New material, over-ambitious ideas, world stuff

I've finally nailed the first draft of my new script, 'Is It Too Late To Save Oscar Pike?' - it's taken a few different directions to what was originally intended, but I feel much more comfortable now. It's timing at about 50 minutes at the moment, which in itself is perfect for a double hander with another new play I'm working on at the moment (working title of 'The Stranger At Terminal 13'), but I'm also very aware it's so incredibly rambly at the moment, and 10 minutes can easily be trimmed. It felt like a tough play to write that one - probably because about 70% of it is a true story, with issues close to my own heart, and it wasn't as easy to express my own fears as I thought it would be. The directions it's taken are probably less exciting, but more believable, and I feel very comfortable with it as a proper story now - not a series of nice scenes, which is what it was for a while.

I've also been working hard on the ideas for a new musical project, 'Death By Congas', which I won't go into great detail about now until the ideas are a little more consilidated, but I'm very excited about it, and I'm lining up some top-notch musicians to be a part of the madness of it all as well. Hoping to record it early next month, with some film work to go alongside it. It's ambitious, and I'm still not too confident of the line between 'storytelling' and 'songs', and if I get it wrong it'll be a pretenious pile of nonsense. If I get this right though it could be really something, we'll see.

Feels like I've been locked up in this flat for months working on new material and not really getting out there as much as I'm used to - but in theory it's only been a couple months of being in 3 or 4 nights in a week, staring at a screen and gradually going crazy. Really keen now to get this material out there, and on top of the summer gigs (as it stands I'm playing 7 festivals this year, with more to be confirmed) and further little nuggets of opportunities creeping up onto the horizon, I think this is going to be a really good few months.

On a different note, I recently organised a benefit gig for the victims of The New Zealand Earthquake - organised with my good mate Clare, who is from there. It's at the end of the month, and really is the least we can do and we've got some cracking bands playing. Then yesterday there was the whole Japan earthquake situation - which is 8 times the size of the New Zealand one. Now, this isn't a competition, but suddenly I'm thinking - do I organise a second charity show, this one for the Japan victims? Or do I just split the money from the show we do have to both causes? Or is that not fair on the NZ folk we'd said we'd help who are still in dire strates and need all the help they can get? We joked when organising the NZ show that we'd 'best put this show on soon as soon as possible because there will be another world crisis soon' - but this has turned to reality. A friend pointed out to me earlier that the Red Cross can't actually help Japan at the moment because they've not asked for it - as a country Japan seems to be well funded and can cope with this without international aid. That solves that problem then, but it's a pretty horrible time for the certain parts of the world right now I guess - times like this I'm grateful to be living in a sleepy village in the middle of nowhere void of any action whatsoever.

Currently listening to: Elvis Costello - My Flame Turns Blue, Gruff Rhys - Hotel Shampoo

Currently watching: Friday Night Dinner, Mrs. Browns Boys (I hate it - but I'm addicted to it at the same time)