Thursday 24 March 2011

Blog - "Ode To Turvy"

Hello readers,

You are unfortunately about to read a eulogy of sorts. That's right; my laptop died. It is a sad, sad day for me.

Turvy (Laptop > Top > Topsy > Topsy Turvy > Turvy) has been standing by me for over two years, bravely putting up with everything that I've put her through. I've used her to work, I've used her to play, I've used her to watch episodes of Doctor Who while I've been sitting on the toilet. She was the perfect companion to me, but for the last six months, the fifteen hour per day routine has been wearing away at her until, yesterday, she just couldn't handle the stress anymore and collapsed only three hours and two thousand words into the day.

She will be missed.

Now, if I can bitch about how hard my life is for a minute...

I'm writing this on paper. Paper. The last time I wrote on paper I quite literally ground the bone of my finger down to nothing. There's no way I can keep up with my thirty-five thousand words a week routine on paper. Plus, I just lost the file containing my work in progress play for the Dukes. I'm never getting that back now. Thank goodness Disbelief is all backed up (and the back up is the file I actually update). I nearly lost all my pornographic pictures of ex-girlfriends too, and god knows they should never fall into the hands of anybody else.

It is a sad, sad day for me.

Sunday 13 March 2011

Blog - "Dukes And Writers"

Hello people,

There have been a lot of things going on for me over the last week, to a level of huge magnitude for me personally, because I've been spending my days up at the Dukes Playhouse in Lancaster.

Let me first start off with a complaint. Buses suck. In all ways buses suck.

Moving on, this last week could well be the highlight of my year.

I did, at one point, consider writing a play, and a musical. There's a lot of ideas I've had that I've been very much looking forward to pitching, but I was given so much advice that I completely forgot to pitch at all. They gave me a little insight into everything. I was doing press, marketing, rehearsals, direction, stage management and more, but that's not what I wanted to take away from it.

Even when I was sitting at the bar watching somebody prepare my dinner, that person had something to teach me. The woman in Box Office had a lot to teach too. Everybody did. It was as though everybody had something creative to mention or was an artist in the making. It was the only place I've ever known where people aren't actually there for the money, but were there because they love the work. Even at the lowest rung of the ladder there was hope, and people there had so much to offer.

I will say that I was only there for four days, and it was over two hours there and two hours back, so I didn't have that much time to spend there. That was the worst part, because I could live and work there on minimum wage for the rest of my life and never want for more. I've worked with some people who happily spend absolutely no time pursuing their job beyond getting paid. At the Dukes, everything is different. It's about creating something.

I've never felt more at home, and now I'm back in Blackpool, in the same old house and waiting for a new job to clear my CRB so that I can fill up my time a little.

Still, I'm less bored than I was because I'm working ever so slightly harder.

I have a play to write.

Saturday 5 March 2011

Blog - "Musical In Nature"

Hello there readers, my apologies for my absences of late.

As I'm sure has come across in my time writing on this blog, I always have something going on. Of late, I've been networking with a theatre in Lancaster called The Dukes Theatre. Next week, I'll be attending what is sort of a brief internship, usually reserved for those in the area. Not only is there going to be a range of given opportunities concerning stage management, as well as sound and lighting, but I'm also being given direct, in-depth lessons concerning writing and directing for the theatre.

I've also been given permission to make several pitches on potential plays/films that I might be able to entice the theatre into producing. That, for me, provides a very interesting concept. More as it develops there.

I met with a professional photographer concerning a showing as director of photography, should the pitches prove successful. I've already started talking with a potential sponsor, which would add to the appeal. I'm hopeful. Later in the month, pending a quick chat, I'll have a picture for you of hers that is almost an ideal showing of Ally from Disbelief. I could show you a perfect picture of Ally, but the woman I would want to model is unlikely to do it.

For those of you that follow my fiction on Ultimate-Guitar.com, I have a new series coming, and that's one of the reasons I opened by talking about the theatre. I've decided that, for the next fiction series, I'm going to aim more towards the tongue-in-cheek attitude from the original UG story rather than the more heavily dramatised stories such as Disbelief and Rock Stars. I've decided to write something that I'm planning to pitch.

The main concept is based around a musical. I intend to pitch something similar to this musical, and pitch a group of webisodes to be released, online and via the sponsor, which would be portraying it in a comical light in order to promote it. The fiction series would then be market research. It would be comprised of a collection of pieces detailing rehearsals and preparations of a musical.

You would have 'key characters', such as your standard lead. Honestly, I am thinking a little selfishly of making him the writer, who comes into the most random and madness-inducing place in the world. Then you'd have what I'm thinking should be a main actor/actress combo.

Then you get those characters that, instead of being particularly dramatic by nature, are rather just there to make things interesting. For example, I'm thinking of having a choreographer who also happens to be a bit of a martial arts nut. It's a simple touch, but if we push it to a nice extreme you get some interesting comedy value out of it.

Next Tuesday (not this Tuesday) is when I'm planning to have the first part ready, which would be an introduction to the concept. I'm thinking a big and intensely descriptive musical number.

I don't know. What do you think?