Hello again. Sorry the blog went quiet without warning. You know how it is, once you stop doing something, it becomes harder to start it up again. Plus, an awful lot of life seemed to be happening for a while there, so I didn’t really feel like doing much of anything. Still, cusp of a new year, so well worth clearing up the detritus of life since the last update, putting a bow round it, calling it a present, and then moving on to a more communicative 2013.
I last left you with two weeks to go before the first official Rebel Breed performance, and a vague promise to blog more and write more in general. Obviously, blogging more has not been a success. But what has been successful, you ask?
Let’s start with theatre. Nando’s and Nandon’ts went down well! People laughed! We got good write-ups in the Demon and The Grade! And most importantly, cast and crew have become enthused about carrying this little show on to Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival and beyond, with extensive cuts to make the show 50mins long, of course.
Plus, Rebel Breed also managed to wrangle another show for a November performance. All Night Long was a short play written by William Breden, produced in collaboration with LUTheatre and in aid of Nightline, a worthy cause. The play was preceded by a short poetry set by Will, and followed by a short song set from Olivia Deane. We raised a good chunk of change for the charity, and look forward to the next similar opportunity.
As for other theatre writing, I have an outline for a short play, ideas for repurposing various short pieces into a longer play with music, and a vague intention to put together a sketch revue for Rebel Breed. I do seem to be thinking more about movement rather than dialogue when it comes to theatre recently, which is useful, considering my current resources are more geared to the latter than the former. Still, ideas is ideas. And Proteus is back, which is a fun muscle to use and good place to throw things.
I speak of The Grade. I’ve done a few bits of journalism there, such as this and this, and I’ve had some fun doing it, and I will continue to do it more. I was going to review Wendy & Peter Pan, but then I tweeted about it, which kind of took away the impetus, but if I’m bored I will. At least with Goodreads they’re personal notes more than anything, so there’s no pressure to be good, but with full-length stuff you do want to do a good job. Also, if anyone out there wants me to write something like that for you, hit me up, I’m quite reasonable.
Poetry next? Well I’ve written a few since we last spoke. Especially since I sent some brand new poems out as Christmas presents, but they’ll mainly stay read only by them. I’m going to start sending them out into the world come 2014, seeing if they’ll survive the cold, hard light of potential publication, since that’s the only way I’ll know and grow. Also, poem a week. Now I’ve told you, I have to do it. Not for posting, you understand, just for filing away against the future.
The same applies to prose, though I only have one thing in drafts for a specific submission place, so I’ll have to figure out where to send stuff. I have a lot of stuff to write though, which is good (as long as I actually write them instead of wasting time watching the TV, since I now have one in my life again). Also, I have not abandoned #fridayflash! It will come back in glorious health in 2014.
There’s other stuff I’ve got to do too, such as produce that podcast (I ate up the lead time and did nothing with it), maybe experiment more with this songwriting thing, and there’s a couple of other vague notions too. But that’s you lot about caught up. New Year’s Eve there’ll be a post detailing my cultural input this year, what’s inspired me and so on, but for now I’ll leave you with a poem I wrote for the season.
Xmas
Hang the lights
All I want for Christmas
is to be lit by your eyes
as we kiss for auld lang syne.
jamesdavidward.com 