Always Freewriting

There is a feeling of being lost which has been creeping up on me more and more over the past few weeks. It makes me feel as though I am a different person to the one I was a month ago. Different thoughts, different priorities. Even so far as saying different voice, different body, different face I see in the mirror. I do not feel like I am me and the more I try to reach myself or sift back over old conversations and emotions to find myself the less graspable 'I' am. I can hear my voice talking at people. Sense me ears listening and my brain nodding along happily inside my skull. But there is a disconnect. And in that gap I do not like the situation. I don't feel comfortable and I don't know how to get up and be even remotely okay about where I might end up. It may simply be a bad Monday or a bad week about to start. When the disconnected fog descends, as it certainly will again and again and tomorrow and the next day again and again, I will try to be ready to ...

The fog had crept across the garden all morning, soaking into the space between tired daisy heads and trampled grass. It had stealthily stroked everything it passed and left a cold trace of moisture clinging to the underside of oak leaves, pampas grass and rhododendron blooms. Up in the sky the sun was battling to break through the thick cloud cover and every tentative shaft of light was being batted away by this endless trail of fog.   Two red wellie boots jump from an open doorway into this scene. Determined thuds on the back door step and with a second’s pause to contemplate which direction to run in they are off, racing into the gloom adding a jolt of colour and noise.   A second pair of boots join them, more slowly this time and in a gentler colour way of navy blue. The door is closed behind these boots and a voice calls out to slow the red boots down. A warning not to fall in the puddles, be careful of the tree roots, don’t go further than the stile at the en...

It's been a while. And I definitely feel rusty. But hopefully it won't take long for my brain to catch up with my fingers and type something more interesting than the weekly shopping list for Ocado. Or Lidl depending on how much money is in the bank that week. With two little boys running round calling me mummy (artistic license at work here ~ my youngest is 7 months and not running or calling me anything) life has certainly changed from when I last wrote. But after 5 years of almost constant change I suddenly find myself back sitting in the same spot at work where I always used to sit doing the same tasks I always did just as though the last few years never actually happened. Except they definitely did. I have the scars to prove it and also as soon as I get home I don't throw myself on the sofa and exclaim dramatically that I'm so glad the week is over and isn't it wonderful to have nothing to do. I run upstairs to give lots of hugs and cuddles ...

It's been almost a year since I've written anything.  I handed in my completed script last June and graduated from my Masters in September. In the end I was really happy with it and had planned to make 2012 the year I became less professional EA and more full time writer. The event I didn't foresee was that the day I handed in my script was the evening I decided to take a pregnancy test and The Man and I discovered we were going to be parents in 9 months time. Which brings us to today.  More technically it takes us to tomorrow when I'm due to become a Mummy. I don't know why I haven't wanted to write anything in so long.  Maybe the film sapped it all out of me.  Maybe I've used this pregnancy as one big excuse to avoid thinking too hard. All I know is that when The Little One decides to arrive I'll be ready with lots of stories.  Tales of how the stars dangle in the sky and why the moon smiles down on Brighton pier.  Or how The Cat goes dancing e...

We all have regrets.  They may be large or small.  Normally they live on in a box tucked away on the upper shelf in the back of your mind.  Festering slightly but largely forgotten about and too far out of sight to cause any day to day trouble. But every now and then you search out a ladder, climb it to the highest rung and forage around on tip toes in the depths of your brain for the box that you know will make you feel rubbish but you can't help yourself.  Like a wound itching beneath one of those old school brown plasters. It would be nice to incinerate these boxes of regret.  Blast them into a furnace bubbling away at the ends of the Earth never to resurface. But you can't.  One of my biggest fears in life is that when I get older (if I get that much older) I get alzheimers and these regrets play on vividly in my mind.  On a loop that might suggest they're happening right now.  In this second.  Of this time....

The house lights went down over an hour ago and the audience has long fled into the London night.  The cleaners shuffled their vacuums along as quickly as possible past the lengths of banked seating and the ushers have downed their nightcaps and headed off home for bed. He is the only remaining soul in this ancient theatre. He pads through the stalls towards the stage looming out of the half-light infront of him.  With an effortless bound he lands on it and sends a small cloud of dust into the stale air.  Velvet curtains part as he pushes his way through them and he finds himself amongst a stage strewn full of set pieces, left for organisation in the morning.  Here he sits and watches the theatre flies.  The rigging of a spotlight catches his eye and he jerks his head around the space working out a way to get up there.  Up there to where he can sit and survey his stage.  His audience.  His theatre.  Or he...

I have come inside to feel the silence. Eighty seven people sit within twenty metres of me - I know because I counted them. And yet all the noise they make pales in comparison with the World outside the huge glass windows. Thirty five panes of rectangular glass make up the fifteen arched windows in this main reading room of the New York City Library.  Vintage marble lets in brief glimpses of monstrous glass and concrete beasts lurking on the boundaries of itself.  They bend and reflect light off their polished exteriors and offer no warmth or protection.  It is only from deep within this library, a vessel of precious words, that I sit and watch the beasts marching down 5 th Ave and feel safe surrounded by solid oak and tons of ink. The relentless roar of yellow cab traffic can’t permeate the walls of books and the snap of cameras stops within this gentle lit room.  I am quite totally alone in the midst of a crowded room.  A s...

I've managed to complete a first draft of The Film. It is currently 11 pages short of a full length feature but I'm really pleased with what I've managed this week and I have until the first week of June to refine it and add those missing scenes. I haven't been keeping to the rest of my promises regarding this blog and 750 words but the important task has been almost completed and I can't quite believe it to be honest. Can't wait for people to read it.  Even more importantly I would love for someone to actually see it. But for now it is living in my brain on a loop of visuals of seagulls and a small girl hiding under Brighton pier the day long.

Some days you can feel as though you're on top of everything and it all makes completes sense.  The goalposts to a job being completed are clearly signposted and you can tick them off as you progress. Other days you can feel as though you're sinking and no matter how many goals you tick off a few more appear on the horizon and nobody warned you they'd be there. I set myself goals and these are added to what everyone else has decided I need to do.  So they multiply and the list gets longer and falls off one page onto two and suddenly you're staring at a tunnel of objectives and no light to shine on them for clarity. It's deeply frustrating and I'm the sort of person who needs set targets to reach.  If you change the targets it's like you've personally attacked me and ruined my day for fun.  I know that's not what actually happens but it definitely feels personal sometimes. I have 2 new pieces of work to hand in on Monday that weren't menti...

I have a week off work and in that time I will try my hardest to do the following things: Write at least 10 pages every day of The Film Write a blog every day Write my 750 words every day They're listed in order of importance and it's quite typical that in order to write anything worthwhile and that I'll be vaguely satisfied with I have to complete them in the opposite order: Write my 750 words every day Write a blog every day Write at least 10 pages every day of The Film The first warms me up, the second makes me feel like I've done something tangible and the last will help me creep closer to completing the longest piece of work I've ever done.  At the moment The Film feels mammoth, epic and slightly impossible.   But 10 pages a day is fine.  Or it will be once I drag myself off the sofa where the sun has trapped me nicely.  Thought for the day; why is it always a glorious sunny day when you have work to do alone at a keyboard in a quiet roo...

After the hideousness that was pitching 4 weeks ago I had to do it all again last night and I was absolutely dreading it.  Since I signed up to my Masters I have been worrying about the 19th March.  On Honeymoon in October I vividly remember counting down the months until I had to pitch my entire film to strangers.  On Sunday I had about an hour's sleep and during that hour I had a dream about it all going wrong. Well...last night was The Pitch. And I think it went well.  It could have been better (everything could always be better in my pessimistic brain) but I communicated the genre, character needs and story line in a coherent fashion and got positive feedback afterwards.  They could picture it on the big screen and thought the characters were well developed.  There were questions over who the intended audience is and as soon as I started searching for an answer I proved their point that I have a problem in...

I've been so slack.  Slacker than a pair of middle aged pants around the ankles of a slack jawed tight rope walker.  I've been writing a few pages here and there and thinking many writery thoughts in my head.  But it feels as though I haven't been doing enough and this is my eternal problem. So here I am writing something tangible and bankable and making you read it because it will make me feel as though I've actually done something with my day.  As opposed to all the stuff I really have done with my day which is very impressive actually I'll have you know. It's just not in the general theme of writing or anything I might enjoy doing.  And in other news it's been a stunning day in London town.  Almost makes me happy to be here. Almost.

I've noticed that he lands on my roof towards the latter part of an evening.  Always when I'm thinking about turning the last lamp off and heading to my bed.  Black wings descend and bump against thatch and I know he's arrived, above me in the gloom of night.  From the glow of a hastily lit candle I dare not move, paralysed to the stair that only leads me higher towards him.  I can't go up but I don't want to go back into the cold empty downstairs.  I begin to tread gently but in line with my step the grip and rip of claws echoes down from his height.  I stop, he stops.  I start and he begins again.    Crawling between cold sheets I pull the duvet up beyond my head and curse the unlucky star that watched my birth and sent this crow.  He lands when I least want him to.  When strength dwindles to nothing and I forget my own name.  This crow of doom feeds on the bleak within and vu...

Sitting on the train is something I spend the majority of my week doing.  Some days I hate it and count the stations off with frustration and rage that I've chosen this way to travel to work.  Other days I'm indifferent and the countryside slips away infront of me until I'm at Charing Cross without realising I even boarded.  But days like this morning I actually enjoy it and relish every second spent before arriving in London.  Leaning my head against a finger print heavy window staring at fields and terrace houses listening to music and drifting off to sleep between stations.  Dropping in on loud conversations between giddy (there is no other word to sum them up) fifteen year olds heading for school.  Drowning out a business man angrily whispering into his mobile by turning my iPod up a fraction.  Noting that the woman sitting next to me is trying desperately hard not to lean on me though the Southeastern train carriages aren't design...

I live with a nutter. He thinks he's a ninja from the good old days when you could sink a cutlass in someone and watch them cry blood for mercy.  He thinks his food should be served at the same time every day and will think nothing of screaming at the top of his lungs should you be a few minutes late.  He goes out without telling me.  He comes in when he wants.  And normally with dirty boots spreading mud all over the cream carpets. But does he care?  No.  Because he is the boss and we should all quake before him. But sometimes, when there's a draught from the window or rain's thundering down the chimney, he shows his true colours.  The ninja of the household becomes one giant soppy pussycat.  And all the mud stained carpets in the World couldn't make me love him any less. - Photo by me, 2011, the ninja of the house

The list of things that I have to do are mounting up and I just don't know when I'm supposed to do them.  The weekend was a wash out in terms of writing.  I feel physically blocked from starting the new film and yet I have to feel confident in what I'm doing before the second pitch from hell in 4 weeks now. 4 weeks!  So today is a day of new starts.  A day of looking at my hand scribbled list of chores and tackling it straight on.  No shirking away from the point or finding less important jobs to do first.  I will not stare out of the window for the next 5 hours and then wonder why I feel like I haven't achieved anything at the end of the day...as usual.  It is not a usual day. With all of this motivational talk I feel like jumping out of my chair and doing a sprint of the office.  High fiving all of my colleagues and whooping down the halls. But that would be a distraction putting off the second that I have to turn back to my screen ...

I live in a flat within an Edwardian house in sunny Kent.  We bought it 5 years ago when we were the first people to see it and fell in love with it too fast to notice that there was no room in the kitchen for normal appliances. In those 5 years we've seen quite a few people come and go from the rest of the flats around us.  Only 2 out of 6 of the flats are owner occupied and the rest are rented out. I have trouble remembering people's names at the best of times and needless to say I have trouble keeping up with who is in the same house with me.  Friday night at 02:00 someone was walking around above our flat with moon boots on.  I think they then played a full game of basketball followed by squash and a communal shower with at least 14 other people. That's when it struck me as odd that I can live in a house and not really know who's around me.  Footsteps in the hall are anonymous and when we pass each other in the car park we're all smiles and waves but w...

I still haven't made a start on the new version of the film I have to hand in at the end of June.  Right now I just feel sick when I think about it and in my head I jump from scene to scene in a random order as if I'll never pin it all down correctly. The odd truth is that as soon as I start it I know it will become clear and I'll stop worrying quite as much.  I've freewritten around the key moments and can see it in my mind but need to commit to 'Final Draft' and just start writing the script.  No more notes or outlines.  The new story has been planned to death and before I lose the thread I should just type it. I think I might need to bribe myself.  If I manage to complete the first 20 pages by the end of Sunday then I can have sushi for dinner one night next week.    Isn't it ridiculous that in order to make yourself do the thing you love you have to trick yourself into actually doing it?

When I sit down to a few hours writing the first thing I do is plan what music I'm going to listen to while I work.  It might be a bout of procrastination ahead of focusing but I find it incredibly difficult to write fluidly when all I can hear are my fingers stumbling across the keys.  If the man is on the sofa next to me then I'll have ear phones in but it's best when I'm alone and can put the stereo on with one artist's album influencing the tone of my mood and ultimately the energy of what is produced on the page. I used to listen to a lot of Enya (seriously you can hear it in each page of every airy fairy thing I wrote at uni)because you can tune out quite fast to it.  Then I tried to write to Counting Crows but they are my ultimate most favourite band in the world and that was a clear mistake.  I would often come to my senses around track 8 of 'August and Everything After' and realise that I'd been singing for the ...

Every now and then we all need to treat ourselves.  I'm not talking about 5* holidays spread over 3 months in a tropical climate where a butler will crawl on his hands and knees to serve you a freshly brewed cocktail underneath your antique lace awning...though that would be nice. I'm talking about a Chinese take away on a Sunday night.  A walk in a sun soaked park just as all the Spring flowers are beginning to wake up.  Starting to think about booking a week's break in September to some cheap self-catering place in the sun.  Dressing up like it's your birthday and ordering the cheapest item on the menu to try and make it all feel special...and offering to do the restaurant's washing up for a year if they'll throw in desert. The special treats make all the hard work worthwhile.  And if they don't then it's time to look for a new point of view because something clearly isn't working.  - Photo by me, 2008 New York  ...