Saturday 19 February 2011

Paul Richards and his general lack of discipline

I've frustrated myself the last couple of evenings. I've had this idea for a play which I'm very keen on, I've planned it meticulously - every lunchtime I've been working on the structure of the piece with great detail, really getting to grips with the characters. I've booked the second week of May off work, I've been chatting to a really good actress who is keen to be involved (one of those nice situations where she's a friend who I know is talented and who I can trust, yet equally she's never been in any of my plays before so the Richards brand of awkwardness will still be a novelty), I'm in talks with a of couple venues to possibly even tour the thing - and even better, that means it'll tour before I'm 30, which is well up on my to-do list. It's going to be called 'Is Is Too Late To Save Oscar Pike?' and it's going to be the best thing I've ever done. When I actually write it. Due to a series of things band-wise, with different bands, all being cancelled (bassist unavailable for new material session, recording session cancelled, singer ill etc) I've suddenly found myself with 4 nights in a row to do whatever I like with. I never have that. I don't think I've had 4 nights off in a row for years. So - with those 4 nights it was obvious - time to write the tour show, and it'll be time well spent. But why is it - when everything is set up nicely for me, I don't just sit there and get on with it? On Wednesday I caught the start of the Arsenal v Barcelona game whilst coming out of the shower and suddenly it was full time and that was an evening wasted (wasted because Arsenal won, which annoyed me a bit). On Thursday I wrote, and wrote, and wrote rubbish all night - 8 pages of dialogue, which was so self-indulgent I couldn't possibly release to the public, at midnight I scrapped the script and started from scratch. Friday I started writing from scratch, got frustrated, and ended up around my mate Heather's house just to rant about it all, I got back at midnight and fell asleep. Am I losing my drive? Just trying too hard? I've got a theory that I write my best material when I don't plan to, you can't force creativity I guess. Saying that, one more night in before I get busy again, and here I am not writing it, but instead updating my blog. Madness.

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