Son's Brilliant New Video Games Blog!
If you have a moment, have a look at my son's new blog, Gamesecosse. He's a mathematician (just going into his final year of an honours maths degree) who can actually write. And he's been mad about video games for years. OK, I'm biased, but I think he's making a good job of promoting this most exciting of new industries - having spent so many years trying to defend his choice of career/interest/obsession against the misunderstandings of those who believe that all games are (a) facile, (b) violent, and (c) mindless. I've a lot of sympathy with him, because it does seem to me that so many writers (and publishers) ignore the vast imaginative possibilities of the new technologies. He's intent on working in video games design but seems to have a real flair for writing about it - and a perception of just how exciting this developing industry really is. And if you've read some of the stuff out there on these topics, you'll know that the ability to put that across is something of a rarity!
Feeling really really morose
Could it be the many signs of approaching autumn up here? Nights getting darker, the advent of the coal man with several bags of smokeless fuel at alarming prices, (dear God, now the environment police will be after me, but we live in a listed building with chimneys and yes, it's very well insulated, because we're poor.) The garden looks tired and sad. Me too, me too.
Spend my working days robbing Peter to pay Paul in terms of time. Writing endless lists. Not doing half the things on them. Working late at night when I should be sleeping. And at the moment, not really taking the pleasure in the work that I should. When you're a young writer, I think you have this faith that one day it'll all happen. You think it'll be enough to learn your craft and work hard. You'll have a success, and be able to build on it.
Well I've been writing for forty years now. I've won awards for plays and poetry, had plays produced to rave reviews, had novels and non fiction books published, and I still find that nothing changes. There's no sense of a career progression. Not only that, but I think that the constant struggle to be produced, published and publicised has encroached on the very real joy in the work that I used to know. Oh. And I've got repetitive strain from using a mouse, and my shoulder is giving me gyp, so there. Does this explain the uncharacteristically jaded posts of late? Well maybe.
All I know is that I seem to have lost the knack of writing for its own sake. Well, maybe it's lurking there. And I know it'll come back again. Just that for the moment, I think I need to do the snail thing, retreat into my shell, and think hard about where next and why.
Spend my working days robbing Peter to pay Paul in terms of time. Writing endless lists. Not doing half the things on them. Working late at night when I should be sleeping. And at the moment, not really taking the pleasure in the work that I should. When you're a young writer, I think you have this faith that one day it'll all happen. You think it'll be enough to learn your craft and work hard. You'll have a success, and be able to build on it.
Well I've been writing for forty years now. I've won awards for plays and poetry, had plays produced to rave reviews, had novels and non fiction books published, and I still find that nothing changes. There's no sense of a career progression. Not only that, but I think that the constant struggle to be produced, published and publicised has encroached on the very real joy in the work that I used to know. Oh. And I've got repetitive strain from using a mouse, and my shoulder is giving me gyp, so there. Does this explain the uncharacteristically jaded posts of late? Well maybe.
All I know is that I seem to have lost the knack of writing for its own sake. Well, maybe it's lurking there. And I know it'll come back again. Just that for the moment, I think I need to do the snail thing, retreat into my shell, and think hard about where next and why.
More Hubris
Hell's teeth now Christopher Brookmyre is at it, attempting to disprove the existence of God and all things spiritual in his latest novel. Or at least that's how the Scotsman and the Beeb reported it. So maybe I'm maligning the man. But why would a writer of fiction assume that he was going to make any converts?
What is it with these people? Can it be that they overvalue the real scientific world in which corruption and bigotry sit side by side with the 'scientific method'. My late dad was a distinguished biochemist, so I write with the benefit of his experience. Scientists are as prone to all the faults and foibles of humanity as the rest of us. The best of them are open and imaginative. The worst are blinkered and self seeking. We are all of us looking for ways of describing, of coping with the world. And for sure, all things come to sadness in the end. But many people, perhaps a majority (and it is often, though not invariably, women) have an inkling that there is much more to life than meets the eye. Sometimes it can be an experience such a bereavement, which should be embittering, but isn't. Sometimes it comes as a side effect of a lifetime's observation of how people interact. But most of all, I think, I object so strongly to the assumption that spirituality is a sticking plaster which we poor blinkered souls use to protect ourselves from the more unpleasant aspects of life. And again I say hubris. Overweening pride that subsumes any sense of humility in its own certainty.
The person in my life who was perhaps the most 'spiritual' was the most generous person I have ever had the good fortune to know. Her faith was simple and uncomplicated, but she herself was not. She never proseletysed, and didn't even attend church very often, but simply lived her own beliefs. She had overcome more of what life had to throw at her than most, yet had no bitterness. She was perceptive and full of the wisdom of her years . She was a truly 'good' person, with a warmth that defied the world's sournesses, and to categorise her as among the deluded is to wilfully misunderstand the limitless potential of the human spirit.
What is it with these people? Can it be that they overvalue the real scientific world in which corruption and bigotry sit side by side with the 'scientific method'. My late dad was a distinguished biochemist, so I write with the benefit of his experience. Scientists are as prone to all the faults and foibles of humanity as the rest of us. The best of them are open and imaginative. The worst are blinkered and self seeking. We are all of us looking for ways of describing, of coping with the world. And for sure, all things come to sadness in the end. But many people, perhaps a majority (and it is often, though not invariably, women) have an inkling that there is much more to life than meets the eye. Sometimes it can be an experience such a bereavement, which should be embittering, but isn't. Sometimes it comes as a side effect of a lifetime's observation of how people interact. But most of all, I think, I object so strongly to the assumption that spirituality is a sticking plaster which we poor blinkered souls use to protect ourselves from the more unpleasant aspects of life. And again I say hubris. Overweening pride that subsumes any sense of humility in its own certainty.
The person in my life who was perhaps the most 'spiritual' was the most generous person I have ever had the good fortune to know. Her faith was simple and uncomplicated, but she herself was not. She never proseletysed, and didn't even attend church very often, but simply lived her own beliefs. She had overcome more of what life had to throw at her than most, yet had no bitterness. She was perceptive and full of the wisdom of her years . She was a truly 'good' person, with a warmth that defied the world's sournesses, and to categorise her as among the deluded is to wilfully misunderstand the limitless potential of the human spirit.
Of Makeovers and Eyebrows
Yesterday, I was interviewed by a magazine for a 'life begins at fifty' feature, or to be more precise, about starting a whole new business at fifty. This was mainly because I decided, once I hit the big five-oh, to fulfil a lifelong ambition and open a shop dealing in the antique textiles which have been a lifelong passion for me. The fact that this isn't a real shop, but a virtual one, on eBay (the Scottish Home) only added to the magazine's interest.
Not that I've given up on the writing of course, just decided to divide my time between two absorbing jobs. Which was what the interview was all about.
I can't remember when I enjoyed myself so much. We had lunch in the kind of hotel that most poverty stricken writers can only dream of, a very friendly chat , and then came the pre-photo make-up... What a revelation!
Now I've always loved clothes, handbags (new and vintage) shoes, vintage perfumes (obviously, see The Scent of Blue below), girly stuff. It kind of goes with the territory. But I've never really been into make-up. On the night when my dear late mum first met my (incredibly tall, dark and handsome) Polish dad, at a dance, in Leeds, after the war, she was wearing no make-up and had her hair tied back with a bootlace. Or so family mythology has it. I find myself following in her footsteps. When I was a girl, I used to have long, ultra thick, dark brown hair - so long that I could sit on it. I loved it, and still sometimes dream about it, about brushing it, that feeling of being surrounded by this amazing, dark sea of hair that sparked with static when you brushed it.
I had it chopped it off, of course, while I was still quite young, had one of those shiny, bouncy, bobs that were so fashionable. I even had it henna-ed, when that was fashionable. (Like wrapping your head in something that smells of a warm hayfield). I don't know whether men ever realise just how much women mourn their long hair after it has gone. Now I spend far more on my hair than I ever used to. It's still thick and shiny, but it sure takes work.
And I've become a bit more interested in the make-up counters at Boots, shall we say?
So yesterday, this lovely, cheerful make-up artist sat me down, and looked at my face, and honed in on my eyebrows right away. She said 'if you take care of your hair, you should spend some time and money on your brows. It would make a difference.' Then she set to work on them with a will, as well as some clippers and some tweezers.
Once the make-up was in place, I glanced at myself in the mirror and hardly knew myself. How could somebody achieve so much in about fifteen minutes, including the eyebrows? I looked... well, let's say I looked younger.
Cue forward to this afternoon, when (after all the lovely war paint had long gone) my son came in after a night spent at a friend's house. 'Wow' he said, all unprompted, stopping dead in his tracks. 'What have you done to your eyes mum?'
'Why?' I asked.
'I dunno. They look different!'
'How different?' I asked, anxiously. 'Better, or worse?' Large Viking Like son is not noted for (a) observation or (b) compliments where his mum is concerned. As long as I don't actually scare the horses, pals, or girlfriends, he's usually fine with my appearance.
'Oh better!' he said. 'Yeah. Better.'
I looked at myself in the mirror. I could see exactly what he meant. How could ten minutes with clippers and tweezers make such a difference? I don't know. But it does. Only problem is, now (along with the hair) I'll have to keep up to it.
I seem to be becoming high maintenance. Rats.
Not that I've given up on the writing of course, just decided to divide my time between two absorbing jobs. Which was what the interview was all about.
I can't remember when I enjoyed myself so much. We had lunch in the kind of hotel that most poverty stricken writers can only dream of, a very friendly chat , and then came the pre-photo make-up... What a revelation!
Now I've always loved clothes, handbags (new and vintage) shoes, vintage perfumes (obviously, see The Scent of Blue below), girly stuff. It kind of goes with the territory. But I've never really been into make-up. On the night when my dear late mum first met my (incredibly tall, dark and handsome) Polish dad, at a dance, in Leeds, after the war, she was wearing no make-up and had her hair tied back with a bootlace. Or so family mythology has it. I find myself following in her footsteps. When I was a girl, I used to have long, ultra thick, dark brown hair - so long that I could sit on it. I loved it, and still sometimes dream about it, about brushing it, that feeling of being surrounded by this amazing, dark sea of hair that sparked with static when you brushed it.
I had it chopped it off, of course, while I was still quite young, had one of those shiny, bouncy, bobs that were so fashionable. I even had it henna-ed, when that was fashionable. (Like wrapping your head in something that smells of a warm hayfield). I don't know whether men ever realise just how much women mourn their long hair after it has gone. Now I spend far more on my hair than I ever used to. It's still thick and shiny, but it sure takes work.
And I've become a bit more interested in the make-up counters at Boots, shall we say?
So yesterday, this lovely, cheerful make-up artist sat me down, and looked at my face, and honed in on my eyebrows right away. She said 'if you take care of your hair, you should spend some time and money on your brows. It would make a difference.' Then she set to work on them with a will, as well as some clippers and some tweezers.
Once the make-up was in place, I glanced at myself in the mirror and hardly knew myself. How could somebody achieve so much in about fifteen minutes, including the eyebrows? I looked... well, let's say I looked younger.
Cue forward to this afternoon, when (after all the lovely war paint had long gone) my son came in after a night spent at a friend's house. 'Wow' he said, all unprompted, stopping dead in his tracks. 'What have you done to your eyes mum?'
'Why?' I asked.
'I dunno. They look different!'
'How different?' I asked, anxiously. 'Better, or worse?' Large Viking Like son is not noted for (a) observation or (b) compliments where his mum is concerned. As long as I don't actually scare the horses, pals, or girlfriends, he's usually fine with my appearance.
'Oh better!' he said. 'Yeah. Better.'
I looked at myself in the mirror. I could see exactly what he meant. How could ten minutes with clippers and tweezers make such a difference? I don't know. But it does. Only problem is, now (along with the hair) I'll have to keep up to it.
I seem to be becoming high maintenance. Rats.
Dawkins Shmawkins (2)
Must have blogged about this before but he comes around with monotonous regularity. Can I be alone in finding the relentlessly self promoting, crusading, and all too ubiquitous Mr Dawkins, along with all his facile works and pomps, completely and unutterably intolerable?
There. That's got that off my chest.
The man must be peculiarly, nay culpably naive if he really believes that scientists aren't as prone to corruption as the rest of human kind. He who pays the piper invariably calls the tune, and good dog science follows after, briskly wagging its tail, in pursuit of ever more elusive funding. Or in Mr Dawkins case, in pursuit of book and TV deals.
But chiefly it's the hubris of the man that is so vomit inducing.
He isn't science's 'knight on a charger of reason' as some sycophant describes him in the Radio Times this week. To me he seems more like a cynic, with an eye to the main marketing chance. And about as blinkered in his own way as the more extreme religious proseletysers are in theirs.
There. That's got that off my chest.
The man must be peculiarly, nay culpably naive if he really believes that scientists aren't as prone to corruption as the rest of human kind. He who pays the piper invariably calls the tune, and good dog science follows after, briskly wagging its tail, in pursuit of ever more elusive funding. Or in Mr Dawkins case, in pursuit of book and TV deals.
But chiefly it's the hubris of the man that is so vomit inducing.
He isn't science's 'knight on a charger of reason' as some sycophant describes him in the Radio Times this week. To me he seems more like a cynic, with an eye to the main marketing chance. And about as blinkered in his own way as the more extreme religious proseletysers are in theirs.
More Fish Suppers and Cattle Markets
Went through to Edinburgh to the Gilded Balloon, Teviot, to see the play. Strange experience. Had forgotten where the venue is. Which sounds mad, but what I suppose I mean is that this part of Edinburgh is so changed from the years when I studied here, that I tend to forget exactly how to get to places. The university campus, which used to be manageable, has grown big and - to me at least - seems to be increasingly cutting itself off from the rest of the world, and life as we know it Jim. Or are my prejudices showing?
The venue, where The Price of a Fish Supper is on for most of August, used to be the old Men's Union when I was a student. I wondered why it looked so completely unfamiliar and then remembered that it was because I have never been in it. I seem to remember that it was a men's club back in those peculiarly sexist days. The only time women were allowed in was when they were invited by some man, or to dances, which had the grim reputation of being 'cattle markets'. Neither I, nor any of my friends, went near the place. Which explains my complete unfamiliarity with it!
Paul turned in another astounding performance as Rab, the ex fisherman at the end of his tether. And this in spite of a small (but appreciative!) audience, and the fact that just as he was embarking on his tour de force, a smoke machine at the front of the stage (why? why?) gave a loud metallic graunch, and belched out a huge puff of theatrical smoke. That Paul didn't even falter is testament to his skills as an actor of the first order! The joys of live performance.
The venue, where The Price of a Fish Supper is on for most of August, used to be the old Men's Union when I was a student. I wondered why it looked so completely unfamiliar and then remembered that it was because I have never been in it. I seem to remember that it was a men's club back in those peculiarly sexist days. The only time women were allowed in was when they were invited by some man, or to dances, which had the grim reputation of being 'cattle markets'. Neither I, nor any of my friends, went near the place. Which explains my complete unfamiliarity with it!
Paul turned in another astounding performance as Rab, the ex fisherman at the end of his tether. And this in spite of a small (but appreciative!) audience, and the fact that just as he was embarking on his tour de force, a smoke machine at the front of the stage (why? why?) gave a loud metallic graunch, and belched out a huge puff of theatrical smoke. That Paul didn't even falter is testament to his skills as an actor of the first order! The joys of live performance.
The Price of a Fish Supper - Pass This On!
We need an audience for the Price of a Fish Supper, which is on at the Gilded Balloon, in Edinburgh, until the end of August. Can you help? Even if you aren't actually going to be in Edinburgh, if you know anyone who is already at or is going to The Edinburgh Festival, please pass on the details from the link above. It's a lunchtime show, 12.30 - and it doesn't cost the earth. But if you go, you will see a cracking performance from one of the finest actors working in Scotland today - Paul Morrow.
Our problem with the show is that - well reviewed as it was in its original production in Glasgow - and it was extremely well reviewed - it was a late entry to the Festival Fringe, which means that it isn't in the official fringe literature - and it's now competing with all those shows that are! Word of mouth is our best option - so if you think you can help, simply by passing on these details, please do!
Our problem with the show is that - well reviewed as it was in its original production in Glasgow - and it was extremely well reviewed - it was a late entry to the Festival Fringe, which means that it isn't in the official fringe literature - and it's now competing with all those shows that are! Word of mouth is our best option - so if you think you can help, simply by passing on these details, please do!
Cloudberries - Another poem.
Cloudberries are rare these days.
You can search all day
among the marshes. Meanwhile
mosquitoes feed on you.
When you bring them in a pail
though you have picked for hours
fingers torn, face swollen, they will
subside slowly to fewer than
you would ever have believed.
Dreamberries dissolving between the teeth
with a faint golden taste of the sky.
(Started many years ago in Finland. Completed only recently!)
You can search all day
among the marshes. Meanwhile
mosquitoes feed on you.
When you bring them in a pail
though you have picked for hours
fingers torn, face swollen, they will
subside slowly to fewer than
you would ever have believed.
Dreamberries dissolving between the teeth
with a faint golden taste of the sky.
(Started many years ago in Finland. Completed only recently!)
Lotte Lenya and From Russia With Love
Watched the last bit of From Russia with Love last night. Saw poor Vladek Sheybal get his come uppance all over again with a certain amount of satisfaction. He may have been an excellent actor but as a theatre director he was - how can I put this? - difficult. Challenging. Bloody awful to work with. Many years ago, I wrote a play about Solidarity (the original, Polish version of the movement!) and Vladek was asked to direct it. The whole experience was a nightmare.
Vladek rewrote my play. Then he shouted at the actors. Rehearsals were a constant battle. Not that the play didn't need 'development' because it did. I was a very young and inexperienced playwright. But Heroes and Others needed proper work, of the kind that my later play Wormwood got, in the skilled hands of Philip Howard, at the Traverse - a thoroughly enriching experience for me as a writer.
Back then, though, the whole miserable time was compounded by the fact that it was winter and we were rehearsing in what amounted to a derelict building, with lavatories that didn't work. Tension and dust triggered a severe bout of asthma. I can remember struggling through the Edinburgh streets, gasping for breath. With all the hindsight of age and experience, I should have made a swift exit stage left, taking my script with me, and (in view of my breathing difficulties) headed straight for the nearest hospital. Instead, I soldiered on, trying to rescue my original vision.
The play was not a success and the whole miserable experience put me off writing for the stage for some years. Now, however, when I look at the reviews, they were actually quite complimentary about my writing. It was the production they didn't like. Scottish theatre is a very small pool, and word had got out about the 'difficulties'. They were absolutely right. But at the time it seemed like the end of the world. All of which leads me to other 'end of the world' experiences.
At the same time as cheering Vladek's onscreen demise, I was trying to explain to my son about the wonder of Lotte Lenya (Rosa Kleb!) in her heyday. Somewhere, I have the Berlin Theatre Songs and the Threepenny Opera, on vinyl, with Lotte singing. Surabayah Johnny is my favourite: the most magical, heart rending track. And over the years, I've come back to it, from time to time, partly because it's so beautiful, but also because it's the embodiment of the outraged howl of every woman who has ever been loved and left by some man she thought she knew, which is probably all of us at one time or another!
Vladek rewrote my play. Then he shouted at the actors. Rehearsals were a constant battle. Not that the play didn't need 'development' because it did. I was a very young and inexperienced playwright. But Heroes and Others needed proper work, of the kind that my later play Wormwood got, in the skilled hands of Philip Howard, at the Traverse - a thoroughly enriching experience for me as a writer.
Back then, though, the whole miserable time was compounded by the fact that it was winter and we were rehearsing in what amounted to a derelict building, with lavatories that didn't work. Tension and dust triggered a severe bout of asthma. I can remember struggling through the Edinburgh streets, gasping for breath. With all the hindsight of age and experience, I should have made a swift exit stage left, taking my script with me, and (in view of my breathing difficulties) headed straight for the nearest hospital. Instead, I soldiered on, trying to rescue my original vision.
The play was not a success and the whole miserable experience put me off writing for the stage for some years. Now, however, when I look at the reviews, they were actually quite complimentary about my writing. It was the production they didn't like. Scottish theatre is a very small pool, and word had got out about the 'difficulties'. They were absolutely right. But at the time it seemed like the end of the world. All of which leads me to other 'end of the world' experiences.
At the same time as cheering Vladek's onscreen demise, I was trying to explain to my son about the wonder of Lotte Lenya (Rosa Kleb!) in her heyday. Somewhere, I have the Berlin Theatre Songs and the Threepenny Opera, on vinyl, with Lotte singing. Surabayah Johnny is my favourite: the most magical, heart rending track. And over the years, I've come back to it, from time to time, partly because it's so beautiful, but also because it's the embodiment of the outraged howl of every woman who has ever been loved and left by some man she thought she knew, which is probably all of us at one time or another!
The Curiosity Cabinet (Again)
Have just had an email from Polygon to say that all the rights in The Curiosity Cabinet now revert to me, or at least are with my agent, who negotiated the original deal. 'There is no stock available in the warehouse' says the letter, which means that the print run of 1500 sold out in what amounts to quite a short space of time: not a vast number of books, for sure, but three times more than many a political memoir for which large advances have been paid. And demand is still there, particularly since I continue to give the novel a certain amount of online publicity with my blogs, my website, and linked in with my own flourishing eBay 'antique textiles' shop. (My largely female customer base always seems to contain potential fans of novels such as The Curiosity Cabinet!)Latterly, there have been copies for sale on Amazon, for a whopping £18.00. Even allowing for Amazon Marketplace's own markup, this seems quite high, and yet they have obviously been selling at that price. But of course, there is a certain rarity value about these copies now, published in a well designed edition, and I only have a few of them left myself. I have decided to list the very few that I can spare on Amazon, at rather less than £18.00 - an almost ludicrously easy procedure - and meanwhile explore other possibilities.
I cannot for the life of me understand why publishers can't go down this route as well, keeping in print a back list for which there is a low but steady demand, so that they can take advantage of those inevitable little blips that will occur. There is a possibility that some of those seeing the play might just possibly want to read something else by me. Traffic to this blog is also growing. And I'm actively looking for a publisher for The Corncrake, which is a follow up (although not a sequel) to the Curiosity Cabinet, and would probably appeal to a similar readership. I know that some publishers, notably in the USA and Australia, recognise and take account of this Long Tail phenomenon. But not Polygon.
Before I go down the 'Print on Demand' route, however, I will almost certainly spend the rest of this year exploring other, more conventional, publishing options, particularly since I am already deep into a more commercial novel (with a Mary Queen of Scots theme), have a fully revised version of The Corncrake to sell, and now have the available rights in The Curiosity Cabinet to offer as well. All this, with poetry and plays and journalism too.
I sound like a good marketable proposition, even to myself.
If I sound like one to you, and you have publishing connections, do let me know!
Have set up a Facebook account. Major displacement activity. Now have several friends. Obsessively visiting site to see if I have any more. Somebody has written on my wall. Somebody has made me into a Zombie. Some days I feel like a Zombie. Engage in debates about relative merits of MySpace and Facebook and Bebo with Large Viking Like Son. Networking is looming very large in my life at the moment. Suspect that it's very much the way forward for writers and artists as well as musicians, who are already making the most of their opportunities. Doom laden sense of potential for timewasting vies with perception of all the exciting possibilities. Feel I am taking baby steps, in the dark. Absolutely fascinating.
The Scent of Blue - a Poem about Perfume
Well, it's about much more than perfume, but I suspect a few people may identify with that aspect of it! I haven't consciously written poems for years, although I once published quite a lot of them, including a collection called A Book of Men, that won a 'new writing' award from the Arts Council. I used to do readings, as well. Enjoyed performing. Then the plays and the prose took over. The plays in particular seemed to use that part of my creativity that had inspired the poems and they just didn't come any more. Now every writer knows that if you wait for inspiration to strike, you'll never produce anything. And it's true that you can make yourself sit down and write prose, and plays. But I couldn't make myself write poems.
For a long while, every new poem I attempted seemed like cliched, stilted nonsense. Nothing worked.
So I wrote stories, plays, novels, non fiction. But not poetry.
Then, quite recently, a strange thing started to happen. The plays in particular became more and more like poems. The director who worked on The Price of a Fish Supper told me that she was reluctant to ask me to cut anything, because it was all linked so intricately together.
Now, each play I write tends towards poetry. Is this good or bad? I don't know.
A day or two ago, I got out an old folder of unpublished poems. Usually, that's a salutory experience. Going back, I mean. Novels that you once thought were brilliant, fall apart before your very eyes. Plays wither on the page.
But not the poems. I could swear that the poems are still good. It was like finding an old bottle of whisky in a shipwreck and discovering that it still tasted of itself.
And then I wrote something new. I wrote the Scent of Blue.
I'm not sure quite what it is, but I think it's probably a long poem.
There are still a dozen novels, and other books, lurking in my head, crying out to be written. There are still ideas which only seem to present themselves as plays.
But for some strange reason, ideas for poems are also elbowing their way in, demanding to be heard.
Perhaps it's a leap of inspiration.
Perhaps it's yet another red herring.
Perhaps it's just something else I have to explore.
But here it is. And I reserve the right to change it, or delete it altogether, because I think it may be part of a work in progress. Judge for yourself.
THE SCENT OF BLUE
A concert in Edinburgh, years ago.
She manages to find a single seat.
Two people sweep past, ushered by the
front of house manager in his dark suit.
He's a famous conductor,
silver haired, sharp featured like some
bird of prey, but smaller than you would
expect, in evening dress.
On his arm a thin woman,
taller than he is, strides with
striking face and hair, a cloud of
grey blonde curls around her head.
Not a young woman but a
diva surely, inhabiting her clothes,
inhabiting her skin with such confidence.
She wants to be like that some day,
longs for self possession.
And she remembers the scent of her,
musky, mysterious, a heavy, night time
scent, like flowers after dark.
The scent of passion.
The scent of money.
The scent of blue.
She searches for the scent for years.
Her mother wore Tweed.
Now she wishes she could
open a wardrobe door, and
smell her mother’s plain sweet scent,
almost as much as she
wishes she could tell her mother so.
As a girl, she wears Bluebell,
fresh and full of hope, or
Diorissimo, like the lilac she once
carried through the streets,
on her way from meeting a man
she desired and admired, thinking
Girl with Lilac, still so young,
self conscious, not possessed.
Later, she tries l’Air du Temps and
Je Reviens and Fleurs de Rocaille
but they are none of them the scent of blue.
She wears Chanel, briefly, with dreams of Marilyn,
loves to watch her, loves to hear her voice,
satisfying as chocolate or olives but
Number Five is not her scent, never suits her, never will.
She discovers Mitsouko.
Some tester in some chemist’s shop somewhere.
An old, old fashioned scent,
syncopated, unexpected, not to every taste.
When she wears it,
women ask her what it is,
I love your scent they say.
How strange the way scent lingers in the mind.
How strange the way scent
changes on warm skin.
On her it ripens to something
peachy, mossy, rich and rare.
But it is not the scent of blue.
She loses her heart.
It is an affair of telephone lines,
more profound, more sweet and
bitter than Mitsouko,
a sad song in the dark,
and the colour of that time is blue.
Afterwards, she searches through
Bellodgia, Apres L’Ondee, Nuit de Noel, Apercu
Until drawn by nostalgia
She finds Joy,
dearly bought roses and jasmine,
a summer garden in one small bottle.
She loves Joy.
She marries in Joy.
She wears Mitsouko
and she forgets the scent of blue.
Older, she glances in her mirror and only
sometimes likes what she sees.
She finds Arpege,
not just rose and jasmine but
bergamot, orange blossom, peach, vanilla, ylang ylang,
one essence piled on another like the notes on the piano she
used to, sometimes still does, play.
Oh this is not a scent for the very young.
It is too dark for that,
a memory of something lost,
an unfinished story.
This scent has a past.
She sees him across a room.
Another woman ushers him,
this way and that, makes introductions,
a little charmed the way women
always were charmed by this man.
It used to make her smile the way
women flocked around this
man who belonged to
nobody but himself.
She is wearing Arpege.
Not a scent for the very young,
vertiginous as the layers of time between.
With age comes wisdom,
but like mud stirred at the bottom of a pool,
memories bubble to the surface.
Not wisely but too well they loved.
Now, they are waving across a
chasm of years.
They speak in measured tones,
they speak and walk away,
they speak again in careful words, that
every now and then
recall the scent of
No.
It will not do.
Only in dreams
can one innocently recapture that
first fine careless
So much more is forgotten
Than is ever remembered.
And the clock insists
let it be let it be.
1911
One summer evening
a young man observes the way twilight closes the flowers,
whose scent lingers on the last heat of the day,
the way the light goes out of the sky,
painting it dark blue, how
soon the war will tear this place apart.
How soon all things resort to sadness.
In a new century,
She finds among jasmine and rose
vanilla and violet,
a dark twist of anise, like the
twist of a knife.
First last always.
The scent of the diva.
The scent of passion.
Fine beyond imagining.
She sees it is essentially
sad, sad, sad, a
sad scent:
L’Heure Bleue.
All things come to sadness in the end.
The beautiful bitter foolish scent of blue.
Catherine Czerkawska
For a long while, every new poem I attempted seemed like cliched, stilted nonsense. Nothing worked.
So I wrote stories, plays, novels, non fiction. But not poetry.
Then, quite recently, a strange thing started to happen. The plays in particular became more and more like poems. The director who worked on The Price of a Fish Supper told me that she was reluctant to ask me to cut anything, because it was all linked so intricately together.
Now, each play I write tends towards poetry. Is this good or bad? I don't know.
A day or two ago, I got out an old folder of unpublished poems. Usually, that's a salutory experience. Going back, I mean. Novels that you once thought were brilliant, fall apart before your very eyes. Plays wither on the page.
But not the poems. I could swear that the poems are still good. It was like finding an old bottle of whisky in a shipwreck and discovering that it still tasted of itself.
And then I wrote something new. I wrote the Scent of Blue.
I'm not sure quite what it is, but I think it's probably a long poem.
There are still a dozen novels, and other books, lurking in my head, crying out to be written. There are still ideas which only seem to present themselves as plays.
But for some strange reason, ideas for poems are also elbowing their way in, demanding to be heard.
Perhaps it's a leap of inspiration.
Perhaps it's yet another red herring.
Perhaps it's just something else I have to explore.
But here it is. And I reserve the right to change it, or delete it altogether, because I think it may be part of a work in progress. Judge for yourself.
THE SCENT OF BLUE
A concert in Edinburgh, years ago.
She manages to find a single seat.
Two people sweep past, ushered by the
front of house manager in his dark suit.
He's a famous conductor,
silver haired, sharp featured like some
bird of prey, but smaller than you would
expect, in evening dress.
On his arm a thin woman,
taller than he is, strides with
striking face and hair, a cloud of
grey blonde curls around her head.
Not a young woman but a
diva surely, inhabiting her clothes,
inhabiting her skin with such confidence.
She wants to be like that some day,
longs for self possession.
And she remembers the scent of her,
musky, mysterious, a heavy, night time
scent, like flowers after dark.
The scent of passion.
The scent of money.
The scent of blue.
She searches for the scent for years.
Her mother wore Tweed.
Now she wishes she could
open a wardrobe door, and
smell her mother’s plain sweet scent,
almost as much as she
wishes she could tell her mother so.
As a girl, she wears Bluebell,
fresh and full of hope, or
Diorissimo, like the lilac she once
carried through the streets,
on her way from meeting a man
she desired and admired, thinking
Girl with Lilac, still so young,
self conscious, not possessed.
Later, she tries l’Air du Temps and
Je Reviens and Fleurs de Rocaille
but they are none of them the scent of blue.
She wears Chanel, briefly, with dreams of Marilyn,
loves to watch her, loves to hear her voice,
satisfying as chocolate or olives but
Number Five is not her scent, never suits her, never will.
She discovers Mitsouko.
Some tester in some chemist’s shop somewhere.
An old, old fashioned scent,
syncopated, unexpected, not to every taste.
When she wears it,
women ask her what it is,
I love your scent they say.
How strange the way scent lingers in the mind.
How strange the way scent
changes on warm skin.
On her it ripens to something
peachy, mossy, rich and rare.
But it is not the scent of blue.
She loses her heart.
It is an affair of telephone lines,
more profound, more sweet and
bitter than Mitsouko,
a sad song in the dark,
and the colour of that time is blue.
Afterwards, she searches through
Bellodgia, Apres L’Ondee, Nuit de Noel, Apercu
Until drawn by nostalgia
She finds Joy,
dearly bought roses and jasmine,
a summer garden in one small bottle.
She loves Joy.
She marries in Joy.
She wears Mitsouko
and she forgets the scent of blue.
Older, she glances in her mirror and only
sometimes likes what she sees.
She finds Arpege,
not just rose and jasmine but
bergamot, orange blossom, peach, vanilla, ylang ylang,
one essence piled on another like the notes on the piano she
used to, sometimes still does, play.
Oh this is not a scent for the very young.
It is too dark for that,
a memory of something lost,
an unfinished story.
This scent has a past.
She sees him across a room.
Another woman ushers him,
this way and that, makes introductions,
a little charmed the way women
always were charmed by this man.
It used to make her smile the way
women flocked around this
man who belonged to
nobody but himself.
She is wearing Arpege.
Not a scent for the very young,
vertiginous as the layers of time between.
With age comes wisdom,
but like mud stirred at the bottom of a pool,
memories bubble to the surface.
Not wisely but too well they loved.
Now, they are waving across a
chasm of years.
They speak in measured tones,
they speak and walk away,
they speak again in careful words, that
every now and then
recall the scent of
No.
It will not do.
Only in dreams
can one innocently recapture that
first fine careless
So much more is forgotten
Than is ever remembered.
And the clock insists
let it be let it be.
1911
One summer evening
a young man observes the way twilight closes the flowers,
whose scent lingers on the last heat of the day,
the way the light goes out of the sky,
painting it dark blue, how
soon the war will tear this place apart.
How soon all things resort to sadness.
In a new century,
She finds among jasmine and rose
vanilla and violet,
a dark twist of anise, like the
twist of a knife.
First last always.
The scent of the diva.
The scent of passion.
Fine beyond imagining.
She sees it is essentially
sad, sad, sad, a
sad scent:
L’Heure Bleue.
All things come to sadness in the end.
The beautiful bitter foolish scent of blue.
Catherine Czerkawska
The Locker Room and the Specialist Reader
It serves me right. Absolutely and completely my own fault. But it's quite interesting. So here goes.
The back story is this. I have this play called The Locker Room which has been sitting in a folder in a drawer for several years. I wrote it with the Traverse in mind. It is a dark study of the effects of sexual abuse on a young athlete and, having revised it extensively, I eventually submitted it to the Traverse from whence it bounced back quicker than a speeding bullet. The artistic director didn't like it although he didn't feel there was anything technically 'wrong' with it - and their 'reader', whoever that was, I've never been able to find out - had been very enthusiastic indeed. I filed it away, as you do, and then sent it to one or two Scottish theatres, including the Ramshorn, at Strathclyde, but heard nothing. And by nothing that's exactly what I mean. Plays (much like manuscripts sent to Scottish publishers) simply disappear into black holes. They don't say yes and they sure as hell don't say no. Me, I think they use them to fuel their central heating boilers.
Anyway, cue forward several years, and I read about the Scottish 'Playwrights' Studio' and their 'Fuse' scheme. You can submit a play which is then read, anonymously, by a 'very experienced specialist reader' (reader, not writer) who delivers a judgement. The play is then forwarded - with or without the assessment, it's your own choice - to various 'partner' theatres within Scotland, a long list of them, some of whom I wasn't even aware of. Couldn't hurt, I thought, even though the scheme is probably not aimed at playwrights of my weary years of experience. So I printed out the full length play, sent it in, with the proviso that the assessment should not accompany it to the theatres - do you think I'm daft or what? - and went off on holiday for a week.
Somewhat to my surprise I returned to an instant response (so instant that I wondered what else the reader had had to do with his time, but hey, why I am complaining about speed?) Did he like it ? I'm saying 'he' because I suspect he is of the male persuasion, but I could be completely wrong on this one. No he didn't. S/he began by saying 'you clearly have an ability with language and some interesting ideas or intuitions about the ambiguities of love in its various forms'.
Well it's kind of nice to know after all these years that I still have an ability with language (sometimes you do wonder!) - and why do I think it's a man? - oh yes, it's the faintly perjorative use of the word intuition.
He thought there was no clarity of motivation - which I take issue with. Well, what I suppose I mean is that I take issue with that as a criticism. Show me the character who has clarity of motivation, and I will certainly be looking at a two dimensional character.
Nobody real ever has clarity of motivation. Do you?
He thought - strangely -that there was a contradiction between the 'single setting' and the 'poetic style'. Not sure why. I'm never averse to moving my characters around, but in this instance, I made a conscious choice to place my characters in one enclosed, claustrophobic, and slightly risky space. So no, the play won't ever 'move' in that sense.
His main gripe - much more helpfully in my book - was that there was an imbalance in the characters and 'no competition of energies' and he could be right. The Locker Room is, in essence, the story of my main character, a young ice hockey player called Matt. And perhaps that's all it should be. Another monologue. Or a dialogue between Matt and his 'ghost' - the coach who abused him, and who is now dead.
In this instance, the reader's observation was spot on.
But I wonder if - knowing who had sent it in - his response would have been the same. Well maybe it would. One hopes it would. But it does strike me that some of our better known playwrights and novelists might well benefit from the same treatment. Perhaps experience makes you lazy. Not, mind you, that I have ever found anyone reluctant to offer criticism where my own writing is concerned. Quite the opposite.
So what to do now I wonder? Is it worth my while expending the considerable effort involved in rewriting the play with a new kind of focus. Well maybe.
Or should I wait to see what, if anything, the various theatres make of it? But then this particular reader reckoned that it wasn't worth sending out to them - so perhaps that won't happen.
Or should I post it on here? But it's dark, and not altogether suitable for family reading.
And it is rather long.
And definitely poetic.
Hey ho.
At the moment, with a dozen other fish to fry, and not entirely sure myself about the play, I will probably return it to its drawer and do nothing.
But I'll let you know if I decide to do some rewrites - and how it goes!
The back story is this. I have this play called The Locker Room which has been sitting in a folder in a drawer for several years. I wrote it with the Traverse in mind. It is a dark study of the effects of sexual abuse on a young athlete and, having revised it extensively, I eventually submitted it to the Traverse from whence it bounced back quicker than a speeding bullet. The artistic director didn't like it although he didn't feel there was anything technically 'wrong' with it - and their 'reader', whoever that was, I've never been able to find out - had been very enthusiastic indeed. I filed it away, as you do, and then sent it to one or two Scottish theatres, including the Ramshorn, at Strathclyde, but heard nothing. And by nothing that's exactly what I mean. Plays (much like manuscripts sent to Scottish publishers) simply disappear into black holes. They don't say yes and they sure as hell don't say no. Me, I think they use them to fuel their central heating boilers.
Anyway, cue forward several years, and I read about the Scottish 'Playwrights' Studio' and their 'Fuse' scheme. You can submit a play which is then read, anonymously, by a 'very experienced specialist reader' (reader, not writer) who delivers a judgement. The play is then forwarded - with or without the assessment, it's your own choice - to various 'partner' theatres within Scotland, a long list of them, some of whom I wasn't even aware of. Couldn't hurt, I thought, even though the scheme is probably not aimed at playwrights of my weary years of experience. So I printed out the full length play, sent it in, with the proviso that the assessment should not accompany it to the theatres - do you think I'm daft or what? - and went off on holiday for a week.
Somewhat to my surprise I returned to an instant response (so instant that I wondered what else the reader had had to do with his time, but hey, why I am complaining about speed?) Did he like it ? I'm saying 'he' because I suspect he is of the male persuasion, but I could be completely wrong on this one. No he didn't. S/he began by saying 'you clearly have an ability with language and some interesting ideas or intuitions about the ambiguities of love in its various forms'.
Well it's kind of nice to know after all these years that I still have an ability with language (sometimes you do wonder!) - and why do I think it's a man? - oh yes, it's the faintly perjorative use of the word intuition.
He thought there was no clarity of motivation - which I take issue with. Well, what I suppose I mean is that I take issue with that as a criticism. Show me the character who has clarity of motivation, and I will certainly be looking at a two dimensional character.
Nobody real ever has clarity of motivation. Do you?
He thought - strangely -that there was a contradiction between the 'single setting' and the 'poetic style'. Not sure why. I'm never averse to moving my characters around, but in this instance, I made a conscious choice to place my characters in one enclosed, claustrophobic, and slightly risky space. So no, the play won't ever 'move' in that sense.
His main gripe - much more helpfully in my book - was that there was an imbalance in the characters and 'no competition of energies' and he could be right. The Locker Room is, in essence, the story of my main character, a young ice hockey player called Matt. And perhaps that's all it should be. Another monologue. Or a dialogue between Matt and his 'ghost' - the coach who abused him, and who is now dead.
In this instance, the reader's observation was spot on.
But I wonder if - knowing who had sent it in - his response would have been the same. Well maybe it would. One hopes it would. But it does strike me that some of our better known playwrights and novelists might well benefit from the same treatment. Perhaps experience makes you lazy. Not, mind you, that I have ever found anyone reluctant to offer criticism where my own writing is concerned. Quite the opposite.
So what to do now I wonder? Is it worth my while expending the considerable effort involved in rewriting the play with a new kind of focus. Well maybe.
Or should I wait to see what, if anything, the various theatres make of it? But then this particular reader reckoned that it wasn't worth sending out to them - so perhaps that won't happen.
Or should I post it on here? But it's dark, and not altogether suitable for family reading.
And it is rather long.
And definitely poetic.
Hey ho.
At the moment, with a dozen other fish to fry, and not entirely sure myself about the play, I will probably return it to its drawer and do nothing.
But I'll let you know if I decide to do some rewrites - and how it goes!
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