Metamorphosis

Last night I went to the extraordinary "Metamorphosis Titian 2012" at the Royal Ballet.  Three new pieces, all with amazing design, wonderful new music, and great dancing.  Fab-u-lous! Several of my favourite dancers going flat out with utter genius.  A farewell role almost worthy of her for Tamara Rojo (unless she makes a come-back or does guest spots - you won't hear complaints from me if she does either or both!) as an imperiously beautiful, invulnerable-yet-fragile goddess, battling Ed Watson even as she reached out to him...  A well-deserved chance for the marvelous Melissa Hamilton to be a goddess, too; a glacial, sphinx-like one, curling and uncurling her feet like a lioness's claws.  Wonderful conjunctions and twistings-together of different choreographers' styles; Brandstrup + MacGregor making a particularly juicy combination.  A giant dancing machine like Epstein's Rock Drill come to life, whirring and stabbing at Carlos Acosta as he leaped and stretched himself out before it.  I could go on (and on...) but you get the idea.

Cracking good stuff, and a fine end to the RB season.  Since it was broadcast to the Big Screens as well, I can even hope they might release it as a dvd some day...

Wrote on the tube there and back, and in the intervals, and at Patisserie Valerie while I ate my salad. Would have written more when I got home, but was too tired - so went to bed and then couldn't sleep, wired with images of Acosta and the Machine, Ed and the Goddess, and all the colours and reflections and shapes and sensualities and dangers of three really terrific new ballets in one evening..

Erratic progress...

I'm exactly halfway through the second notebook.  If they hold approximately 16,000 words each, then that means I'm roughly at the 24,000-word mark.  It's taken me precisely one month.  I guess that means my NaNoWriMo month isn't November but June-into-July (& hopefully onwards into August).  No matter.  It's making up for the collapse of my "something creative every day" project, earlier in the year, to have something like this just burning to get out.

It's maddening, really, to have to come in and do an honest day's work!  Rah, I just want to write...  The plot is unfolding itself steadily, I still like my protagonists, and I am going to have to do a lot of revising at some point because it is all coming out so fast I can't keep up.  Thorn and Carlton are about to be thrown into having to collaborate (they don't like one another very much) after the heroine gets herself into some very deep sh*t indeed.  Oh, I'm so happy when I'm in the flow like this...  Just let it come (don't bang the drum...).

I read something on facebook that recommended "listening to music you haven't heard before" as a good trigger to creativity.  It sounded a good plan.  So I played the "bonus discs" that came with some albums I've had for ages.  I know that sounds silly, but when I bought "This is the Sea" it was because I wanted to listen to "This is the Sea", not for some other stuff.  And, at least where that was concerned, I now know it was the right decision.  The bonus disc has actually diminished my respect for Mike Scott, as it makes it painfully clear he thinks everything he does is genius, including odd bits of guitar-strumming in what sounds, from the accoustic, like the bathroom.

The bonus discs of The Icicle Works re-releases, on the other hand, are revelatory.  How come tracks as brilliant as "Devil on Horseback" never made it onto regular albums?  My god, they were so f*cking good...  Chris Sharrock's drumming is awe-inspiring.  One looks at him in the band photos, and he looks like an elf-child (well, an elf with drummer's arms); but by damn, the power he could stir up when he got going.  Sheer mightiness.

Lush life

Sometimes I think I work in Paradise - or an offcut of it, anyway.  At the moment, the Gardens are a sheer sensory feast; everywhere I turn, everything I touch...  I am on overload already, Muse-driven and buzzing as I am, and the intensity of a simple walk to the café and back is almost too much.

Textures, patterns, colours, smells; tactile and visual, the pleasing and the startling.  All that is richest is here.

The elegance of a Metasequoia, its form all repeat patterns moving from the macro to the micro level -and then the shock of its silken touch.  One imagines all conifer needles must be equally as sharp and prickling, yet these are like velvet.  The lovely random strewings of new mown grass across the lawns; and the cut-grass scent rising in the damp air.   Black veins on the blazing magenta of Geranium sanguineum, and gold-dust pollen on the rust-red flowers of day lilies.  Perfumes of  lavender and cedar, of roses and pine resin, of escallonia in the sun and wet leaves in the shade.  The spiral-crinkled top of my Chelsea bun, veiled in powder sugar.  The unfolding waves of different tastes and different sugarinesses, and different textures crisp and soft, in my mouth, as I unroll it and eat. 

The big wisteria on the back of the building next to the office is having a second flush of blossom, and as you pass it the scent comes down and envelops you; sweet and smoky at once, like acacia honey and Laphroaig mixed.  Everywhere you go, it is delicious and sensual being at Kew at this time of year.  Bring your heart, your eyes, and all of your senses, flung wide open in expectation of pleasures; and of course, bring your camera...

Conjunctions

I sorted out my Dvd collection a couple of evenings ago.

When I moved, I simply unpacked them straight onto the shelf and left them anyhows.  Now they are tidy, and I can find what I want.  I still have to face the cds, and of course the contents of the bookcase.  Neither of them is in any sort of order either, though to a certain degree the cds are arranging themselves over time, as the things I am listening to a lot at the moment are working their way to the top.  Six months down the line I'll probably be spitting because all my Schubert has got shoved to the back and all I can find is west African steel-string guitar and kora groups and mid-eighties rock...

Sorting out the dvds was rather fun, to my surprise.  I had wondered about categorising them, but wasn't sure where some of the boundaries should go (for example, what do you label "Rashomon"? Art House?  Classic? Foreign?).  In the end I gave up on the urge to adapt the Plessy system, and went for a completely straightforward alphabetical order by title.  This puts opera, ballet, obscure art house stuff and delicious popcorn all on one level.   The shelf begins with "Aeon Flux" and ends with "Die Zauberflöte", and you could say that's what I'm all about - the full spectrum, from Charlize Theron with a ray gun to Mozart. 

Seriously, if I had set out to buy dvds with no greater aim than demonstrating my much-boasted eclectic taste, I don't think I could have chosen better.  Picking one letter of the alphabet, the Ms are: "The Mahabharata", "The Marriage of Figaro", "A Matter of Life and Death", "Mayerling", and "Mission Impossible". 

I also discovered that at some point I have lent someone "The Princess Bride" and not got it back; and  didn't record who had it.  I am a numpty. 

The bookcase is similarly jumbled at the moment; "Olive Oil - the Key to Long Life and Health", "Lieutenant Hornblower", "Strolling through Istanbul", the libretto of "Pelléas et Mélisande", "Let the Right One in"...  But emptying and re-arranging a whole bookcase is rather a mammoth job.  I may continue to be a chicken for a while longer where that is concerned.

Meanwhile back to the writing.  Thorn has just received an alarming telepathic message from a former student and is rather worried.  I left him worried last night and now I want to restore his peace of mind, but I don't think the plot is going that way. He's going to get a lot more worried before this day is out...

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.

Busy bee with 14,000 words (& counting)

I’m not complaining, honest I’m not. 

I know I sometimes write these rather coy-sounding messages about the Muse having visited me, and maybe the metaphor reads as pretty damned pretentious (or, as someone in an interview I read recently put it “this is going to make me sound like a dick”).  

I can only apologise.  That is how it feels to me; and I’m about to not just extend that metaphor but take it out for a long stroll as well.  The Muse came to visit in mid-June, and she has stuck around ever since, running me ragged.  I’m ecstatic, having her around all the time like this, but I am also getting really tired.

I’ve written about 14,000 words so far, and it’s still coming.  On my ten minute walk into work in the morning, I think about the story.  I run through dialogue, mouthing the characters’ words, to the amusement of passing bus drivers.  In my lunch break I think about the story, and on my way home, and while I cook supper.  I eat in the persona of one or the other of the protagonists, feeling the ghost of their muscles overlaying my own.  The story is inhabiting me; I am possessed by it.  And yet at the same time it is also constantly running ahead of me, teasing, springing out of reach when I hold out my hands to embrace it.  I want to thump it.  I want to grab it and pin it down.  I want to yell at it; “Get yourself under control, godammit!” 

Sometimes I want to tell this elusive mayfly of a Muse that I am getting too old for this kind of shenanigans.  But I don’t; I never will.  I’ll work all night, I’ll turn to drink, I’ll put down anything she gives me and I’ll be grateful. 

When she goes away, sometimes it is for just long enough to give me a real notion of what life without her would be.  Never again to know her blessed, blinding, mercurial presence; the thought is intolerable.  So I toil on in her wake, following as fast as my weak human flesh will let me. 

This latest visit, most nights sometime between midnight and one a.m. we have a conversation that goes something like this:

Me >yawn<

The Muse: (sharpish) You tired?

Me: >mumble< sorry >mumble< really sleepy.

The Muse: Holy sh*te, am I going to have to keep stopping for you like this?  But we were right in the swing of things!  C’mon, just a few pages more.

Me: >mumb...le...<

The Muse.  Well buggeration.  Okay, okay, go to sleep then...

I swear, it’s like being tormented by someone you love past all reason.  And the gods only know what all this gives away about me, psychologically! 

Whenever the Muse comes back after an absence, it is always with a new face.  The sense of energy I feel when she arrives is exhilarating.  It’s like being in love.  All I want is to make something that is worthy of her and worthy of the face she has chosen.  I’m not complaining; honest I’m not.  I love this better than anything I’ve ever known.  It is what I was made to do.  But I wish I had more energy, and I wish there were more hours in the day.

Out of nowhere, they appear...

It is extraordinary, how a thing can simply not exist – never have existed – and then suddenly be there. 

I know the imagination is fed by many springs, and its outflow prompted by the oddest conjunctions of events.  A myriad tiny elements come together, and suddenly a story springs from the ground and runs away downhill, with characters and scenarios bubbling forth, alive and vivid in the sun.  In the absence of any one of those elements, perhaps the story would never well up at all; perhaps it would stay buried in one’s mind, deep in the underground water table of thought. 

But as it is, the elements do conjoin, and there it is; and it feels as though this one thing has come into being from nothing.  All other matter comes from previous states of matter.  Only the imagination seems to come out of nowhere and no-thing, the goddess Athena springing fully armed and extremely lively from the forehead of Zeus. 

I have been writing steadily for the last ten days.  Eleven days ago, Anna Maple, Thorn Reynolds and Carlton Truro did not exist, and nor did Jasper Jarvis, who is what I believe is referred-to as the principal antagonist.  They had no past and no future, their fears and hopes did not exist, nor their courage, nor their frustrations and losses; and Anna had never tucked her amulet inside her collar, and Thorn had never hated Vegas, or had two of his ribs cracked by a scrupulously thuggish lab technician... 

In a way it’s rather irritating.  I was halfway through two stories that had been going well, when the Muse took a vacation.  She didn’t like the stressed-out Imogen who was house-share-hunting and trying to move in a hurry.  She left me painfully aware that if I went on with those two stories I would be forcing things that just weren’t ready to grow any more at the moment. 

Then out of nowhere the Muse comes back, finds me sitting on a number 237 bus, and presents me with this.  She’s like a big kid (I hope she won’t be offended with me for saying so!); she’s more interested in the new story, so that’s the one I have to write.  She teases me with the idea that if I give this some attention, she’ll help me along with “Midnight in the Café Tana” as well - in a while, once this new story is in good shape.  But “in good shape” may mean “first draft completed”.

Oh well, we’ll see.  In the meantime, I can see that I’m going to get fond of bottled-up, impulsive Anna and bloody-minded Thorn.  But I feel already as if I have known them for years, yet they have existed for less than a fortnight.   It’s just so weird.