Bloody Typical

I was going to stick a draft of a scene up here and force you all to read it but you have been saved from this thanks to different editions of word.

Mostly over this month I have become preoccupied with The King and I, yes. that old film with Yul Bremmer in it. Oh, and Ginger Rodgers and Fred Astire Movies... but thats more about buying a box set for three quid.

Baby has so many things now its unreal! Seems a shame that its all here and he is not!

Sunday, Sunday here again, a walk in the park...

I think I’ve just has the best Sunday ever and its going to continue. I got up and 7am this morning, went to Croft car boot sale, bought various tat (one of these things being a video of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Junior), came home, had a full English breakfast and then promptly went back to bed until 2.30pm. Currently the boys (HM and his equally retarded brother) are downstairs making mess. One bought a Comadore 64 but is too retarded to figure out how it plugs in, the other bought the Game of Life. Something I had as a child but never figured out how to play.

No writing. I’m off to watch Arnie movies and waste time. That’s what Sunday’s are for.

Wow! it let me sign in!!!

Since returning from France Blogger has denied me access to this blog, replacing it with a series of links that seem to mean nothing. I've had massive problems with Blogger before and should really get to grips with something that is more effective a reliable, but seem to find it overwhelmingly confusing and forgettable.

Anyway, an update:

• I finished a short story who's main premise was to simply write what my imagination threw up at that time. I began it a few months ago and left it as inspiration slumped, but it's finished now. Personally I think its ok. its a totally different style, tone and feeling to most other things I've written and its a refreshing change for me.
  
• I have begun an article about pregnancy and how it corresponds to feminism for a small German magazine.
  
• i began with the play - cutting three characters and inventing the character of Kate who works on a train. I've set it on the train. it's a first class carriage that has been declassified so anyone can sit there. its still shit and i don't really feel the "burn" for it yet, but I have to write it, no matter how naff it turns out.
  

Mama Og

The moral dilemma of selling your soul, roots and story to the BBC.

When pitching 2 different stories to the BBC last month a genuine interest arose from one over the other. This current story I am now writing and consequently selling has its roots in Hokkien Chinese Singapore, Working Class 1960’s Britain, Middle Class 1960’s Britain, modern day and the future. The moral problem is how am I writing and compiling this story? How do I remove it from me enough to not annoy people close to me?

Usually my writing has a firm basis in real life characters that then “lift” when written thoroughly into something new. This however seems to not be happening and I’m left with Lela Lee’s “Mamma Og” http://www.angrylittlegirls.com/

ZZZ

I’m back from a thoroughly boring if somewhat relaxing time in France. HM’s family seems unable to actually do anything when on holiday and in some ways I can’t blame ‘em. It just seems like a waste to go to another country and sit around a table reading books for a week. I could do that at home. Just make sure I cover myself in honey so midges and flies bite me.

We stayed in a trailer tent so there was little privacy and even more spiders. I was unamused. However I seem to have a fantastic tan. French toilets are pretty disgusting. A phenomenon I had not encountered before. I’m fine with squatters. You get them in Singapore, it’s just the smell.

Anyway. The play. It’s not happening. I’m far too lazy. You’d think that I’d spend that lethargic time sat about a table in Narbonne constructively and methodically writing my script, developing characters and working with conflict and inner conflict. Have I fuck! I spent most of the time with my nose stuck in Irvine Welsh’s Glue. Well worth a read even if you don’t like his one-trick-pony style. It’s very similar to Trainspotting just more structured and less morbid. It’s possibly the book he would have wanted to write with hindsight.

Currently I've been forcing myself to create some OTT scenarios to write a few bits of dialogue from. I’m far too lazy to actually stick to doing them, however and keep wandering into the kitchen to look at food or lie on the bed slowly drifting off to sleep. Snorlax.

Nothing Vs Something Hapening

I have developed a strange liking for 90’s beat-em-up computer games that appeared on the Playstation when I was about sixteen and far too old to like these things. I think it may have something to do with the little boy growing inside of me and I’m sure that feminists would hate me to admit that blatant gender stereotyping.

My bursary cheque still hasn’t come yet (boo hoo!) but I spoke to a friend of mine and she said that the theatre would not pay out until 30 days after the invoice was received.

I’m off to France in a few days. I’m not too sure if I am looking forward to this or not seeing as the company we will be keeping. However I am hoping to get some writing done there.

I know the thing I could be doing right now is going over all of the questions with each character but there is something about this play that does not get me exited at the moment and I think it’s a lack of plot. Does anyone know some exercises on plot? Its always been my weak point and I’ve always glossed over it but I think I’ve got to the point where I cant cruise by anymore and pretend that plot does not matter.

Seeing as my Theatrical Aesthetic is to create plays that are entertaining (at least at the moment) I really need to gain some insight into how to make stuff happen to keep the entertainment factor alive. However my biggest influence on this particular piece is The Royle Family where (essentially) nothing happens it’s a bit of a paradox.

some groundwork

Seeing as this play is pretty much in its infancy at the moment these subjects are license to change!

Who - a brief run down of characters

I have seven characters in this play. They represent elements in this primitive form, but these things may change. At least one character is liable to not be physically represented in the world of the play but as it is, I’ll describe all of them. They also do not have names at the moment.

• Main female protagonist – a pregnant female. First pregnancy. She represents naivety and the future. She is all the hopes and aspirations. She has an explorational personality that results in life lessons. She represents Singaporean-Chinese and English and the inability to assimilate herself in with either culture.
• Main male protagonist – represents the middle class, leftie Englishness. He is the product of this culture and sees to live his future life with his girlfriend and unborn child as such. However he fails to recognize that she does not see this type of culture as the best for her and child’s future.
• The Singaporean mother – represents Singapore and Singaporean culture. Sees things in a very offensive / categorized way. Fails to have any empathy with the leftie, m/c English culture. Is the only character that speaks her mind fully? Has no hint of flexibility or hypocrisy. Is seen on one level as the “baddie” due to her un-fluid nature.
• The Working Class Father – in the British class system (the UK is the place that has such a recognized, acknowledged and blatantly endorsed class system which is outwardly criticized while simultaneously endorsed.) He resides on the same level as the Singaporean mother due to his prejudices and the freedom he uses to speak his mind. On one level he is the secondary baddie, on the other level he is the compassionate character. I’d like to see him be a bit like Jim Royal but with less flatulence and more racism
• The Leftie Middle Class Mother – is the outwardly untrashy, loving, earthly, motherly, goddess type. She frequently idealizes the sixties and seventies (ironically a time when she did not have children); she is well off, lib dem voting, knitting, relaxed type who likes yoga and vegetarianism. However she is very hypocritical. She manipulates her son, hates the fact that he has a girlfriend, hates her family, spoils her son, hates all types of things that arise outside her Guardian reading world and is threatened by them.
• The Best Friend – to the female protagonist. She outwardly shows a life of singleness and success, works in the city as a lawyer or some other such profession. Is idealized by the Singaporean mother, dislikes the male protagonist, provides a mirror onto what life could have been like. However is a sympathetic character as it turns she is just a product of her surrounding s and is not really happy.

What’s the theme?

Summing it up: “is it better to be hypocritical about your prejudices or speak your mind?”

why do you think it’s important to write this?

It’s important to me to write this because I want to show a few things.

1. The Chinese are often invisible. There is a huge Chinese population In Britain that has intermingled and interbreed with the English but they are invisible in modern culture and art. I want to capture some of the, at least Chinese-Singaporean ethos and how it does not fit into modern Britain.

2. I want to see where I’m heading. The leftie mother and the Singaporean mother are both things that I could be (to some extent). I want to explore them to see where they lead me.

3. I really want to know if it is better to speak your mind or not.

Where is the world of your play?

Sticking to the conventions of kitchen sink would be better for this one and setting in real life situations to question “who are we now?” I mean, I do have constraints! How better to answer that question than to show somewhere relatable.

When - how is time significant in your work?

Time relating to the pregnancy is significant. There is a time constraint of nine months for the plot to be geared in. I don’t want the plot to be about the pregnancy though. I would actually like it to be about buying a house or something mundane with the pregnancy in the background. There also is an eluded time of “the past” (the idealized sixties, idealized Singapore, the parents past) and “the future” (future aspirations, hopes and fears for baby) with “the present” being a mundane, if somewhat necessary.