Category: Writing

I'm very excited as it was recently confirmed that I'm reading at Wordplay this month.  Wordplay is a regular night of music and poetry run by Rachel Weston taking place at the Sanctuary Cella.

I'll be doing about ten minutes early in the evening.  Rather than doing a single long story I want to read lots of very short stories, ranging from 50 words to 200 words long.  The stories themselves are all written, but framing them within a performance is proving interesting. 

The great thing about Wordplay is the size and variety of the line-up.  Also appearing are the talented and charming Nathan Filer, Sam Chara, and Phillipe Barnes and Tom Phelan.  I hope to see you there!

I was very nervous before last night's Tight Lip reading but in the event it went well.  It's far harder to read serious stories than it is to read funny ones.  With a funny story (assuming it is actually funny) you can tell the audience is engaged.  Serious stories can feel like reading into a void.  People I spoke to afterwards seemed enthusiastic and I was glad not to have settled for something jokey.  It's given me the confidence to think about reading more serious pieces in 2009.

I enjoyed Heli Clarke's reading, and had a very interesting discussion with her afterwards about improvisation in reading.  Her approach to reading in public is very different to mine and has given me lots to think about.

It was very exciting to see Lee Rourke.  He read a piece from his book Everyday, The Fat Slubberdegullion (online here), as well as a new piece that is scheduled to be published in Ambit next year.  The Fat Slubberdegullion was a very funny satire on office life, and worked well as a spoken piece.

I had a fantastic night – thanks to Jay and Sam for the invitation to read.  The next Tight Lip is at the Latest Music Bar on January 9th and features a discussion with Nina Antonia, author of a recent Johnny Thunders biography.

I've spent most of this week being ill.  I had hoped to finish a new story to read at Tight Lip, 'The Wood and the Trees', about books, playing in forests and moving house.  Sadly, after losing a couple of days, I've put that one aside.  I will return to it, but that might be some time in the future.

Instead of the brand new story I've been finishing another story that I wrote a while ago.  I've not read this one in public before, but the two people I've tested it out on really liked it.  It's a more serious piece than I normally read but I think it will work at Tight Lip.  I'm going work at it some more today, mostly removing words to make it flow better.  Also, at Rosy's suggestion, I've added the word 'rollicking' and corrected my misuse of the word 'less'.

There was a a half page interview in yesterday's Argus with tonight's headliner, Lee Rourke (online here).  I've been reading some of the stories from his book and am looking forward to hearing him read.  It should be a good night.  Entry is £4 on the door, at Brighton's Permanent Gallery, 20 Bedford Place, from 7:45pm.

The poster for the next Tight Lip has appeared on Sam Collin's flickr account.  I'm going to be reading with Lee Rourke and Heli Clarke, with music from Birdengine.  I'll be putting the finishing touches to my story over the weekend.  There's still some more to do, but it's going to be about moving house, buying books in Borders and getting lost in forests.  The night starts at 7:45om, entry £4 and should be very interesting.

I'm currently working on a story to read at Tight Lip on the 19th.  As background I flicked through Pierre Bayard's fantastic text How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read.  It's as good as I remember, and this time I decided to follow-up one its references, Shakespeare in the Bush.  This essay describes Laura Bohannan's disastrous attempt to tell the story of Hamlet to a tribe she was studying.

Bohannon starts out convinced that human nature is similar enough around the world that the  great tragedies should be possible for anyone to follow.  This doesn't turn out to be the case:

"The old man made soothing noises and himself poured me some more beer. 
"You tell the story well, and we are listening.  But it is clear that
the elders of your country have never told you what the story really
means.  No, don't interrupt!  We believe you when you say your marriage
customs are different, or your clothes and weapons.  but people are the
same everywhere; therefore, there are always witches and it is we, the
elders, who know how witches work."

The essay, with it's improvised retelling of Hamlet, is very funny while raising some fascinating questions.

After eliminating several thousand lines of notes I'm now sorting out my almost-finished and barely-started short stories.  A week or so back I had about 70 fragments and I've been working through these, either finishing or deleting them.  So far I've eliminated about 15 stories but I've also turned up some lovely pieces.  Some of these fragments are over 5 years old and the need to make decisions has forced me to rethink them. 

One of the downsides of cheap electronic storage is that everything can be kept rather than what is most useful.  Over time this can become overwhelming.  Any idea that's truly good will be memorable whether or not it's stored on a disk.

In between this, I've been practising reading 'A Bad Place to Stick Your Hand' in preparation for tonight's performance at Sparks.  I'm very excited to see how this works out, and can't wait to see the photograph that's been commissioned to illustrate the story.

For years I've kept a computer file with notes for writing.  It contained brief story descriptions, character sketches and interesting lines, some salvaged from failed stories.  The file grew to a few thousand lines, with some entries that were years old.

As part of my general decluttering I've now eliminated the file.  I've taken out the ideas that suggest viable stories, moved some notes into works-in-progress and the rest are gone.  I think that having the file was more of a distraction than an aid.  Sometimes things were written in the file rather than take the time to write a fast draft and ended up never being written; other times I wrote things in the file rather than consider them properly at the time.

I'm very excited.  I now have a set of short stories that are no longer hidden amongst weeds and rubbish.  Over the next few weeks I'll see which ones grow into something interesting.  Clutter is never good.

I'm reading at Jo Horsman's next Sparks night, on December 9th at the Three and Ten in Brighton.  I'm very excited, as I'm reading alongside some very interesting people.  The line-up features Vanessa Gebbie, Jenn Ashworth, Kuzhali Manickavel, Pam Hewitt and Jacqueline Cattaneo.  I'm going to be reading a story called 'A Bad Place to Stick Your Hand'.  Tickets are £5.

I had hoped to memorise my story for last night's Short Fuse, but that didn't happen in the end.  Learning things by heart is much more difficult than I remembered.  I am, however, going to try again with something shorter as I want to see how not having pages in front of me affects the reading. 

I've been a little ill this week so I wasn't as enthusiastic about reading as I normally am, but the story seemed to go across well.  I didn't know how well spooky stories would work in a live environment but I found myself quite spooked during Tara's story.  At one point I turned round from where we were sitting to see the whole audience listening with total rapt attention.  I also loved Tanya Murray's story 'Lamia, dressed in all of Mary' (available in pdf here) which had a brilliant sense of impending doom.

The only downside of Short Fuse last night was that it clashed with the launch of Ros Barber's new collection, Material.  I dropped by to buy a copy but left before the readings, rather than disturb everything by sneaking out early.  Having read some of the poems, I'm very excited about this collection, but it probably deserves a post of its own.