Notebooks, rock and ballet, "Jesse James" and scones...

This has been a busy week.  I went to work, and to a meeting at Hampton Court Palace.  I gave out leaflets in the rain at Kew The Music (and am due to do the same on Sunday).  I went to the latest Royal Ballet triple bill.  I watched a beautifully-made and acted, but terribly depressing, movie.  I featured in a photo shoot as one of a pair of "ladies enjoying afternoon tea at Kew".  And, of course, I wrote.

I've finished the first notebook and started a second.  I've discovered that hard-boarded A5 spiral bound notebooks are the perfect thing for me to write in at the moment.  They are portable, and somehow less intimidating, than A4 foolscap notepaper, which is what the whole of "Gabriel Yeats" and "Ramundi's Sisters" were both written on.  A4 paper is good if you have space, and are very relaxed; e.g. flopping on a lawn with a large cold drink to hand.  But writing in snatches on the tube or on a bench at work, as I am doing this time, somehow a smaller notebook feels more comfortable.  This size takes about 16,000 words to fill, so I even know roughly how much I've written. 

It's going so fast that I know it's going to be a bit rough-and ready, and probably full of inconsistencies.  There will be time enough to revise, later.  A few pages back, one of the characters surprised me by announcing very firmly "We don't use that word", of a term I had myself been using blithely up till then.  It is a very odd sensation, when the characters in a fiction begin to have minds of their own.  But it's a strong sign.  Anna and Thorn and Carlton are coming clearer all the time; one of the cruxes of the story, which was fuzzy until last night, has clicked; and I have a title at last.

I am writing with rock, interestingly.  "GY" was written with Brahms and Mozart.  This story is coming with the sounds of The Icicle Works, Bill Nelson, The Waterboys, Vieux Farka Touré and U2.  It has drive, and they drive me.

The ballet was a mixed bag.  The bill opened with "Birthday offering", which is a sparkling piece of solid frou-frou, in costumes that look like off-cuts from the Quangle-Wangle's Hat.  It's a steady stream of show-off turns, for seven ballerinas and their cavaliers, and it was very nice, but to be frank a bit empty.  Tamara Rojo was stunning as usual, though I hope she has something more worthy of her dramatic powers to do in the programme of new work that ends the season.  I should be sorry if this lovely, frilly bit of bling were the last time I ever saw her dance. 

The last piece in the bill was "Les Noces", which I know I ought to admire; modernist masterpiece, unique historical artifact, etc etc.  But, I'm sorry, I don't really like it that much.  Call me weak-minded, but I wasn't grabbed.

The middle piece on the bill, though, was another of Ashton's mini-masterpieces; "A Month in the Country".  Worth everything for this.  WOW.  Zenaida Yanowsky, Favourite Baritone's Ballerina Missus, was stunningly good as Natalia Petrovna.  She is a luxurious dancer whose height makes her grace yet more gorgeous; there is a sense of effortless scale to her every movement; and she is a powerful actress.  At the very end, as she loses her lover, and faces the realisation of what her future will be, the simplicity and truth of her gradually shrinking movements, her stillness after that brief, brief hour of rapture, were simply heartbreaking.  Needless to say I cried.

What more?  The movie: "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford".  Looks fabulous, is very well-acted, desperately sad and very, VERY slow.

On the plus side, it's the first time I have ever begun to understand why Brad Pitt became a star; in a role seemingly meant to be semi-sleepwalked through, he is actually rather good.  Casey Affleck, who I knew of only by name, does extraordinarily well at the difficult task of playing someone who is stupid and pathetically lacking in self-awareness, without turning the role into a caricature.

The rest of the cast are also excellent.  My current hero does what I guess may be his regular thing of quietly burning a hole on the edge of the screen while others are busy delivering their dialogue, centre stage.  It's a pity that his character gets killed halfway through, though; especially as he plays the only person with something like a shred of a moral compass left (if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor).  I like to be able to sympathise with someone in a film..  Pretty hard when the only sympathetic character is lying butt-naked and dead in a snow-filled ditch.  I do hope it wasn't real snow, incidentally.  There are some sacrifices no-one should have to make for their art.

This afternoon I found myself modelling again, for the first time in over seven years.  Not for a life class, but for a photo shoot.  If all goes well I am now going to appear enjoying my afternoon tea in a piece of Kew literature.  It took ages and I discovered just how unappetising cold, milky Earl Grey smells, having to wave a cup of it in front of my nose for over an hour.  I prefer my tea hot and without milk, and I loathe Earl Grey.  But I did get to eat two very fresh scones with raspberry jam and Cornish clotted cream.  Any Friday that ends with a belly full of fresh scones can't be all bad!  And the pictures have come out well.

Weekend time, now.  Writing time.  And washing machine time, and grocery-shopping time, and all the rest.  But writing time, I think, first and foremost.  It has me by the ears and will not let go.

Writing difficulties

I’ve been feeling rather dopey today after being up till after midnight, writing and rewriting something that simply wasn’t working; a love scene. Gods, I hate love scenes!

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve no objection to being involved in a love scene (¡ojala que sea!)! But writing them is another matter. It is, to be blunt, bl**dy difficult stuff. I’d rather write about any amount of things I’ve never seen or experienced (what’s research for, after all?), I’d rather kill off a major character (been there, done that, easy-peasey), than have to describe two people making love. It’s not that I’m not particularly prudish; I am irritated by the way so many love scenes are either coyly sugary or jarringly (and gigglily) explicit, and frequently out of keeping with the rest of the writing as well. But trying to write a love scene that is true to the characters involved and is honest about what’s going on, but without being either fluffy or embarrassing, is really tough.

I’ve been working lately on typing up and revising something called “Ramundi’s Sisters”, which was first written a good long while ago. It needs a deal of revision in places, as some of it is dreadfully purple. I’m almost at the end now, and the last chapter needs more work than anything else. It has three tricky scenes between two of the protagonists, which are meant to bring their relationship to a natural conclusion. The first of these scenes is the love scene I was struggling with last night. It isn’t particularly intense, in fact all they do is kiss. But the characters in question have each been carrying a torch for the other for a long time; they are both very fired up, and very awkward, with one another. There’s also the fact they are both good Catholics, and it’s 1927, so nothing particularly vigorous is going to happen, but it is going to seem absolutely momentous to them.

The original version was desperately overwrought. I struck a line through it last night and started again from scratch. Version 2a read like Barbara Cartland on hallucinogenic drugs; version 2b, like Barbara Cartland trying to write porn. 2c isn't too bad; tighter and shorter, with almost all the adjectives chopped off. When I went to bed, I was feeling quite happy about it. But I may re-read it tonight and think "Oh no!"

I've also finally managed to put right a couple of the points when the narrative point of view shifts mid-scene from one person to another. This is very sloppy writing, technically speaking, but I had not been able to see my way through to how to handle the narrative from just one PoV at these particular points. When struggling with something tricky, like the aforementioned clinch, the mind springs up with distractions. Ironing and filing begin to seem appealing. I think "Hey, why don't I set up a still-life with the fruit bowl and the guitar and some glasses, and draw instead?" I get up to change the cd, to make tea, to dance to the cd (I was writing to early Bill Nelson, very danceable stuff)... So I made myself go back to these other revisions, instead; when stuck on something tough, try something else tough. There, now the first problem doesn't seem quite so isolatedly awful! It worked rather well; by midnight I had solved two of the PoV glitches and typed up version 2c of the kiss.

Off to see "The Magic Flute" tonight with my stepmum. By the time I get home there'll just be time to open up the file, look at version 2c, and scream... and then start again.

More constructive stuff...

And yesterday evening, I:

made a huge lentil and cauliflower biriyani;

and a huge bowlful of sliced and lightly-sugared strawberries;

ate some and put the rest in the fridge for another night;

put on some cheerful music to sew to;

realised after mending one shoulder strap that I simply couldn't sew to this particular music (the Warsaw Village Band) as it was far too energising;

and set up my easel with a sheet of A4 cartridge paper and spent an hour drawing like a maniac, working from some of my orchestra sketches from the autumn, getting covered in charcoal till I looked like a comedy coal miner...

I drew my favourite Maestro. I know, I know, crushes are the mark of a feeble mind. Tough; it's a good drawing. Yes, I did actually say that. I'm quite pleased with it, and I don't say that often; this morning I woke up to find the figure on my drawing board staring across the room at me, which is spooky but very satisfying. It means the drawing has "got" him, at least a bit.

Tonight I'm off to "Idomeneo" at the ENO, so won't be able to get back to the drawing until Thursday. I hope that when I get in at midnight or so tonight, I will still see him watching me (a girl can dream!...).

When I work in a large scale in charcoal I tend to overlay drawing upon drawing, so that part of the interest comes from the interaction between multiple layers of images. I discovered years ago at college that this process worked with images of buildings, especially interiors; and have since learnt it is also very effective with portraits. So at the moment my image of the Maestro has five arms and two layers of head; he looks like Shiva in a black velvet jacket.

It was interesting to realise that the Warsaw Village Band is absolutely not music to sew to. They're terrific; slightly mad stuff, a wildly trippy fusion of traditional Polish folk music and psychadelic trance, hypnotic and driving. As "get up and dance" - or "get up and draw", in my case - music, they're hard to beat. I sewed to Sibelius (Violin Concerto) and Rachmaninov (Symphonic Dances) yesterday; fabulous music, but music I could sew to.

Different energies, different rhythms, and different responses to them. Neither is less than the other; but they are not the same. No, different magics altogether.

Long live all the many and various magics of this world! - including the magic (for it certainly is one) of charcoal.

Going like a bush fire...

Last night I got home and sat straight down to writing again. Typed all evening. Ate hastily reheated remains of previous night's supper. Typed on until I was pie-eyed again. It was wonderful. It was going like a blaze. How am I going to cope without my laptop for four days this weekend? I shall have to take a notebook (paper kind, of course!) to WOMAD so that I can carry on regardless. Nothing I know, nothing at all, is like the buzz of working when the work is flowing. I am never more in the moment than then, because it is simply the best place in my life to be.

Listened to music while I worked; two albums of Bulgarian choral music and then a brilliant recording by Cathal Hayden, of Irish traditional fiddle and banjo music. He plays a slow air called "A Stór mo Chroi" which is hauntingly beautiful and has been on my brain ever since. I don't know any Erse speakers, so don't know what that means, but it is a melody to gaze out at the sea to and dream of dark eyes looking into your own... I did have an Irish woman next to me briefly on my way into work this morning, stuck at traffic lights while idiot drivers went through the red light in front of us. She was muttering under her breath "Straight through the red light! Straight through the red light! Jesus God!" in a lovely Ulster accent as we watched and waited. Not enough time to ask if she spoke Irish Gaelic, though, before finally the idiots let those who actually had the right of way have the use of the road, and she sailed off on her bike and went the opposite way to me.

Thursday lunchtime

At the risk of sounding like a monomaniac (as if!), I want to report that last night was interesting.

Firstly, on the music-while-you-work strand, I tried “Pelléas et Mélisande”; hopeless. It’s one of my favourite operas, with its limpid, pellucid colours and heartbreaking story, and always moves me deeply, even in the deeply weird and visually stifling production at the ROH a while back. But as music to work to it was useless. I could type, or I could listen, but there was no combining the two, and no drawing inspiration from the one to feed the other. “Pelléas” simply had to take my world over. So I turned it off, and played “The Cunning Little Vixen” instead. I cry buckets at “The Cunning Little Vixen”, at the theatre. Sitting in my own little room, I could relegate it to background music without a flicker, and wrote happily for the duration.

Which would seem to support the “language” theory; I can put to the background what I cannot understand verbally. But I still think there’s more to it than that. The fact that I can’t sublimate “Zauberflöte” is one clue. Another is the fact that I wasn’t really not listening to the Janacek (sorry about the erratic appearance of diacritical marks; I’m having trouble finding the ones I need here). It was feeding me. I wrote on the swell and depth of the music; not simply cut off from background noise by something more pleasant, but uplifted and inspired by it. “Pelléas”, although hardly insistent musically, insisted upon dominance; what happened between me and the “Vixen” was more of a fusing of equal spirits (hah! - and you don’t get to write that every day!!).

On the which distinctly kinky-sounding stuff, I’ll go on to “secondly”!

Secondly, the playing-out-the-scene-before-you-write-it thing worked really well. Really well.

I’d always had the idea that this particular scene would follow a fairly talk-y line. The fact that two of the protagonists are speaking mutually-incomprehensible languages was a snagging point, and I had decided that “playing it out” with that element omitted (so that I would not have to keep stepping out of my role-play to remind myself of my invented alien grammar!) would help me to get it straight. It did; I realised it wasn’t working. The problem was partly too much talk, partly, I suddenly felt, that one of my characters simply wouldn’t behave this way.

I sat down, re-wrote the whole thing, and am happy.

I’ve read other writers, discussing their own work, talking about the way that the characters take on a life of their own and “don’t want to do” what they, the author, have planned for them. It sounds deeply suspect, until one has the same experience oneself. It really is a most peculiar feeling. In this case, it has almost opened out a whole new aspect of the character; how she responds in stressful situations, and how that links into her background culture and her system of loyalties, her general way of dealing with things… I had never thought about this before; I should have done, but I hadn't; and now I have. I'm sure the best thing would be to be an accomplished enough writer to think of all these things straight away, when first conceiving a story. But as it is, the fact that I have thought of this at this stage cheers me enormously. It means my heroine is coming alive, as it were, on schedule.

Maybe, on second thoughts, it would not be good to have everything totally sorted-out ahead of time. Would these people come alive at all, if they were that thoroughly controlled?

So anyway - I am feeling pretty pleased with life just at the moment.

A mixed evening...

Very frustrating - my ancient laptop is packing up. It's practically a museum piece, it must be over ten years old and it was second-hand when it came to me, and the letter "v" sticks (turning "live" into "lie" and "beloved" into "beloed"), but I am fond of it. And it wouldn't turn on yesterday. I was so fired-up with wanting to write that I set-to with some scrap paper and got some work done; but pen-and-paper is slow compared to typing, even typing as bad as mine. I put on "Rosenkavalier", though, and I put my head down and stuck at it.

I often work - writing, painting, drawing, the lot - with music, and I have found that certain kinds of music uplift and inspire me; light, pleasant stuff that doesn't have any real guts is fine, as are folk music and world music (Alan Stivell, Tina Malia, kora music, for example), and truly great music is fine so long as it is instrumental (Bach's solo violin works are fanastic to write or paint-to) and isn't heartbreaking (I don't think I could paint to Mahler 3, for instance, as I'd be crying too much). Singing is fine too so long as it is NOT sung in a language that I understand, as I then listen too much to concentrate on what I'm doing.

This is a pity, as it rules out a great deal of opera, which is probably my all-time favourite music. If I listen to "Billy Budd", for instance, I am completely gripped from the beginning, and would be incapable of applying brush to canvas except to leave a trail of random daubs, until the very last bar. (Okay, so I have the Hickox/LSO recording, with Simon Keenlyside and Philip Langridge, which is pretty rivetting stuff). And, although I don't speak Italian, I do speak Spanish, and I've listened to enough Italian opera to have picked up a lot of vocab from it; I find myself hanging on every word of that, again, despite the idiocy of many libretti (I'm sorry, but "Mille serpenti mi devoran il petto", anyone? Really, how silly is that?! Have YOU ever said that, even when seriously pissed-off?!). Ah well; musically they are the cream of the bunch, those big nineteenth century Italian operas, and I feel rude not giving my full attention to really great work. Yet I can semi-sublimate "Rosenkavalier", a truly magnificent opera on the stage, and any amount of lieder, even with my favourite lieder singer in action. The only clue I can find in this confusion is that I speak barely twenty words of German (& those are mostly things to eat and drink). Yet I can't blot out "Die Zauberflöte"... so that puts paid to that theory.

Anyway, I did get some writing done last night, as I'd hoped - but not as much as I'd hoped. And IF I can get the laptop to behave again tonight, I shall have to transcribe it all, which is a bit boring when one wants to rush ahead with exploring the story, and the method of telling.

I knew when I first conceived this particular story that from the reader's POV it would have to begin at a particular point, and therefore at least one part of the narrative would have to be explained in a flash-back of some kind. Easy to think of in theory! - not so easy to write. Part of what got me started was suddenly "seeing" how I could write it; one of the principal characters is imprisoned, awaiting trial, probably going to be sentenced to death, and is visited by someone who can penetrate his mind. Cue flashback; the events that led him there are connected to the events he recalls, and I am having a lot of fun trying to convey the confused and eddying state of his thoughts. If I can, I'll work "E lucevan le stelle" in, for a joke; after all, given the character's situation it's pretty appropriate. "Gabriel Yeats" is full of references to music; mostly "Die Zauberflöte" and the Brahms violin sonatas that I have Simon Cenarth playing at a couple of salient moments. We'll see, we'll see...