So This is 2012

“So this is the New Year,” cue everyone singing the next couple of lines of Death Cab in their heads (if you don’t know what that opening sentence is on about Tom and Jonny have both referenced it on their facebook.)  However if you’re expecting a reflective blog from me this week you’ll be disappointed…I reckon that’s covered with the contributions generous people have made on the Youth Theatre facebook wall and maybe you could even add yours. Also you got sentimentality from me last week and that’s quite enough for now…

So the New Year is here…hurrah…now lets get on with it…my blog tends to be mainly about what’s at the front of my mind at the time and so this week I’m going to philosophise a little about being a playwright…

My professional work is usually a strange and complicated entity where I  seem to spend a lot of my time juggling many things of wildly disparate natures all of which are punctuated with wonderful regularity by delightful, creative youth theatre workshops and rehearsals.  However over the last 2 weeks as YTYT was scaled down and other work ceased for the festive season I have mainly been a playwright (when not taking time off to be with my lovely family) This luxury of being able to concentrate on one discipline, on one project has made me very aware of how fascinating the whole process of writing is.

As some of you know I have recently written a book, a children’s book, “Spirits of the Landscape,” inspired by the paintings of Clare Woods.  I found out this week that the copies I’d put in the Hepworth gift shop had sold out.  It’s such a strange thing to think that copies of it are in the hands of strangers and I’ll never know what it made them think of, what reactions positive or negative it inspired.

Writing a play like “Encounters,” is a different experience altogether because as soon as it is written it goes straight into the hands of the actors who not only react in a reflective more theoretical way to it but also in the way that they then practically realise it in the rehearsal room.  Equally I have given it to people whose opinions I respect for feedback. 

Receiving the feedback from all those sources is a vaguely terrifying and yet fascinating business…but the overriding thing I’m taking from it is how much I learn about myself as a writer and about the writing itself from the responses…the whole thing about listening to everything and responding to the things I think important has very much come into play and I’m fully aware as I prepare myself to finish the final draft today that it has definitely made me a better writer and a more assured practitioner…

All sounds a bit too perfect doesn’t it, a bit too happy and complete…don’t worry…there is always the element of uncertaint,y the things that stops it being all polished off in a perfect way…because now it’s the New Year I have the increasing awareness of the fact that the next set of responses will be from the audiences and that’s a whole different kettle of fish…