Busy Times

I haven`t been attending to my website. There was one day in the week when, according to Google Analytics, nobody came to it. More than that, they didn`t come for a full 0 seconds. Yes – this needed to be recorded. So I feel safely incognito.

But that doesn`t mean I`m not working. Peter Gimpel of Red Heifer Press has almost finished editing and formatting Tell it Not, my short story collection, and in a few weeks it will be available. I am starting to ask people if they might like to review it. Please contact me if you would like a copy to review. Though I fear my stories may be like my play Candlesticks. They might divide a readership. Not seriously, not deeply, it`s only a collection of stories by a little known writer. But sufficiently to maybe make one or two people annoyed – slightly. I really hope not more than slightly. I hope people will be curious, interested, not annoyed.

I have been rereading Elizabeth Baines` moving novel Astral Travel, and fascinated at how she describes not only writing an autobiographical novel (I don`t mean E Baine`s autobiography, I mean her narrator`s.) She also, within the novel, describes showing it to various members of her family, to engage them, involve them, and to make sure not to hurt them, in the writing. Excellent idea.

Re Candlesticks – with director Jenny Eastop I am in conversation with a well-known fringe venue, and feeling optimistic about it. Checking the script (it was last staged in 2007) I find there are things I must change. Two young people meet up after 2 years and reminisce about their childhoods. One says to the other: the first time I came into your house was when I was invited to give you German measles. In 2007 that might have been possible. In the present day it wouldn`t have happened. All sensible people give their babies the MMR vaccine. (I assume mostly sensible people will come and see the play. Details of the production will follow.)

Still, all the above gives me plenty to think about. Someone alerted me to the RSC`s intention of staging 37 new plays, or at least giving them script in hand readings, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare`s birth.
Must find out whether previous semi-professional and not fully-funded productions are allowed….

And now back to my new story, a children`s story about…..