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Pirates and Mermaids
A long time ago when I was smarter than I am now I wrote a piece for a collection of pirate stories. The pirate ship hauled a mermaid up in their nets who promptly started singing, sent the pirates into a daze, and took over the ship. In the end they were saved by the captain’s daughter. The story was called Fish Soup and the climax involved a hot bath and some garlic and the mermaid getting eaten by the pirates. The editor of the collection loved the piece but wanted one small change. The mermaid had to escape. The shabby end to this anecdote is that desperate for the modest fee and a little bit of kudos, after throwing my toys out of the pram I caved in and in the published version the mermaid disappears over ths side and swims off into the blue depths taking the whole point of the story with her. I swore I’d never do it again.
And I don’t think I have – despite some close calls in telly-land. Yesterday I got a note from BBC radio via my producer. The commissioners like the outline I’ve submitted but feel ‘strongly’ that it needs one small change. The trouble is that at the moment it feels as if this small change turns it into an entirely different play. I’ve said I need a couple of days to think this through. Which was smart because if I say no it’s likely to cost me the commission and I need the money more now than I did then for little luxuries like rent and food. Needless to say, the mermaid’s back and watching closely.
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What Victor Knew
Victor was fond of saying the hardest thing about being a musician wasn’t mastering your instrument, it was confronting yourself each morning when you sat down and started to play. I used to drag my guitar over to his little studio on Juncal several times a week. Some of my happiest times in Buenos Aires were spent in this cramped little apartment with Victor, studying, sipping mate and listening to him teach and talk. We got on well. He knew I had plans to write. I remember one day getting very excited about a transition in a piece I was learning and an approving Victor sitting back with a smile on his face and saying, Toni, one day you’re going to have to decide whether you’re going to be a writer or a musician. I’ve still no idea if I made the right choice.
But back to the moment you have to confront yourself. A musician or a dancer has some advantages. If things aren’t going well there’s a mechanical aspect to what you’re doing where you can take refuge. Playing a single note well. Taking the step. A zen exercise in simplicity which helps you focus on what’s important and can open up a door to good work. Typing is a mechanical process of course. But the equivalent of the zen step for a writer? That’s not so obvious. It’s why we’re such good procrastinators. The five finger exercises are missing. All we can do is take a deep breath – and begin. And fuck, that’s sometimes difficult.
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The Cop Show
Chased D to find out if there had been any response to the cop show outline. (No, of course the world doesn’t need another cop show, but this one’s different. No time travel, see? Well, very little.) She was making all the right noises so I suggested sending it to K at Talkback North who likes me. Good idea she said. So off it goes. And bounces straight back with an automatic response saying K was on maternity leave and suggesting all communications should be referred to the Head of Development in London. I fired off an email introducing myself and asking if she wanted to take a look. Yes she said, but they’ve already got 3 cop shows in development so don’t hold your breath. Ah, but this one’s different I mouthed, no time travel, you see, and sent it off with a cc to D. Ten minutes later the phone rings. It’s D. I’ve sent it to the wrong person – the H of D instead of my contact. I explained about the baby problem. Leave it with me, she said, I’ll sort it out. An hour passes and the phone goes again. D has sorted it out. Apparently they’ve got some cop shows in development so I shouldn’t hold my breath.
Ah, but not like this one…
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Life gets bigger
I’m sitting with the laptop at the main Toyota dealers while they change the battery on my ageing Corolla. The telly’s on and the people ahead of me in the queue are following Wimbledon just enthusiastically enough to make it difficult to concentrate. Still, it’s been a productive day so far. I set off early this morning to sort some plumbing problems and on the way back called in at PC World to buy a monitor. My eyes had been suffering staring at the laptop’s 13” widescreen. I came away with something about the size of a football pitch. It works too. In the hour between an early lunch and heading for the garage I managed to send off the latest version of the radio proposal to J with an optimistic note saying that at last I felt the story was there. He may not agree of course.
But back to the screen. I can have the text large enough to read without limiting it to half a dozen lines. I can have the proposal and a set of notes alongside each other rather than toggling backwards and forwards between the two. Final Draft looks good too, with the postcards of the scene navigator sitting alongside the script. Everything looks bigger and brighter. I bet in about three days it’ll look entirely normal and I’ll be wishing it was bigger.
The Rivarolas are at Bylaugh. As soon as the car’s done I’m heading out for a Masterclass. So not much chance of getting more work done today. Even if I manage to get back in reasonable time – and that’s unlikely – there’s the season finale of House on Channel 5. It’s the second instalment of a two-parter. Last week’s was terrific. I hope it hasn’t peaked too soon.
Later: email from J at R4. He thinks the proposal looks good. He’s putting it forward in the autumn offers round.
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Back to the thriller
Coming back to a piece after a lay-off is always a dodgy business. Either you start off full of optimism and end up giving mouth to mouth or you drag yourself reluctantly to the desk only to find the thing kicking into life as soon as you start reading. This morning I finally got to sit down with the thriller again. Thinking about it over the weekend I’d convinced myself it needed a new angle. What was bugging me was the thought that if I solved the immediate problems I’d end up with a conventional genre piece. But then reading it through I found myself hooked. And actually I think I was wrong. There is already something that (potentially) makes it more than the usual serial killer-tracked-down-by-worryingly-odd-undercover-cop. It has to do with the setting – a vast abandoned mental hospital with a tiny corner that has been opened up, given a lick of paint and some new carpets and pressed into service as a High Dependency Unit. The modern hospital facilities are grafted onto the wrecked Victorian complex of buildings. Chaos is just a step away through a locked door. There may be something predictable in this bricks and mortar representation of the inner chaos of the characters but I still think it can deliver something powerful. Inevitably the action takes us out of the everyday and into the labyrinth. This isn’t an excuse for wobbly camera work and schlock horror effects. The world beyond the doors has to be as solid and clearly drawn as the brightly lit corridors we’ve left behind.
Where it really helps is in the task I set myself at the outset – to try to create a credible explanation for why someone like Shipman acted the way he did. One that makes sense psychologically. This is dark territory of course and it’s somehow easier to explore in the corridors littered with junk where the rats live than under the harsh glare of the NHS lights. At the centre of the ruin is an old conservatory. The glass is covered in green slime. One of the roof panes has gone and directly underneath a plant has seeded itself in the acres of neglected parquet. It’s spindly etiolated form rises up into the underwater gloom. I like that. Something twisted and unnatural but rooted in solid ground, alive and growing among the ruins.
The morning session was cut short by the need to respond to the note from J at R4. Tomorrow we start again.
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More radio
The dialogue with J at R4 continues about The Boy in the Room. The idea is getting stronger as we work it. Or at least that’s the way it feels.
T has just emailed me this from a Tim Winton radio interview.
But there are some days when you just can’t believe your luck and other days where you know it’s just not going to rain for five years. But it’s a really strange… The only other analogy I can give you is it’s a strange way to live a life where you have to live by your wits – like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and some days you’re not sure if there’s a rabbit in the hat and other days you’re not sure if you’ve got the hat. But you’ve just got to go there and hope that something shows up. And there’s a kind of discipline in going to the empty desk, the empty page, and waiting. It’s not for something to fall out of the sky on you. It’s something…for you to be in the right space, to remember where you’re at. And once I achieve a certain kind of momentum, then I’m OK. But it’s sort of getting up to warp speed that takes me a lot of energy.
Exactly.
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Sexual awakening
Lately I’ve found myself thinking a good deal about Peterborough where I grew up. My sexual awakening happened in Peterborough. I was 11 years old and it damn near killed me. Life teaches you things and one of the things it taught me was that as far as sexual awakenings go it’s a bad idea to have one with your head pressed against the ceiling of a gym at the top of a rope you’ve just climbed. I blame Was, the gym teacher who specialised in military style PT sessions. I was skinny as a lath, wearing outsized shorts and a singlet that showed off my puny arms. It was a get-up that was specified in the kit list for new boys and could be said to fit only in the sense that most of me dangled inside it. The rope was fat and coarse. To climb it we were instructed to wrap our legs round its heft, hold on tight and haul ourselves up with our arms. I was a good church-going boy and did as I was told, gripping the thick weave of the hemp rope between my thighs and ankles. About half way up things began to get interesting and urgent in a way that was entirely new to me.
I didn’t fall. Not that time. Though in later years things were different.
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Neil LaBute
Just because I couldn’t resist it:
I feel it’s part of my job as a writer…to remind the crowd that I know they’re out there and, while they may feel safe all bunched together in the dark, I’m planning on coming after them at some point.
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Sunshine
The revised outline of The Boy in the Room went off on Thursday afternoon. JM came straight back and within an hour we’d agreed it was stronger but perhaps needed one element to deliver more. We have until after summer to decide exactly what that might be as the next commissioning round doesn’t kick in until then. I’m tempted to start writing to explore some of the possibilities but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do at the moment. I’ll live with it for a while and see where it goes. All of which frees me up to finish the script of the thriller. When I went back to it last time I found it very hard to pick up. I’m going to give myself the weekend off to change gear. The sun is shining. I can feel a barbecue coming on.
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Distractions (2)
The swifts have arrived. Which of course meant I had to sit in the garden for a while to watch them. (I’m having a little trouble finalising the radio proposal for JM.)
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