Triumph!

I didn’t post yesterday as I was too busy resting on my laurels, as they say!

Thursday’s open mic night went brilliantly, far better than I anticipated: we had about 10 performers (most got up more than once), ran for an hour and a half, the venue was full and at the end a number of people asked when I was arranging the next one. And when I said November, they wanted one sooner!!

It was a huge relief, and a real buzz.

We had mostly poetry, a mix of self-penned originals and recitation of published works, but also some singing and storytelling.  For a small community, we have a lot of talent!

I can’t say how happy I am that our event was so well received; I only expected about 5 people to turn up (3 of them my family!) so to have a full house was way beyond my imagination!

Now I have to start thinking about next time!

Happy writing,

EJ

🙂

 

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A Little Bit of Convincing

I apologise for the lack of a Thursday post – I was unwell and forgot to do a deferral!

This week I have been trying to drum up interest in the open mic.

There is more still to do: it takes a number of forms – communication with the writing group, a request for a reminder to all the people going to the emergency event scheduled at the same time (we have moved our start time to avoid overlap!), a message out to friends and family on facebook, posters at strategic points…

But possibly the most fun was a discussion with some waverers at the local pub, where we made a deal: if I would sing on the karaoke that night, they would read something at the open mic.

So I sang, and now I have two more performers on my schedule!

Other than that, it hasn’t been a great week for writing.  We are busy preparing for the family wedding, there have been medical appointments, late nights at work, the return to table tennis, which we’ve missed for a long time; basically, there’s been too much to fit in so writing got sidelined a little.

Still, I might not need so many pieces to read now I have my extra performers!

I am working on the basis of each performance being between 2-4 minutes long, and we have around an hour to an hour and a half for the set as a whole.  So with a couple of songs, a few musical interludes, and about 10 poems (read slowly) we’ll be ok!

The most important thing is not to worry, but to enjoy: we’re there to have an entertaining evening and hopefully encourage a few extra people to have a go at writing.

Failing that, I guess we bring out the karaoke again!

Happy writing,

EJ

🙂

 

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A New Narrative

Last night was a very late night which  I spent working with a friend on a plan for our artistic futures.

We talked about inspiration, ideas, plans for performing and so on, and one of the things we discussed was how to introduce a performance.

I am not entirely sure why, but this conversation got me really inspired and I have been working on a poem today.  What with my newspaper tales, my sofa-cushion discovery and this, I am starting to pull together a few related poems which create a narrative that is all about noticing the world around us and I am really excited about it.

It’s not only the pleasure of creating something new, but the way this series enables me to explore issues of importance.  I have been trying to do this for a long time, with limited success, and it finally feels like it is coming together.

I will be working on the series for a while and leaving the prose alone for now: I have a few opportunities to showcase my work and I would be really happy to showcase something new and exciting.

As we plan a few joint performances and the set list for those starts to take shape, I will also be very interested to see if the poems work as well as standalone pieces as I think they will together.

Writing is a strange beast, but if I get these right it will create beautiful offspring!

Happy writing,

EJ

🙂

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The End of the (Acting) Affair?

Panto season is over and I will be free to catch up with my writing and coursework next week.

I have spent some time reflecting on the experience over the last few weeks and it seems to me that the balance of effort to outcome, of writing time lost to benefit gained, may be a little out of kilter.

Has it helped my writing?  Yes, in some ways it has, as I said on Thursday.  It has also given me ideas for future scenes and stories and put me in touch with some very interesting people who may be able to help me in the future.

But time is finite and I have to start thinking about where it can best be used.  Months of rehearsals and planning meetings have led me to the conclusion that I need to reconsider my dramatic interludes.

I am not a performance poet, or a regular public reader, and I know that I need to improve my presentation skills for readings and to build my confidence in sharing my work.  In theory, acting could help with this. However, in reality I don’t think this is the case.  Acting (as we do it) is comedic, unpolished and a team effort.  It is not refined or professional enough to bring to a poetry reading.

Furthermore, being yourself on stage, sharing your own thoughts, is somewhat different to playing a character and reciting someone else’s words.  When I act I feel nervous and embarrassed before going on stage. When I read my own work I feel anxious, exposed and vulnerable.  It matters so much more that the two are almost incomparable.

So from a writing point of view I lose more in time than I gain in skills.

On a personal basis I miss writing in those weeks I don’t do it: I don’t have the right balance in life.  Acting feeds my need to be creative but not my need to develop and explore my own ideas.  It doesn’t fulfil me or challenge me to be better because it doesn’t matter.

I act for fun: writing is a need.  If I have any doubt about what I should and shouldn’t agree to in the future that distinction should help!

In other news – after a short hiatus writing group is back soon and the plan for an open mike event is taking shape, so I hope to have more on that next time!

Happy writing,

EJ

🙂

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Free Post Thursday -Purpose

This week is my drama show and every night is dedicated to trying desperately to act the part of a competent performer.

It’s funny that one of the biggest learning points from my current course is about purpose, and yet I only really got my head around it by being in the drama group.

Every movement in a scene has to have purpose – we are moving left to right to reveal something, conceal something, interact with something.

That is true of writing, but somehow it is easier to learn from physical experience than it is from academic instruction.

Purpose means cutting words that add nothing, replacing words with better ones, making every word in your story count. Purpose means each scene, each sentence in fact, brings something to the story that needs to be there.

This is a lesson I learnt in principle but am not always great at applying to my prose.  I feel in control of purpose in poetry but I can’t apply the skills across my stories and I really don’t know why.

It’s probably in the revision phase, but I haven’t got to the updated study on that yet…

If I can keep in mind what I have understood about purpose on stage and can apply it consistently and appropriately on the page, I am sure it will have a significant impact on the quality of my output.

Watch this space…

Happy writing,

EJ

🙂

 

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Free Post Thursday – Cultural Interlude!

I didn’t go to my theatre-at-the-cinema trip this week due to my poorly husband not being able to come with me so today I wanted to share an alternative snippet of theatre as an alternative…

Here’s a bit of Wolf Hall, not as tv, but as a stage show.  I love this scene because it’s stripped back, and all that matters is how the characters interact.  That’s part of the magic of theatre – as an audience member, belief is suspended and all that you can see is the performance.  Wonderful!

Happy viewing!

EJ

🙂

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Week 124 – The end (of the year) is nigh!

With barely more than 48 hours left of 2013, I have been looking at this year’s progress and where I need to get to in the next few weeks.

This time last year, I was still working on the family tree novel.  Now, after the waiting game I’ve played with agents, I have decided to speed up the agent approaches and work out a timetable for possible self-publishing.  It’s still not my preference but I didn’t write the book to let it sit in a drawer for the rest of my life!

I now want to give some attention to increasing my public profile. My blog merrily flows onwards but I really need to gain more followers; I should sort out a Facebook and twitter account. This is all possible outside of my personal pages so I’ll target those things for January.

As part of that, I’ll add more of my own prose to the blog for feedback and comments to see what I need to improve, and what works well.

Alongside that I want to do more poetry performances and perhaps make them a regular event – say once a quarter so I have time to write new material. As the poetry exists under my own name and not my writing name, I can keep the two separate which will please any agent I do eventually secure!

But all good things must end, and I think I’ll have to start looking for paid work in the new year too – it’ll mean less time for writing but looking on the positive side, it’ll give me new things to write about!  Besides, I am saving up for something important and it’ll all be worth it!

In other news – Book number 14 on the 100 best novels list is Vanity Fair.  I think I’ve read it, and I’ve certainly watched both tv and film versions of it!  I can’t remember much about it though so I think it might be one I go back to.

And finally – I’d like to wish you all a happy, peaceful and creative 2014.  This year has been difficult at times, but there has also been love, laughter and happiness – and a great sense of camaraderie, including on WordPress.  I want to thank you all for commenting, reading and liking posts, and following the blog 🙂

Until next year – happy writing!

EJ

🙂

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Week 122.5 – Behold the Ballet

I said on Sunday that I was away; well, the reason for that was a trip to the ballet to watch The Nutcracker.

The last time I watched a professional ballet (as far as I remember) I was really very young – maybe four or five, something like that. I know it was at night and I got tired and fell asleep but there are a couple of elements I remember. It was an outside performance, at a castle with a moat. We were a long way back, but the dancers were well lit.

I think it was Swan Lake – all I remember of the costumes was white tutus.

I say I remember these things – it’s entirely possible that it’s all just an impression I took away and nothing to do with the reality of the evening at all!  But from an inspiration point of view, it doesn’t really matter. The ballet was a magical thing, and I remember the movements of the dancers as though they were silk threads weaving in the breeze.

As an adult, there is more to inspire me. The dancers are fluid, and yet incredibly strong with sharply defined muscles. The female dancers are almost ethereally delicate, yet when they wear their special shoes to dance en pointe, their landings are loud and sound almost wooden.  The costumes are light but weighted with crystals. The make up is heavy, and yet subtle (from where we were sitting anyway!).

It was still magical, but now I am aware how much work went into making it so.  The artistry is not just in the performance of the dancers but in the whole team – from musicians to hair and makeup to costume to set decorators.  As in any creative endeavour, the whole is more than the sum of its parts – but without any one of those parts it wouldn’t be complete.

That’s knowledge that I can use as a writer, and appreciate as an audience member.

Until next time,

Happy writing

EJ

🙂

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Week 113.5 – Open mikes and opening up

Today two positive writerly things have happened.   Well, more than two actually, but two that are important for the purposes of this post!

Firstly, I went to an open mike event, which was a lot of fun. I read one of my poems in a new style and it worked much better; it’s funny but in a wry grin rather than a belly laugh way, so I read it with different inflections and I was really happy with it.

The second is that I was asked to do another performance of the same style as the weekend’s event ie music and poetry over an afternoon session.

How are these relevant to an inspiration post, you ask?  And, why am I talking about them both?

It’s all about inspiring you to get out there.

I’ve said repeatedly that the performance side of things is really hard for me; I’d be happy to read work by others, I think, but I feel very exposed reading my own poetry, so the more I do it, and the more I try things out, the more I can see what works and what doesn’t.  Most of my poetry is serious, but I am aware that I read some poems as though I’m reading the news and that’s not great from an audience point of view!

Using open mike events to see how people respond is useful.  Tonight I learnt that my planned poem introduction for one piece didn’t work, but the new style of reading got a specific response from virtually the whole audience (‘aah’, in this case – the bunch of romantics!).  Until tonight I hadn’t had a response like that to the poem, and now I know what works.

So before my next performance, I’ll practice reading at these events and with someone whose responses can be used to measure the success or failure of an attempt.  I have to remember that my performance is a type of acting, and I have to act the part of a confident performer!  The more I do it, the better I’ll get.

I have been promised a workshop on performing poetry by someone with 30 plus years of experience, so that should help too…

I’m sure I sound like a broken record on this, saying yet again that you should just go and do things.  But it’s true.

My experiences show that even when you are nervous, lacking in confidence or frankly terrified of performing, you can improve.  You can use open mikes to develop your confidence, try out new styles and listen critically to your work.  Then, when the chance comes to perform you might do it better than you thought, and be asked to do it all over again.  And you’ll be using those open mikes to refine your performance for the next time.

If you make a life as a poet or writer, you will have to read your work in public one day.  Preparing yourself is the best tool you have for getting through it successfully.

Happy writing,

EJ

🙂

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Week 113 – Speak slowly and breathe…

I did it – my first proper, formal, public poetry reading is done. And I’m typing, so I must have stopped shaking…

What an afternoon!  I started with my newest poem, and in reading it out had a horrible whoosh of what I will refer to as performance anxiety thinking it wasn’t really ready to present.  I have rushed to get it finished, or at least presentable, and I just don’t think it’s refined enough to read in an open forum yet. I take that sense of incompleteness very seriously and it put me off my stride.

Once that was out of the way, my friend sang one of her songs and I had time to collect myself a little bit, and the rest of the afternoon was a lot smoother. The next poem I read was a very familiar one and from there on in it was a case of remembering to speak slowly, breathe – and project my voice because there were issues with the microphone.

It’s done, and I’m glad to get it under my belt, and I now have to decide if I ever want to do another!  I feel quite exposed doing poetry – not only is it more physically intimate than blogging, but it’s also more personal in terms of how I am addressed and how I am expected to behave.  It’s as much about performance as it is ability to write, and I have never considered myself a great orator.  Maybe I don’t just need public speaking tuition – I should do acting classes as well 🙂

I am however utterly exhausted.  I didn’t realise how tiring the afternoon would be, and how much it would take out of me, and now I just want to go to bed!

However, I’ll do one ‘in other news’ just for you! – I found this article about lost words, and following on from the news that twerk made it into the OED in August 2013, it reminded me how much language changes and mutates over time.  Of course some words are commonly used and will probably stay in use for centuries (the, and, at are some of the more obvious examples!) but will other words we use now?  One of my favourite words is flibbertigibbet  and I’m convinced this will fade out of use within the next hundred or so years because other words have taken over from it.  Whether twerk lasts as long as waltz remains to be seen, but it’s a good lesson in keeping our language appropriate for the historical setting of our stories.

Now I must go and rest up, it’s been a very long day!  After this weekend I’m back into novel 2 to get that ready for the end of November’s deadline.  Watch this space…

Happy writing,

EJ

🙂

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