Dear Planet Blog,
By my count, it has been nine days since my last confession. It has been a week-plus-three that has been both wonderful and depressing. More on that story later.
The previous Wednesday was an interesting for reasons I had not really expected. My dad had managed to get tickets for Showstopper! at London. For those not in the know, the Showstoppers are a group of performers who improvise a musical based on audience suggestions - their home page can be found here. I first saw them at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe, and since then I have been in love with their way of making something memorable from audience suggestions that have been shouted across a theatre. Every one of their musicals has stayed with me - a whole lot more than most of the award bait films and television programming recently. If you get a chance to see the show, people of Planet Blog, do so. You will not regret it.
However, I did have a moment of worry when it was decided by audience vote that this Showstopper performance was to be about a pole dancing studio in 1980s New York. Having somehow convinced my Mum and Dad that the Showstoppers were an amazing group of talented performers, I began to sink into my seat. Thankfully, it turned out wonderfully, but I had to sit through an anxious twenty minutes and two songs - 'Work the Pole' and the inspirational ballad 'Climb the Greasy Pole'. Augh. Still, it became a memorable evening, and the title song - 'Poles Apart' - rattles around my brain as I type this. There is something wonderful about that, I think. Not bad for ten pounds a head.
Friday marked the last event for my year's MA events. The Draft has been pushed as much as humanly possible by the effort - that night, Raj K Lal acted as compere and publicist for an evening, and led an evening of readings in Cafe Blend (a wonderful establishment on Navigation Street, Birmingham). Being one of the readers for the evening was intimidating, especially at such a classy joint. I was glad for the company of my peers when they arrived - Sarah Jane Cuming, who I suspect shall become a living legend in a year's time; Alice Bradshaw, and her wonderful parents, who I believe to be on the verge of being discovered; Nick Tipple, Lord of the Stately Calm (and nuclear scientist); actress-writer-folk-musician Miranda Floy, who probably has enough adjectives; Rose Moulding, whose young adult fiction combusts with passion; and Raj, as I mentioned before, who marshalled the event with Birmingham Book Festival liason Sara Beadle. All of these people gave me support - as did the Cafe Blend Prince of Wales liqeur, an interesting mix of coffee and Drambui that served to give me an energetic stupor. With this helping of courage, I gave my last live reading of my short story Slow Days.
The evening was a success. Everyone really pulled together to make the readings enjoyable and engaging, and we were blessed with an attentive audience. Those audience members who approached us were warm in their praise - a senior gentleman in a turban gave deeply gratifying praise, telling me that I had captured Coventry in my work. As a fantasy writer, this is probably the best critical acclaim I will ever receive, and I thanked him for it. It certainly encourages me to create more material, and makes me want to attend more readings. It was unfortunate that we couldn't hang around long after the event, and the management asked us to clean up soon after our readings ended. However, we did manage to find a subterranean refuge in Bacchus, where all the remaining writers drank into the night. I am happy to report that we gave the last night touting The Draft a good send off - or at least, a good marinade.
What else should I report? To be honest, the next couple of days have been rather uninteresting. At least, uninteresting from the perspective of blog writing. I have spent every odd day in my local Costa Coffee, trying to ground the story ideas I have been working on. My current pet project, Two to Go, is shaping up well and I hope to put a cap on it soon. Compared to a lot of my recent pieces, I feel that it has organically grown from a simple idea to something that would speak to a number of people. When I finish this short story, I hope to send it to some of the big SFF magazines (under the advice of fellow writer Tori Truslow, who has been very supportive of my unusual fictions).
Next week sees the beginning of my power play. Apart from clearing my head of annoyingly interesting ideas, I have been planning my novel for NaNoWriMo. With the aid of a newly reconstructed whiteboard, a trusty blue board marker and a makeshift ruler, I am slowly constructing the bare bones plan of a fifty thousand word novel. It is crazy, but at the time being, it seems like it is going to work. This is something of a first for me, as well. I am the kind of writer who tends to write by the seat of his pants - any conclusions, revelations and characterisation occurs as a result of whatever I am feeling at the time. I have come to associate planning with essays and school room tedium, hence my aversion to subjecting my stories to them. However, I don't have the luxury of relying on positive thinking to buoy up my novel, and so I have devoted a few hours to creating a little framework for the next month. What surprises me is that I'm beginning to enjoy planning this thing. Now, when faced with my large grid, I feel joy when I begin to fill in the spaces. The borders are beginning to fill up with notes. Something that I never expected seems to have happened all of its own accord. Is that not strange?
I have nothing else to add on that subject - and writing about writing always seems like onanism. So while I'm ahead and you are still reading I shall stop.
Next Week on the Forge:
More details about my NaNo novel.
The Beginning of the NaNo Blog.
Possible excerpts from Two to Go.
A Revised Release of my Epic Tradition Parody Somewhat Epic, or the Tescoliad.
A trained penguin.
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