A step back, but now I’m back on track!

Dear Mum,

Apologies for the unscheduled rant of last week’s blog. Last Thursday I watched the final episode of ‘Meet the Romans’ and then slightly obsessively Googled Mary Beard’s name (as she is my new hero - her response to AA Gill was one of the most intelligent and well written articles written ). Samantha Brick’s comments then appeared...

I was not Samantha Brick’s greatest fan prior to these remarks. I couldn’t sleep – her comments and attitudes, clearly gained because of the rose tinted glasses she has permanently affixed to her face, kept me mulling over her foolish ways.

I had to jot down all my thoughts before I slept and forgot them all, as this happens too much for my liking. [My most genius moments definitely happen on the brink of sleep]. And then I wrote her the letter.

Anyway, despite this relapse, I have had a bit of a look at the script. It is all properly formatted, double checked for spellings and I think the language is itself 99% there.

The next step is to read it aloud, checking timings and flow.

‘Flow’ is a funny use of phrase. I don’t just mean this in a Miranda way; saying it again and again and again means it starts to sound a bit bizarre.

Flow flow flow flow flow flow flow flow flow flow flow flow flow flow flow .

It is a damn useful term of phrase. I remember very distinctly we weren’t allowed to use it in GCSE English, teachers informing us that it was not a proper description, not successfully explaining why a poem was succinct, pithy and...well...flowed.

When it came to university, we could drop the word willy-nilly into essays. Lecturers harped on and on about how this stanza of Wordsworth flows.

I agree it doesn’t sounds as impressive as ‘level narrative trajectory’ but ‘flow’ does simply do what it says.

Anyway, I digress. I am absolutely putting off reading the script aloud. I’m a bit embarrassed to do it. I will have to ensure the house is empty before I start my one woman show in the privacy of my bedroom.

I think it’s also fear. I’m praying it’s 30 minutes in length else I am going to have to edit and/or contribute more dialogue. As I have less than a fortnight now, this would be another step back.

So I won’t be entering any other names into Google this week, for fear of it inspiring me to pull out my soap box and make a public declaration of disgust.

But I am making a little list of issues to thrash out once my script has been sent. Lovely jubly! In the meantime, all I can do is go with the flow...