In Person
Thursday, September 26, 2002
I really like September. I was on a train last night chugging through Hexham and Wylam and Corbridge, and there was a glowing rustly twilight and a bonfire smell in the air. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else but here in the North of England either, despite all the things we grumble about like the long cold winters and the dog mess. I always feel romantic in September! I'm about to go and spend a week in a castle writing my novel. I hope it's haunted, and that it's got central heating.
Everything is breaking at the moment; computers, boilers, cars etc. I wonder why things always break in unison?
I also managed to do my tax, which always seems like the most bizarre activity. Is there someone somewhere who goes through all these brown envelopes looking at crumpled receipts with 'stagewear' written on them in biro? Writers could potentially claim everything against tax. Life is art after all. Things like turkish baths, facials, therapy, dog expenses...it's all inspirational.Posted by julia @ 01:19 PM GMT
Monday, September 23, 2002
Since I last wrote this diary we've had the Shorelines launch which was great. Cate's glass looked beautiful, and I have fallen in love with sticky vinyl lettering. I'm about to spend a wek away in a castle with two other novelists writing the Taxi Driver's Daughter. I feel I can only really concentrate when I go away from everything. I love my home, but it's full of teenagers, and although I have a writing room, there are so many other writing jobs to do. However, going on a retreat gives you a real boost, and when I come back it's easier to continue working on a big project because my head will be full of it.
Yesterday I went to the launch of a new book called Leftboobless, by a woman called Sylvia Mitchell, who decided to write about her experience of having breast cancer, and to include lots of writing exercises that helped her. Sylvia is a very positive woman who had organised the whole thing brilliantly. It was the best raffle prizes I've ever seen, although typically I didn't win anything. Andrea Badenoch and I 'launched' the book for Sylvia, and we talked about how writing had helped us get through breast cancer. Frankly I couldn't have survived without writing, or at least having some creative way of expressing myself. The launch was wonderful..packed with people..but it made me angry with breast cancer. You can have a very positive attitude and learn alot from cancer, but it's still a pain in the arse and something I could have done without. If anyone is interested in Sylvia's book email me and I'll tell you how to get a copy. It would be a good gift for anyone who was recently diagnosed.Posted by julia @ 11:06 AM GMT
Monday, September 16, 2002
It's mad out there! The students are back, and lying in the corridors, whirling things on strings, and being pestered by different societies. I was never in a society when I was a student. Hmmm.
I have heard from others since I last wrote this diary that all the anaesthetists they know ARE fun loving hedonists. Still, I've finished that play now, so now I'll be thinking only of taxi drivers!
Tomorrow Cate Watkinson and I will be putting words and glass together at the Customs House Gallery in North Shields. I like it up there. It's all airy and riverish. The exhibition opens tomorrow.Posted by julia @ 01:51 PM GMT
Friday, September 13, 2002
Last night I went to the launch of Andrea Badenoch's new crime novel 'Loving Geordie'. It was held in Benwell Library in Newcastle, where Andrea had worked with a local history group researching the local landscape for the novel, which is based on the Mary Bell era, when much of Scotswood was being pulled down around people. It was a really interesting opening, with members of the local history group speaking, an exhibition of photographs, and readings by the actor Trevor Fox. I'm looking forward to reading it, although I'm still reading 'Instances of the Number Three' by Salley Vickers.
It feels like Newcastle is waking up again after the Summer. There's hundreds of students wandering around outside with bright tee shirts and big straw hats on. Dingy looking men are giving out flyers about various bars they can get drunk at.
It turns out lots of people read this diary....eek.Posted by julia @ 12:29 PM GMT
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Just come back from rehearsals for Doughnuts Like Fanny's. It's been good fun. There's a sense of everyone rolling their sleeves up. The play has lots of songs in and a musician called Richard Stone has set them to music. There is something wonderful about writing song lyrics to a naff tune in my head, and then hearing them re-set to a good one. I spent a day with the director and actors tweaking the play, taking out all the unnecessary STUFF that clutters up language. It's very pleasureable, like the final garnishes or something. Fanny would appreciate that. I am never going to write dot dot dot again. My scripts are full of them, and they are nearly always unnecessary.
This morning I had a meeting with Claire Malcolm at New Writing North about Diamond Twig, the small press that I co-edit with Ellen Phethean. We are going to start publishing a series of women's plays. We
spent quite a while trying to think of a good name for the series; one that wasn't corny. I must have spent at least a year of my existence trying to think up names for things. The cafe at Live Theatre has been redecorated and everyone looks different in it. I ate a delicious mozarella sandwich. Most sandwiches are very disappointing, but this one wasn't. Now I must do some writing. The next thing I must finish tweaking is 'Attachments' a play for Live that's on in November. One of the characters is an anaesthetist (change from a pharmacist). Apparently anaesthetists are often very fun loving people. Does anyone know any, and are they? is it something to do with always seeing others on the brink of oblivion? Hmmmm.
Thanks for the responses to the diary. I was delighted.
Posted by julia @ 01:33 PM GMT
Saturday, September 7, 2002
It's a rainy Saturday, and I've got to finish the script for my play which is on at Live Theatre in November. This is a play for actors Charlie Hardwick and Trevor Fox, called Attachments, and though it's only forty minutes long I seem to have been tinkering with it for months. Two handers feel very mercurial to write. There is no room for clutter, and I'm trying not to be over lyrical and to just let the characters go. On Monday we start rehearsals for Doughnuts Like Fanny's, a play about Fanny Cradock, that's being produced by a company over in Penrith.
After two days over there I must return to my novel which lies waiting for attention.
Otherwise, my health is good, and I've just finished reading The True Story of The Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, which is really good. I can't stop thinking about Ned Kelly's armour, which I saw once when visiting Melbourne. Next I am going to read Salley Vickers new novel Instances of The Number Three. I really loved Mrs Garnett's Angel which was her first novel.
This is my first entry into this diary, and a bit of an experiment. I wonder if anyone will read it?
Posted by julia @ 03:21 PM GMT
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