Day 35. What's He Building In There? (4/2/19)

(Soundtrack: at this very moment, Morecambe & Wise doing 'Bring Me Sunshine' playing out as part of Lauren Laverne's Cloudbusting sequence. Her show's a bit dull compared to Keaveny's, if we're honest: too many keyboards, too dancey, too rap-y. I'm sure there are loads loving it but it's losing me for long stretches. Eric & Ernie though? How much better can a start to the day be?)

The plan was this:

Get up at the same time as J, sort any washing, any dishes, any tidying that needs doing, shower, read for an hour as part of my new routine - make sure that I'm getting that hour in, catch up on the books that I wouldn't otherwise be covering, sort out my Dickens, my Joyce, my Tolstoy, get into Infinite Jest, do the Pynchon, the Presley blogs, the World War 2 books, get through all those impulse purchases. Use that first hour of the day wisely.

I slept in till 9am. We're onto the 9:30 news on 6 Music, I haven't showered yet. Matty was up before me. That's not right.

(Back at the desk, 2 hours later. 6 Music turned off, despite the fact that Mary Anne Hobbs has played both Julian Cope's 'World Shut Your Mouth' and Sly & The Family Stone's immortal 'Running Away'. Soundtrack now Tom Waits' 1990 slice of darkness 'What's He Building In There?' because our neighbour is clearly on a day off. He's a lovely bloke, very quiet, no problem at all, on the occasions we see him he always appears happy. But when he's at home, he builds. He's constantly hammering, endlessly drilling. The noises of construction are ever present. It's a three bed semi, same as ours, surely there can't be that much to do. So, with this track in mind, the question asked and asked again in our house is 'what's he building in there?' We'll never know the answer on that one)

This study is freezing. It's the old garage, converted to study when we expecting Matty. And the lads who did the conversion didn't really get the floor right and didn't line the walls so, even though I'm sat three feet from the radiator, I'm freezing. Think I need a sweater. This is where I work now.

And this is what work is today:

The Liverbirds musical is in the redrafting process.

Liverbirds being not the 70s TV show, rather the 60s band who went to Hamburg and became the last great untold Merseybeat story.

There was a meeting with a theatre a few weeks ago. Suggestions on changes were made. I know where I'm going with the suggestions and the changes. The structure for act one is ready, the rewrite needs to start. The dialogue will flow. Dialogue is never an issue, I'm magnificent at dialogue. I have an ear, I have a voice. Ask anyone who's seen any of my stuff. Some gags will be sacrificed. Some of my favourite gags will be sacrificed. It's the Truman Capote line on writing: 'kill your darlings'. The fact that a gag is good doesn't mean it's right.

The structure for act two is about to be tweaked. There needs to be a peak for the story to come down from. We need to see them struggle to the peak, we need to want them to succeed. And when we see them succeed, we need to be with them as they slip back.

And this is the point where the facts need to fictionalise. The peak is there. It's in the script. It just needs to move back a bit, needs to be later. Changes need to happen within the scene which, in reality, happen later. I need to change the way I'm breaking the fourth wall between the play and the audience. It's possibly the trickiest piece of rewriting I've ever had to carry out. It'll be brilliant.

Honest to god, why would you not do this?