Posts
No progress on the messy business with solicitors and wills; possible progress on the somewhere-to-live front (I’m going to look at a place in Turnham Green after work tonight); steady progress on the typing up of “Ramundi’s Sisters”. I’ve also been back to the new piece (must give this a working title – GY is an abbreviation of “The Eternal Love of Gabriel Yeats”, so why don’t I follow the same principle and call The New Piece “Fortitude”? Okay, that’ll do for now) – I’ve been back to “Fortitude” and tidied up some typing errors, and I think I see how it goes on from where it got stuck. I had a brainwave relating to another story this morning while walking to the bus stop, so am now wanting to get going on that. And I’ve restarted another piece, which had been started and abandoned twice before, when I suddenly realised it would work better as a first person narrative.
Good grief. It’s a bit scary; I’m typing up “Ramundi’s Sisters” and working on two other written projects, and contemplating starting on a third, all at the same time. Will this work, or will my brain collapse under the strain? Watch this space!
It’s odd how it comes and goes like this, in phases. I feel at the moment a bit as if I’ve opened a door and found a lot of things crammed in behind it, squeezed together to the point of severe compression; suddenly there’s space to expand into, and everything comes bursting out. My problem is to keep up with the onrushing flow of ideas coming through this door (sorry, slightly odd mixed metaphor there) while still holding down my job, having some sort of social life, etc. I have a ballet ticket this week, and two evenings I’m meeting friends for a drink, and tonight I’m going to look at some prospective digs, and I do want to do all of these things. But I want to be sitting down at my cranky little old laptop, writing, too. Because when it’s going, and it’s flowing, like this, there really is no feeling as good as this. Creative work is more precious and more exciting to me than almost anything else I’ve ever done; better than getting drunk, better (just) than swimming in the Mediterranean, better even than being in love… Admittedly being in love is the route into all sorts of agonies (or it always has been, for me, at any rate, largely because I am a complete idiot in love). Doing creative work is pure, consistent bliss. If only the aftermath weren’t sometimes such torture…
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Slowly coming out of shock on Thursday
I’ve done nothing creative all week, and nothing much else either, except go to work, go home, eat some food, drink some cider and go to sleep. Sound nasty? I suppose it is. Basically I have been in a state of shock since Monday, when I had an email telling me someone had died and I am due to inherit some money. I don’t even know the figures involved, but it has brought up a huge mass of mixed emotions and memories. I’m already tense and emotional and dealing with painful unresolved memories as I try to gear myself up to find a new place to live – reliving as I do all the misery of my last house-move and the bitter circumstances in which that took place. And now this comes up.
It’s a long-standing arrangement – my late godmother Joyce left a Trust to pay an income to her only living relative, an elderly cousin – her cousin has just died, and I am one of the residual beneficiaries. Because my eventual receipt of the money was dependent on Cousin Pearl’s death I have always refused to think about it – it felt uncomfortably like wishing her into her grave, and I was very ill at ease with that. It must, realistically, be a large enough sum that the arrangement was worth doing in the first place, but I have no idea what I am going to receive. I am suddenly reminded of Joyce and of how bitterly I missed her when she died, and of the shock of her death – she had been in remission from cancer and had seemed to be doing well, then suddenly had a relapse and was gone, bang…
Anyway, I am now struggling with solicitor’s letters and legal terminology to do with the administration of Trusts, and feeling upset and shaken, and wondering what on earth I will do with this money, and whether it will be enough to do something concrete, and how long it will take to resolve the matter and wind up the Trust… My mind feels as if it is boiling all the time. I’m fairly pissed-off with the combined smugness and inefficiency of the solicitors involved, who have simply assumed they will step in and act on my behalf, unrequested, despite the fact they are based in Axminster and I live in Ealing, barely five miles from the solicitors administering the Trust, who are in Teddington… If I have to have a solicitor act for me, I’d prefer to choose my own!
I’m supposed to be going down to my mother’s in Kent for the weekend and I’m hoping to be able to switch off and relax – but I fear Mum will not let me rest until matters are resolved to her satisfaction. She dislikes uncertainty even more than I do…
It’s extraordinary how something like this can throw one. My mind is constantly returning to the subject, turning it over as one forks over compost, as if adequate aeration will sort the problem out. I’m startled at how quickly I have been able to put more then twenty years of saying “I won’t think about that!” straight out of my head. Now I am thinking about it all the time.
I find myself veering between the hope that I will find I have come into enough money to take some real steps towards realising some of my dreams, and the reflection that I will probably get very much less, and that less solicitors’ fees, and then I will not know what to do with it. I am astonished at the feeling of buoyancy and relief that accompanies the thought of receiving a solid chunk of capital. But I have to remember that in 1983, when Joyce, not yet ill and probably never imagining her cousin (who was twenty years her senior) would outlive her, made her will, the economy was in a very different state from now, and one could buy a pleasant small house in Canterbury (where I was living at the time) for around £60,000. It’s quite possible that that is the sort of sum that was invested; and if that were the case then a share of the capital, in today’s terms, would not be worth very much. But I just don’t know what I’m dealing with. I don’t know the figures. And I feel so morbid, brooding over this.
I won’t wallow in emotion for Pearl, beyond the general feeling one has of regret and sadness about a death. I didn’t know her well, but she was a nice old lady; and she was in her late nineties and had had a good innings. I hope I reach the same age in similar good health. I hope when I go people say “She was a nice old woman, and she had a good innings” – there are worse epitaphs, after all. Next time I lay my hands on some champagne I’ll drink a toast to her.
It’s a long-standing arrangement – my late godmother Joyce left a Trust to pay an income to her only living relative, an elderly cousin – her cousin has just died, and I am one of the residual beneficiaries. Because my eventual receipt of the money was dependent on Cousin Pearl’s death I have always refused to think about it – it felt uncomfortably like wishing her into her grave, and I was very ill at ease with that. It must, realistically, be a large enough sum that the arrangement was worth doing in the first place, but I have no idea what I am going to receive. I am suddenly reminded of Joyce and of how bitterly I missed her when she died, and of the shock of her death – she had been in remission from cancer and had seemed to be doing well, then suddenly had a relapse and was gone, bang…
Anyway, I am now struggling with solicitor’s letters and legal terminology to do with the administration of Trusts, and feeling upset and shaken, and wondering what on earth I will do with this money, and whether it will be enough to do something concrete, and how long it will take to resolve the matter and wind up the Trust… My mind feels as if it is boiling all the time. I’m fairly pissed-off with the combined smugness and inefficiency of the solicitors involved, who have simply assumed they will step in and act on my behalf, unrequested, despite the fact they are based in Axminster and I live in Ealing, barely five miles from the solicitors administering the Trust, who are in Teddington… If I have to have a solicitor act for me, I’d prefer to choose my own!
I’m supposed to be going down to my mother’s in Kent for the weekend and I’m hoping to be able to switch off and relax – but I fear Mum will not let me rest until matters are resolved to her satisfaction. She dislikes uncertainty even more than I do…
It’s extraordinary how something like this can throw one. My mind is constantly returning to the subject, turning it over as one forks over compost, as if adequate aeration will sort the problem out. I’m startled at how quickly I have been able to put more then twenty years of saying “I won’t think about that!” straight out of my head. Now I am thinking about it all the time.
I find myself veering between the hope that I will find I have come into enough money to take some real steps towards realising some of my dreams, and the reflection that I will probably get very much less, and that less solicitors’ fees, and then I will not know what to do with it. I am astonished at the feeling of buoyancy and relief that accompanies the thought of receiving a solid chunk of capital. But I have to remember that in 1983, when Joyce, not yet ill and probably never imagining her cousin (who was twenty years her senior) would outlive her, made her will, the economy was in a very different state from now, and one could buy a pleasant small house in Canterbury (where I was living at the time) for around £60,000. It’s quite possible that that is the sort of sum that was invested; and if that were the case then a share of the capital, in today’s terms, would not be worth very much. But I just don’t know what I’m dealing with. I don’t know the figures. And I feel so morbid, brooding over this.
I won’t wallow in emotion for Pearl, beyond the general feeling one has of regret and sadness about a death. I didn’t know her well, but she was a nice old lady; and she was in her late nineties and had had a good innings. I hope I reach the same age in similar good health. I hope when I go people say “She was a nice old woman, and she had a good innings” – there are worse epitaphs, after all. Next time I lay my hands on some champagne I’ll drink a toast to her.
Friday, 27 February 2009
The following Friday...
Well, another week at work winds along to its weary end (excuse the alliteration, coming upon me unawares…). I managed to drop out of the clinical trail before the official end – hurrah! – & over the course of the week my insides have slowly calmed down. I am now almost back to normal, digestively speaking. The search for new digs has not yet been fruitful, but I will go on and try not to get depressed about it.
Last night I saw “Das Leben der Anderen” (I hope I’ve spelled that right) and “Defiance” at the Riverside Studios. Both were excellent, and complementary to one another as Riverside’s film couplings usually are: A tense and intelligent thriller, brilliantly cast, moving, and deeply scary in places – but psychologically scary, not blood-&-guts scary; and an exciting action movie about a group of Jewish partisans in WW2, edge of the seat stuff with the wonderful Liev Schreiber stealing every scene he is in – by damn, he is a good actor!
Very, very tired, though, as I wasn’t in bed till nearly one a.m. Typing appallingly; if you could see the number of times I’ve gone back and corrected this... I’ll go home tonight and do some more appalling typing, I think. I’m about halfway through the revising and typing-up of “Ramundi’s Sisters”. Slowly slowly, as my dear Christian Scientist paternal grandmother used to say… The new piece has hit a sticky spot and I am scratching at it in my head, but getting nowhere as yet. While I wait for it to come unstuck, it’s good to have another project on the boil. I can wait - it’ll come. Slowly, slowly…
Sadly, I'm not sure how, I seem to have alienated the one official "Follower" of this blog. What did I do? Where did you go? & Will ye no come back again?
Last night I saw “Das Leben der Anderen” (I hope I’ve spelled that right) and “Defiance” at the Riverside Studios. Both were excellent, and complementary to one another as Riverside’s film couplings usually are: A tense and intelligent thriller, brilliantly cast, moving, and deeply scary in places – but psychologically scary, not blood-&-guts scary; and an exciting action movie about a group of Jewish partisans in WW2, edge of the seat stuff with the wonderful Liev Schreiber stealing every scene he is in – by damn, he is a good actor!
Very, very tired, though, as I wasn’t in bed till nearly one a.m. Typing appallingly; if you could see the number of times I’ve gone back and corrected this... I’ll go home tonight and do some more appalling typing, I think. I’m about halfway through the revising and typing-up of “Ramundi’s Sisters”. Slowly slowly, as my dear Christian Scientist paternal grandmother used to say… The new piece has hit a sticky spot and I am scratching at it in my head, but getting nowhere as yet. While I wait for it to come unstuck, it’s good to have another project on the boil. I can wait - it’ll come. Slowly, slowly…
Sadly, I'm not sure how, I seem to have alienated the one official "Follower" of this blog. What did I do? Where did you go? & Will ye no come back again?
Friday, 20 February 2009
Friday evening
Whoof, Friday already, thank goodness…
I’m on a list of volunteers for a clinical trial at the moment and am drinking a pot of sickly-sweet orange-flavouring-flavoured liquid each morning before breakfast – it’s a new health drink, supposedly intended to reduce hunger pangs and cravings between meals. Which it does, for me, by dint of giving me vile indigestion. I’m having trouble stomaching food at all, I feel so dreadful; I’m blown up with gas, am unable to help periodically belching like a marine, and am permanently uncomfortable with heartburn. If I’m in the control group, gods help me…
But I get two days off at the weekend. Thank goodness.
Let’s talk about something else.
Last night I was at the Royal Ballet; a triple bill, and a mixed bag. I’m a big fan of Zenaida Yanowsky, and “Seven Deadly Sins” was made on her; she’s just come back to work after a few months off, post-baby, and I was glad to see her in action again, but frankly I’m not that impressed with the ballet. It looked an awful lot to me like one deadly sin (guess which) in seven semi-differentiated forms. A very good cast, but basically uninvolving, and less-than-inspired choreography with far too many splayed legs.
The second piece was Mats Ek’s “Carmen” which was weird. Effective, but weird. A completely, deeply bizarre piece of work, a very peculiar set, thoroughly strange costumes, and very in-your-face, I-have-to-be-different choreography; but, in the end, powerful and convincing. Tamara Rojo was born to play Carmen, Lauren Cuthbertson was severe, snakily sinuous and creepy in the Micaëla role, and the blokes were all good. Oddly enough, though, the highlight of the piece was a terrific solo for a woman mourning the officer murdered by José, danced with riveting passion by a young lass called (I think) Melissa Hamilton.
Finally, and fabulously, Christopher Wheeldon’s “DGV - Dance à Grande Vitesse”. This was a real wow, a knockout, glorious piece of beautiful, exciting, almost totally non-narrative dancing, with a dazzling score by Michael Nyman. The corps were on the top of their game, and the octet of soloists I saw was to die for. Eric Underwood and Sergei Polunin are two bright young up-and-comings with great futures ahead of them. Leanne Benjamin was as wonderful as ever; Edward Watson was athletic and intense as usual and a joy to watch. Mara Galeazzi and Lauren Cuthbertson were also both excellent. For me the cream of the crop was young Ms Hamilton again, breathtakingly good in a big rôle full of twisting stretches and difficult balances, originally made for Darcey Bussell, and the marvellous Gary Avis partnering her with his usual excellent and attentive care. I’ve never understood why he isn’t a huge star; he’s tall and powerful but possessed of tremendous natural grace, has both strength and tenderness as a partner, can act, and is, in a quirky sort of way, very good looking, with strong facial bones and large eyes, and a sudden broad smile full of delight – a smile which came out rather a lot last night. This particular duet he and Melissa Hamilton danced was simply gorgeous. “DGV” lifted the evening from hit-and-miss to solid hit, and Mr Avis and Ms Hamilton lifted “DGV” from hit into absolute stunner.
I’m on a list of volunteers for a clinical trial at the moment and am drinking a pot of sickly-sweet orange-flavouring-flavoured liquid each morning before breakfast – it’s a new health drink, supposedly intended to reduce hunger pangs and cravings between meals. Which it does, for me, by dint of giving me vile indigestion. I’m having trouble stomaching food at all, I feel so dreadful; I’m blown up with gas, am unable to help periodically belching like a marine, and am permanently uncomfortable with heartburn. If I’m in the control group, gods help me…
But I get two days off at the weekend. Thank goodness.
Let’s talk about something else.
Last night I was at the Royal Ballet; a triple bill, and a mixed bag. I’m a big fan of Zenaida Yanowsky, and “Seven Deadly Sins” was made on her; she’s just come back to work after a few months off, post-baby, and I was glad to see her in action again, but frankly I’m not that impressed with the ballet. It looked an awful lot to me like one deadly sin (guess which) in seven semi-differentiated forms. A very good cast, but basically uninvolving, and less-than-inspired choreography with far too many splayed legs.
The second piece was Mats Ek’s “Carmen” which was weird. Effective, but weird. A completely, deeply bizarre piece of work, a very peculiar set, thoroughly strange costumes, and very in-your-face, I-have-to-be-different choreography; but, in the end, powerful and convincing. Tamara Rojo was born to play Carmen, Lauren Cuthbertson was severe, snakily sinuous and creepy in the Micaëla role, and the blokes were all good. Oddly enough, though, the highlight of the piece was a terrific solo for a woman mourning the officer murdered by José, danced with riveting passion by a young lass called (I think) Melissa Hamilton.
Finally, and fabulously, Christopher Wheeldon’s “DGV - Dance à Grande Vitesse”. This was a real wow, a knockout, glorious piece of beautiful, exciting, almost totally non-narrative dancing, with a dazzling score by Michael Nyman. The corps were on the top of their game, and the octet of soloists I saw was to die for. Eric Underwood and Sergei Polunin are two bright young up-and-comings with great futures ahead of them. Leanne Benjamin was as wonderful as ever; Edward Watson was athletic and intense as usual and a joy to watch. Mara Galeazzi and Lauren Cuthbertson were also both excellent. For me the cream of the crop was young Ms Hamilton again, breathtakingly good in a big rôle full of twisting stretches and difficult balances, originally made for Darcey Bussell, and the marvellous Gary Avis partnering her with his usual excellent and attentive care. I’ve never understood why he isn’t a huge star; he’s tall and powerful but possessed of tremendous natural grace, has both strength and tenderness as a partner, can act, and is, in a quirky sort of way, very good looking, with strong facial bones and large eyes, and a sudden broad smile full of delight – a smile which came out rather a lot last night. This particular duet he and Melissa Hamilton danced was simply gorgeous. “DGV” lifted the evening from hit-and-miss to solid hit, and Mr Avis and Ms Hamilton lifted “DGV” from hit into absolute stunner.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Tuesday afternoon.
Everyone at work wants to know why I’m moving; after all, I suppose when I first moved into this office I was hymning the praises of where I’m living at present, so it must seem a bit odd.
When I first moved there, about eighteen months ago, it felt like a real haven at what was a very stressful time in my life. But over the last six months or so my landlady Sandra has been getting more and more stressed, moody and generally volatile. I’ve been worried for her, but I was hoping that her upcoming holiday (to New Zealand for four and a half weeks) would give her the chance to relax and get her head together. She went away a week ago; a couple of days later I was remaking my bed and decided to turn my mattress, which I do about every six months. Underneath the mattress I found a large chunk of rose quartz crystal, which certainly was not there last time I turned the mattress and certainly was not put there by me; Sandra is the only person in the house who would have put it there.
For those who aren’t into alternative medicine, energy healing, etc, I’d better explain. Rose quartz is supposed to have a healing, heart-opening energy, highly beneficial to the fourth (heart) chakra. Wearing it or putting it in your pocket or under your pillow is meant to help in your relationships and make you a more loving and happy person. I don’t have any problem with the idea of being a more loving and happy person, and I’m pretty open-minded about alternative stuff generally – after all, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy”. But to put crystals under someone’s bed without telling them is, in alternative therapy terms, the equivalent of giving someone psychotropic drugs in their food without telling them. It is absolutely unethical and you just don’t do it. Ever. Full stop.
Adding this to the other problems and issues, like the fact that Sandra thinks it is okay to sleep in her lodgers’ room when they’re away (I find this totally unacceptable, but she thinks it’s totally normal), I suddenly thought “No more. I need to move on now.” And that is all there was to it.
Not that I’m enjoying looking for digs. I’ve already had several email-cons in reply to my adverts, which is really depressing… And the kind of place I can afford is not great. I'm off to look at somewhere tonight; keeping my fingers crossed. When I get home, whether or not it has been any good, at least I can get back to my writing for the rest of the evening.
It’s odd; when I first set up this blog, six months ago, I imagined (correctly) that I'd ramble a good deal about my life in general, but that the main creative thing I’d write about would be painting and drawing, my visual art work. Yet in fact at present I seem to be chronicling an extended and energetic phase of writing, and an increasing feeling of happiness with the fact that I am writing. I know I have my moods, just as I have phases in the kind of music I listen to, but I am feeling more and more that this is more than a mood; that it's a real rebirth. To be a writer was my earliest childhood dream (before even the dream of being a ballerina), and I cannot deny that it feels euphorically good to be reconnecting with it.
When I first moved there, about eighteen months ago, it felt like a real haven at what was a very stressful time in my life. But over the last six months or so my landlady Sandra has been getting more and more stressed, moody and generally volatile. I’ve been worried for her, but I was hoping that her upcoming holiday (to New Zealand for four and a half weeks) would give her the chance to relax and get her head together. She went away a week ago; a couple of days later I was remaking my bed and decided to turn my mattress, which I do about every six months. Underneath the mattress I found a large chunk of rose quartz crystal, which certainly was not there last time I turned the mattress and certainly was not put there by me; Sandra is the only person in the house who would have put it there.
For those who aren’t into alternative medicine, energy healing, etc, I’d better explain. Rose quartz is supposed to have a healing, heart-opening energy, highly beneficial to the fourth (heart) chakra. Wearing it or putting it in your pocket or under your pillow is meant to help in your relationships and make you a more loving and happy person. I don’t have any problem with the idea of being a more loving and happy person, and I’m pretty open-minded about alternative stuff generally – after all, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy”. But to put crystals under someone’s bed without telling them is, in alternative therapy terms, the equivalent of giving someone psychotropic drugs in their food without telling them. It is absolutely unethical and you just don’t do it. Ever. Full stop.
Adding this to the other problems and issues, like the fact that Sandra thinks it is okay to sleep in her lodgers’ room when they’re away (I find this totally unacceptable, but she thinks it’s totally normal), I suddenly thought “No more. I need to move on now.” And that is all there was to it.
Not that I’m enjoying looking for digs. I’ve already had several email-cons in reply to my adverts, which is really depressing… And the kind of place I can afford is not great. I'm off to look at somewhere tonight; keeping my fingers crossed. When I get home, whether or not it has been any good, at least I can get back to my writing for the rest of the evening.
It’s odd; when I first set up this blog, six months ago, I imagined (correctly) that I'd ramble a good deal about my life in general, but that the main creative thing I’d write about would be painting and drawing, my visual art work. Yet in fact at present I seem to be chronicling an extended and energetic phase of writing, and an increasing feeling of happiness with the fact that I am writing. I know I have my moods, just as I have phases in the kind of music I listen to, but I am feeling more and more that this is more than a mood; that it's a real rebirth. To be a writer was my earliest childhood dream (before even the dream of being a ballerina), and I cannot deny that it feels euphorically good to be reconnecting with it.
Monday, 16 February 2009
Monday...
...and a bad dose of that Monday-feeling.
I've decided to bite the bullet - I need to move away from the place I'm living at the moment - and I've started looking for somewhere new. I hate house-hunting, and the bizarre experiences I had eighteen months ago when I had to move at short notice were fairly traumatic, which only adds to the sense of doom and dread. If anyone reading this is thinking of letting their spare room or knows someone who is renting out a room in the Ealing, Acton, or Turnham Green areas, or in Richmond upon Thames or Mortlake, please let me know!
On the good side, saw the wonderful ENO production of "The Magic Flute" at the weekend, and was totally knocked out and blown away by it. It's perfect, everything a "Zauberflöte" should be - and since it is one of my all-time favourite operas that is saying something! Their only problem is a rather dodgy, swoopy Queen of Night; but to compensate they have a truly marvellous Papageno (better than Keenlyside, believe it or not) in Roderick Williams. I could burble for ages about how wonderful he was, and about the whole production, which is magical and fairy-tale-like and yet profoundly moving. The trials by fire and water are really believable for once - I think every other production I've seen (including the first, at my elder brother's school!) has come a cropper with staging this bit. The sets and costumes are lovely. It's extremely funny in all the right places, yet brings up goosebumps of real awe in all the right places, too. The Tamino and Pamina (Robert Murray and Sarah-Jane Davis) are both excellent. I cried with joy at the end. And Roderick Williams is, I repeat, wonderful. And decidedly gorgeous!
How incredible it must be, to have talent like that; a voice like warm dark honey and that kind of acting ability, plus good looks, and then on top of all that to possess the strength of character to realise your abilities and make full use of them... Lucky, happy Mr Williams...
On a more creativity-inclined note, I'm startled and rather proud to announce that I have I think finished the last revision of GY; and promptly got stuck in to typing up something else, an older piece of writing that is in need of some serious revision itself but stands up well to the re-examination. Title, "Ramundi's Sisters". Watch this space.
I've decided to bite the bullet - I need to move away from the place I'm living at the moment - and I've started looking for somewhere new. I hate house-hunting, and the bizarre experiences I had eighteen months ago when I had to move at short notice were fairly traumatic, which only adds to the sense of doom and dread. If anyone reading this is thinking of letting their spare room or knows someone who is renting out a room in the Ealing, Acton, or Turnham Green areas, or in Richmond upon Thames or Mortlake, please let me know!
On the good side, saw the wonderful ENO production of "The Magic Flute" at the weekend, and was totally knocked out and blown away by it. It's perfect, everything a "Zauberflöte" should be - and since it is one of my all-time favourite operas that is saying something! Their only problem is a rather dodgy, swoopy Queen of Night; but to compensate they have a truly marvellous Papageno (better than Keenlyside, believe it or not) in Roderick Williams. I could burble for ages about how wonderful he was, and about the whole production, which is magical and fairy-tale-like and yet profoundly moving. The trials by fire and water are really believable for once - I think every other production I've seen (including the first, at my elder brother's school!) has come a cropper with staging this bit. The sets and costumes are lovely. It's extremely funny in all the right places, yet brings up goosebumps of real awe in all the right places, too. The Tamino and Pamina (Robert Murray and Sarah-Jane Davis) are both excellent. I cried with joy at the end. And Roderick Williams is, I repeat, wonderful. And decidedly gorgeous!
How incredible it must be, to have talent like that; a voice like warm dark honey and that kind of acting ability, plus good looks, and then on top of all that to possess the strength of character to realise your abilities and make full use of them... Lucky, happy Mr Williams...
On a more creativity-inclined note, I'm startled and rather proud to announce that I have I think finished the last revision of GY; and promptly got stuck in to typing up something else, an older piece of writing that is in need of some serious revision itself but stands up well to the re-examination. Title, "Ramundi's Sisters". Watch this space.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Thursday ...
Thursday lunchtime; reheated vegetarian haggis. My appetite is improving, which is good – today I looked at my plate and thought “That looks alright” whereas yesterday my feeling was more “Oh dear, I suppose I’d better eat something…” But I’ve had a nasty gippy stomach since Sunday afternoon, and it’s good just to be more like myself after the I-am-a-rung-out-dishcloth feeling that gastric trouble tends to leave me with.
I spent yesterday evening quietly sitting down and getting on with some revision. Not exam revision (wake up at the back there); I’m revising GY for the third and, I am beginning to allow myself to hope, last time. Revising your own writing is such a tricky, tricky game; I cringe away from it in dread and look for procrastination opportunities almost anywhere (bar the ironing). It's necessary to be in a frame of mind that is both critical and detached; but, at least if you are me, the critical tends to leap to the front, waving her rifle like Delacroix’ Liberty, ready to shoot everything that moves. One has to be both able to be completely ruthless about the excision of every bit of weak prose or flannelly excess, while simultaneously being quietly kind to oneself in order to counteract the tendency to decry everything one has ever done as total BullS**t. It’s a strange juggling act.
I was brought up not to praise myself, and to assume I had done things wrong, or at least a lot less well than I ought to have done them, and I guess this is the characteristic that kicks in. I start re-reading a piece of my own writing, and a whole Euripidean chorus of criticism begins shouting in my mind. At times it is almost literally like stichomythia, every sentence the subject of a smart retort (invariably negative) from the interior textual demolition team. A few months ago, working on the second revision, I was frequently completely convinced that GY was the proverbial pile of pants. I battled on as much out of sheer bloody-minded stubbornness as any conviction that anyone would ever find anything to enjoy in this witless heap of self-indulgent tosh…
Oddly, feeling slightly under-par seems to have helped. The revision has reached the stage where one finally has to say “It’s no good, I don’t need two adjectives there”, and “It doesn’t need another reference to Simon’s hair!”, and “This paragraph is floppy, I must tighten it up”. To my surprise and pleasure my brain last night seemed to be up to this task, and settled to it with a discipline and a calm I cannot always count upon.
One thing I’m aware of is that, funnily enough, my background in visual art helps me here. Compared with trying to “revise” a painting or a drawing, where at any moment any single stroke may ruin the whole completely irreparably, tweaking a piece of writing is much less alarming. I revise a lot as I write, at first draft level, simply because it is so easy to – try it this way, then try it that way, then try turning the whole thing around, then go back to the first way and see if that reads better now… It’s rather like running through one’s lines when one is in a play, thinking through how to stress things, how much one can lift or lower a particular word, how much (to be blunt) one can milk something touching without overdoing it. The actor can revise repeatedly at rehearsal; the writer can do draft after draft, cover every page of the manuscript with notes... The artist wielding a stick of charcoal can simply get it right, hold their balance and ride the wave, or cock it up. Excuse the mixed metaphors there.
Thinking of actors, I just learned something peculiarly pleasing. Going back through GY again reminded me of the actor who I’d love to see playing Simon Cenarth, a red-haired bloke from Ulster called William Houston. A girl can dream! That's him at the top, looking appropriately grim as Coriolanus at the RSC. I looked him up online to see if he is likely to be reappearing on the London stage or on tele in the near future, and found an old interview with him, in which he said that one of his ambitions is to appear in “Duck Variations”, one of my favourite plays (it’s a delightful piece, a quirky, technically rather difficult and quietly moving comedy). The last piece of art I had exhibited was actually called “Duck Variations” in its honour. I felt extraordinarily pleased by this. He also said his favourite holiday destination was the Greek Islands, which I can relate to, goodness knows… He sounded like a nice fellow, all in all; intelligent and articulate, if perhaps a trifle intense. And he’s a bloody good actor; he’d be perfect as Simon.
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