary Shelley fashion, it’s now thundering outside. Nothing beats a bit of pathetic fallacy to confirm that my new creation, my Frankenstein, is a stroke of dramatic genius.

Or it’s telling me I’m venturing into frightening territory that I should probably avoid. Have I just sealed my own doom...?

One Small Step

Dear Mum,

As you well know, my career path is undergoing a change of course down an unknown and secluded trail on which, I hope, a pot of gold awaits (literal or metaphorical – I’ll be happy with either).

I do like to hold my cards quite close to my chest – it’s a coping mechanism. The less I tell people about applications and career choices, the less likely they will know I’ve been rejected and/or am disappointed.

Not that kind words given in these situations aren’t welcomed. It just makes for less awkward conversations in which people offer those kind but rather overused phrases, like those in my ‘Plenty more clichés’ blog. Like “something will turn up” or “it’s a tough time for graduates.”

Needless to say this is very kindly meant and is, let’s be honest, pretty much all anyone can say. But it’s not a ground-breaking revelation or of huge comfort.

I have previously been very vague about my job situation in my blog but, on this occasion, I’ve decided to reveal all in a Dickensian “I am John Harmon” way.

I have just finished an internship at Dulwich Picture Gallery, which I will hugely miss, especially the opportunity to blog for its affiliated website. I write book reviews for The Right Copy, which I love because it means I get to read and then write about what I think. (What could possibly be better in life?)

I am now very lucky to be starting a book-based project at Bateman’s, and so my hungry thirst for the written word and its history can continue to be quenched. I am constantly making applications to other job and voluntary roles.

My chief obsessions in life (apart from cheesecake, rum based cocktails and living in my pyjamas) are reading and writing. Like all of my English Literature graduate friends, the big ambition in life is to write a novel.

I do have a loose plot for my novel but I feel I need a little more life experience before making the bold leap into penning it. And there are dozens of novels I want to read before I commit myself to writing, especially as they will provide me with more creative inspiration.

Although I enjoy dreaming up blogs, researching them and scribbling them furiously in a notebook before typing them up here on my yellowing Acer (which is still missing the L key) I am yearning for another creative outlet.

A rehearsal, say, for the day when I sit down at my laptop and broach entry to my own fictional world of a novel.

I have thus decided that, over the next month and a half, I will be writing a script as part of BBC’s Writer’s Room. The deadline for this script is May 21^st 2012.

This is terrifyingly close, especially as I don’t have a clue what genre of script I will write, or what medium it will be for, let alone a plot idea or leading character sketched out in my mind.

But this does offer me a deadline – a period of time in which I MUST write something and submit it, especially now that I’ve told you about it.

As a result, the next few weeks will be devoted to my progress in participating in this project. At the end of May I will revert to my usual ‘Dear Mum, here is something to complain about’ blog.

But, in the meantime, join me in my quest to produce a written text. Any creative ideas or similar experiences – please write them below. Who knows, you might be my muse!