I’ll have another piece…

… of that humble pie.

If you saw me in person last week I probably bitched talked about my frustration with writing a detailed outline for the playwrights’ studio. I may have said some choice words about how it was a waste of time and how in the same amount of time I could have written a damned draft of the play. I mean I could say it all in bullet points, why waste time in prose when I could flesh it out with, I don’t know, a draft.

I may have dreamed of a new play that was just a bunch of colour saturated images ripe for the writing.

I may have boasted at my fearlessness in the face of the red pen, how I am happy to cut, cut, cut when needed.

OK. I did do all of that.

But it is a woman’s perogative to change her mind right?

So I’ve softened to the idea of the outline. I still haven’t been evangelised (yet) but now that the outline is pretty much done I can see the (possible) advantages of the thing.

First up - images and metaphor. Much easier to carry through and/or echo an image when it is written a paragraph or two previously rather than 10 pages of dialogue ago.

It is also much easier to see when I’ve set up something with no pay off:

An Englishman, an Irishman and Maoriman walk into a bar… rhubarb, rhubarb 20 odd pages later, What do you mean? Punchline what punchline? Was I even telling a joke?

And (fingers crossed) I think writing the actual script will take no time, because although I love the highs when a script just seems to be writing itself and you are just along for the ride those doldrums can be pretty hard to navigate. At least now I have a map.

What I was worried about was that the outline was taking the “heat” out of writing. I guess I forget those times when you’re writing a first draft and nothing is happening. You stare at the computer screen. Maybe the house gets a little cleaner. Maybe you just put the project away until you’re inspired again.

Ever the optimist I forget the hard times, just the bits when I go “Wheeeeeeee! This is fun!”

When I was a very young writer I used to hate to rewrite. In some deluded way I thought that plays/poetry/stories just happened. That they were fully formed when they hit the page.

Now I see rewriting as where the real writing happens; that work is better for it.

Is this a new stage of evolution in a writer? That perhaps I should put more stock in the story structuring process…

I hope the draft is easier to write. I hope (but don’t tell my husband) that I was wrong.

I may be getting ahead of myself, but I may even use it again. Maybe on that shiny idea that just won’t go away…

Imagine how many projects I can start if I short circuit my process!

Yours,

Eternally hopeful.

Lotus Eating

Last night I dreamt of a (deep breath) new project, and it was so glorious and vivid that it was humming in my mind this morning when I was trying to write one of my current project.

Kiwiana Charlatan Brain, remember that?

Oh but Whiti! This new project is so new and shiny and not filled with the problems of Kiwiana Charlatan! There are no complications to solve, no characters arcs; just a couple of beautiful images that I’m sure will carry an hour on stage…

Promises, promises Brain. You said that last time.

So I’ve written up the most vivid images on my whiteboard and I’m trying to tuck it away until I have time to attend to it.

After my draft of Kiwiana Charlatan.

And after my draft of The Graphologist’s Apprentice.

I wonder if this is the sort of mind trick that other writers suffer. It is very tempting to leave off the hard stuff and to write what “the Muse” commands. (Not a big fan of the Muse, always buggers off when the real work starts and makes one put too much stock in the ideas that surface from the [insert your vice here] second glass of scotch)

Actually, I think it is an affliction that strikes any sort of creative endeavour - I have stock piles of fabric and I am a diagnosed sufferer of second sock syndrome

But what is it? The point at which any johnny come lately idea suddenly seems more appealing than the idea you have been working on? For me it is the appeal of the potential of a thing. The fabric in my stockpile has an active life in my mind, becoming several different garments before it is actually cut. Oftentimes when the creative urge comes over me, it is enough to get the material out and imagine what it could be to satisfy me. Of course this lack of decision does mean I have “nothing” to wear.

Potential, potential. The romantic dreaming phase where anything and everything is possible. I get the itch when I begin to nail things down, finalise the story, give it some shape. When it is what it is instead of what it could be.

So to my dream. It is an old fashioned quest but in a modern setting. It is Labyrinth meets The Mighty Boosh. It has a cast of thousands, musicians and it will be a live stage spectacular!

So basically it will never be staged, but secretly I don’t care (shh!).

I’m reading The Writer’s Journey at the moment, so maybe I could treat it as an exercise on mythic structure - see how far that sucker can stretch!

Having said all that these ideas that pop up sometimes bear fruit. The initial image for Kiwiana Charlatan came up when I was writing the first draft of The Graphologist’s Apprentice two years ago and look where it is today!

On second thought, maybe look in on it in a couple of weeks months…

Dam busting

June was a wash-out for me in terms of writing; the touring and the babysitting sapped my creative mind. OK, my mind in general (put me in a car for longer than 40 mins and I seem to go a little bit crazy. Amusing crazy, not postal crazy).

I think I might be addicted to writing. A few days off it I get antsy and find it hard to get comfortable. I little longer and books begin to mock me - with their complete sentences, their metaphors, their characters and, well, their completedness. A few days more and I’m grumpy and mopey and start feeling depressed.

All of this is only thrown into relief when I begin to write again. While I’m in the doldrums (difficult in Wellington. Ha!) I have no idea what’s wrong with me. Why am I listless? Why is the world grey?

This week I had a break through with my play Kiwiana Charlatan; the story began tumbling out (now neatly on post its and stuck to my wall). I had a vague idea of making “Kiwiana Charlatan” a character on a subversive radio show (Zeke, my cowboy is under suspicion for the show) and that has fleshed itself out. I wanted to find an old scratchy recording that “opens” his show, an old concert party type song from the 30’s or 40’s and rediscovered He Puru Taitama (which I seemed to have known forever, but given the subject matter I doubt we were taught it at school!).

He Puru seems to be the perfect song - it fits in with rodeo as well as the sexual relationship that will occur between Zeke and Sarah.

Sarah. I’ve kept her name (thanks to Jolisa for the link to the names database) because she is a Sarah, even more so now that she’s Maori.

I’ve decided to take a suggestion from David about the rodeo scenes and have Zeke perform them (some sort of dance movement I think) which I may use again for the sex scenes (too vulgar? To have Zeke perform the same actions as riding a bull when he is having sex with Sarah? Given the three-way in I Ain’t Nothing But am I creating a reputation for myself? Or do I have a pathological need to make my parents uncomfortable when they see/read my work?)

The character of the radio show was also influenced by He Puru - the show will be someone taking the piss rather than strident propaganda (which it could have easily been). I think it will be a good vehicle for exposition about the world they live in, but I’m resisting the urge for news reports (too easy!) instead I’ve written an interview with nanny State (personified as a nanny) and I’m writing a parody on an old song (in the vein of My Old Man’s an All Black) which is possibly the most offensive thing I’ve ever written.

And bloody great fun!

I have that bubbly feeling again. The feeling like you’re falling in love, I can’t wait to spend time with it and it is filling my mind. Also the crazy invincible feeling that it is all finally clicking into place, that everything you do seems to relate directly to your project. Synchronicity.

That is until I show it to other people! Just a few more golden days between me and mine I think…

Viva Roto-vegas!

I had been dreading spending a week in Rotorua; I remembered it from my youth as being touristy tacky, run down and a little bit rough. Sure, my hometown Taupo is a tourist town too but it didn’t seem to try as hard as Rotorua to my eyes. Taupo is like “Have you seen the lake and the mountains? Enough said.” And Rotorua was more like “Geysers! Mudpools! Maori!”

But I really enjoyed the week in Rotorua (the flu and lack of cooking facilities aside). I wandered around thinking “Could I live here?”. My criteria: A pedestrian friendly place that has a mixture of shops and homes (in the CBD certainly, not sure about the rest), green public spaces (the lake front is great apart from the mad swans) a bar that sells my favourite beer (we found a nice Belgium bar - lovely peeps and Forbidden Fruit in the fridge). Extras that Rotorua has? Mineral pools and if you have a bore; free heating baby! For a Wellingtonian that is the stuff of fantasies - to be too hot in winter!!

In Rotorua I was also able to catch the shows in the festival - something that was near impossible in Manukau. Why? Pedestrian friendly Rotorua, car crazy Manukau.

I can’t remember a time when I watched a show without my writer’s eyes on. I’m constantly looking for how the writer has crafted the story (which is why I had difficulty with Cats, once I had let go of the hope of a story I could relax into the show and just let it wash over me.) and more importantly, what I can steal!

I don’t mean lifting dialogue/characters from someone else’s work; it is the tricks a writer has used to create tension, to move the audience. It is stealing the secret behind the magic that spellbinds an audience.

The stand out for me was I Don’t Wanna Play House by Tammy Anderson (who also performed it). From the little blurb in the programme I thought it would be my least favourite - sexual abuse? No thank you! But the strength of Tammy’s story and performance blew me away. It was so honest and so human and, at times, hilarious.

Here’s what I plan to add to my tool box:

Humour. The audience need to laugh even during the most harrowing of subjects; actually even more so. It helps to stop it tipping into angst - also the audience will find something to laugh about so you may as well try to control it!

Use of props. Are they needed? If they are, can you use them in more than one way, and more than one time? I will apply the “would I pack this prop and ship it around the country” test from now on.

Are each of your characters clearly defined? What sets them apart from the other characters that inhabit the story? Why is that character important?

Hopefully all this will help me to write Kiwiana Charlatan ( I had hoped to knock out the story while I was away, but I came down with baby brain!) - although vastly different from Tammy’s play ( Props! Other actors!) the fundamentals are the same.

Character.

Story.

Honesty.

She’s here…

(In that creepy sing-song Poltergeist voice)

Yes, I have clawed my way back from the pits of dial up hell - we were in the highest sphere of dial up hell, the kind where it is incredibly slow and you have to pay business rates (80 cents for a minute?! Has the world gone mad?).

Was a fortnight without internet liberating? In some ways, I guess it was; after all I wasn’t checking my email constantly or searching (endlessly searching!) for my next big hit of information.

Y’know, that chunk of info that will make sense of it all. My Rosetta stone, the hallowed piece of information that will unlock something in my brain and make the rewrite of my novel and my play so much easier.

So what have I been up to in the digital wastelands?  I’ve been on tour with Honouring Theatre as nanny to my nephew Finn, or as he has been rechristened “Bob”. I had packed a whole lot of stuff with me in the hope that I could get some work done over the two weeks. Wishful thinking! Looking after a baby is bloody tiring and I just didn’t have the mindspace to write. Instead it was filled with Maisy and what I could do to tire him out amuse him the next day.

How do writers with children do it? How do you carve out a space for yourself?

My brother-in-law keeps joking (they are jokes right?) about me having cousins for Finn, but after the past two weeks I know that at this stage of my life/career I’m not prepared to sacrifice the time and energy needed to raise a child.

Two weeks is a short time, and I guess in “real life” you just deal with it. Routines are set, writing time is snatched where ever you find it.

But that’s not for me. Not now. I have a little bit more living in my head to do and, oh, maybe some actual living too…

There will be more about the tour, but that’s all that I can muster today. I have to get my writer’s brain back. I think Maisy might have run off with it!

What happens in Vegas

We’re leaving for Roto Vegas Rotorua today for the start of a two week, two city tour of Honouring Theatre.

I’m going to be playing Nanny (Super? Maybe.) to my nephew so I am hoping to be able to continue to post while I’m away. I’m being around other theatre practitioners will get me thinking about all sorts of things. Hopefully my work!

Or maybe I’ll just be too exhausted from running after a 17 month old all day…

If you’re in Rotorua on the 16-19 or Auckland 22-27 come an have a look!

By any other name.

Ah yes, the rose may smell as sweet; but who’s going to know? Would anyone seriously stick their nose into something called skunkwort or carrion blossom?

Last Wednesday I had another Playwright’s studio and luckily for me, David was able to spare half an hour to go through Kiwiana Charlatan with me. The discussion threw up some interesting ideas, the biggest of which was that perhaps I could make all my characters Maori.

And I think I’m going to run with it. It makes more sense in terms of what I originally wanted to say, a kind of “be careful what you wish for” moral; where Maori are awarded their land back but not on our terms. I wanted to explore land as a burden, rather than a liberator. If all my characters are Maori I will be able to explore different viewpoints without making one character a mouthpiece for an entire race. I’m hoping that this will enable me to show the diversity within Maoridom. One problem I had with this idea is that the first thing that Maori ask is “Where are you from?”. Sarah is going to betray Mary and Zeke and I don’t want to tar any iwi with the turncoat brush. For the moment I have put the cheesy solution (amnesia!) aside and have gone with something true to our society. Sarah doesn’t know. She is one of the many urban Maori that have lost their ties when generations ago their families moved to the city for work. (Read this for the effect this migration had on families.) For now I’ve put this problem to rest, if it rears up again I’ll deal with it then.

My problem now is with Sarah. When I had my meeting about my novel, Phil suggested that Mae’s character needed to be rethought and that in doing so I may have to rename her.

I find naming characters difficult. But I truly believe that a name adds something to a character; that a name can invoke responses from the audience. I have a small dictionary of names that gives brief meanings. I am now on the search for a more comprehensive one, but it seems dictionaries of names are confined to the pregnancy area of the book store. I remember reading about a dictionary in a magazine that not only told you the meaning of names but where and when they were most popular. I shall have to look it up. I only hope that it isn’t my mind inventing things that I would like!

Sarah needs a new name. The name itself isn’t too bad, but it is my association with the old character - I had imagined what she looked like, her attitudes to Maori and (ahem) who might play her. I think it would be easier for me to write something completely new with a new name. But what will it be? A name tells us where a character grew up, when the character was born and what kind of parents they were blessed with.

What’s in a name? Quite a lot it would seem!

Join the Dots

Did you enjoy these as a kid? Some of them so obvious that you knew half way around what the picture would turn out to be. Some looked as if a person had taken a handful of dots and scattered them across the page, each landing in a seemingly random positions; until you joined the last dot with the first and the picture became clear.

My writing group has asked to to do a “presentation” of sorts about blogging at our next meeting; so naturally my mind has turned to my blog. Why do I write here? Is it a distraction from my “real” writing, or is it a natural part of it?

I think I started this naively thinking that it would distinguish me from the other writers in this town. Honestly, take two steps and you’ll trip over a writer in this place. On the street I live on there is one other playwright that I know of; there are bound to be others lurking about.

What I hadn’t thought about was the huge community of writers that exist in cyberspace, that I would just become one in a million rather than just dime a dozen!

So if it isn’t about audience creation (or any other marketing jargon you’d like to insert here) - why do I write this blog?

Distraction. Procrastination. Even thinking of these words makes me feel a little guilty; they sound like something you could be charged with:

“Whiti Hereaka, you have been charged with Procrastination in the first degree; how do you plead?”

What hasn’t occurred to me before, is that procrastination may in fact be a necessary part of writing.

Here’s what I think. When I’m hot on a story nothing in the world can distract me. I get excited and I can’t wait to write. Often I will sit and write until it is all down, cursing that I still haven’t learnt to touch type as my fingers struggle to catch up with my mind. If I do have to do other things (work, sleep) then the story is all I think of. I draw parallels in what I’m doing. I see connections I haven’t seen before.

When I’m not clear on what I want to write then sitting at my desk is the last place I want to be. I simply cannot write while the house is in this state! I’ll do some cleaning, and then I’ll write… sound familiar?

Procrastination is your mind begging you for more thinking time.

I’ve begun to think of my blog the same way I do about my MA. People often ask if my MA in Creative Writing was “worth it”, and I always say that I guess I could have learnt all of it on my own - but it would have taken years of my life to do it .

Blogging has become my way of connecting all my random thoughts about writing and story; it has allowed me to see the big picture. It is my thinking time; this little bit of distraction has probably saved me months of anguish as I try to figure out what is plainly in front of me. That is why I blog.

Drip, drip

The rain had been steady all weekend. Occasionally I’d look outside and think how lucky we, The Goat Embryo Project, were to have the weather we had last weekend for our shoot.

Although, even if the weather had been as miserable as it was this weekend, we would have dealt with it. And I reckon we would have had just as much fun.

Manimal Planet had its premiere screening last night. A whole row was taken up by us (and a few more seats the next row down) all cheering and joking. And that was before the movie started! (Helped in part by the wine we had our pot luck dinner beforehand - kia ora Sharon for hosting us!)

Confession time. During the week I had worried about our little film - was it as funny as we had thought, or was it 4.30 am playing tricks on us? What if I had totally misjudged our work?

Well there were laughs (and not just from our row) and the story stood up. In fact I based my voting on the stories that the films told. If the story wasn’t clear and had a resolution at the end I didn’t vote for it. Even if I had a few laughs it wasn’t enough. Story is king.

Funny isn’t it? Years of people telling me this, studying structure and the Hero’s Journey; and it finally clicks. The water has finally worn away the stone.

On Saturday, after I had written my post, I realised how much my ego has tripped up my writing this year. I was worried about how my play would be viewed in years to come. I wanted to prove that I was a good writer - and I was determined to use all my tricks to prove it. I forgot that my story is the most important thing in my writing.

And there’s nothing like seeing that principle in practice on the big screen to really hammer it home.

Drip,

Drip,

Drip.

The heart of the matter

Take two weeks, and just get it done.

This was the last piece of advise given to me yesterday by a reader of my novel, Phil Mann. We had a meeting over lunch where he gave me his feedback and we could have a yarn about the direction my novel is taking.

Two weeks? Two weeks!?!

Needless to say, I freaked out a little. OK, a lot; but hopefully I projected a cool calm facade. Those who have played poker with me may beg to differ…

Confession time. I should really put that comment into context. Before Phil had said that, I said that I was afraid that I might be stuck in a continuous cycle of drafts - that twenty years hence I would still be tinkering away with January and her strange ways.

So; take two weeks…

It was a great meeting. I have had feedback on my novel which was less than helpful. The kind that pointed out the faults but didn’t offer any ideas. It is a skill to give good feedback, and I think the most valuable readers for me at this stage are writers. Very generous writers who take the time to read your work throughly and have thought the problems through. These are the kind of people that will rope off a hole and maybe put up a sign, instead of standing next to it, waiting for someone to fall in and saying “There’s a hole there.”

Solutions! I need solutions! And after the meeting I think I have them.

Now the way I have phrased this may be a bit misleading. A good feedback session for me is not someone telling me what ought to happen in my story. After all it is my story. It is not a case of Phil saying in chapter 3 X should happen and me dutifully running off to compose it. Rather it is a series of questions and ways of looking at situations that I may not have considered before.

I talked about how I had read a blog where the author had realised she was living her life on credit - waiting for life to begin and finding that it already had. I thought that that is what January was doing. Phil said, “Yes, but WHY is January doing that?”

We also had a long discussion about why I feel the need to trick my readers; to present a reality and them subvert it. I thought I had been doing it to amuse and delight the reader, but came to the realisation that I might just be doing it to show off how clever I am. I was shocked to think that I had forgotten my audience and was indulging my own ego, and then I was relieved as I thought of the projects I have been struggling with because I was trying to be too clever. The extra layers I’ve piled on Kiwiana Charlatan for example; and the reaction I’ve had over criticism on it. I see now that I thought I had something to prove and that attitude has got in the way of really writing. So with only a few days to my homework deadline, I’m going to start again.

I am also re-examining my “simplify and specify” mantra, I have been focussed on the superficial stuff (cut a character! Cut two!) to solve the novel’s problems. But what I really need to do is to get to the emotional truth of the story and characters. What I actually want to say. Then what the novel actually needs should be clear.

Lots of things to consider: Alice’s story arc, January’s secrets, the author’s point of view, Mae’s character and possible name change, graphology research…

In two weeks?

My most pleasurable writing experience was writing I Ain’t Nothing But…When I sat down to write it I felt everything come together; the research I had done on existentialism, the characters, the structure, the need for actors to come in and out to populate the stage of A Glimmer in the Dark she said, the gags - oh the glorious gags!

I wrote it in a night, but I had thought about it for much longer.

This is what I’m hoping for my novel. I’ll do the hard yards now - the extra research, the decisions about characters’ lives, the digging for the truth of the story. So when I have my two weeks it will all come together…

Touch wood.