Day 94. Slow down chariot, come down easy. (4/4/19)

Let's talk a little bit about process shall we?

I'm writing. Right now, I'm writing. It's 6pm. Which is kind of the time you think you'll be knocking off but it's sort of my golden hour. This is the time of day where I have some rhythm going, where I do some of my best work.

I don't mean this blog. I mean, there's some good stuff here sometimes but other days it's filler. We all know that really, don't we? It's part of the deal. There will be days where you can pass on what's here and go 'you know what, tomorrow will be decent'.

When I say 'I'm writing' I'm not talking about the physical process of writing this. I'm writing something else. I'm writing something that's been written so many times over the last couple of years. Because 'writing is rewriting' and all that. Constant refinement.

Meeting with a director yesterday. For something we're working on. We discussed structure. We had a script in front of us and we moved it round and talked about what other things could be done with it. Looked at who the characters were and what they wanted and who they could be and who else could be in it that wasn't yet, and who was in it that maybe didn't need to be and how things changing could change other things.

Because this is what theatre is. Theatre is collaboration. Most things are. Books have editors and their vision may alter the vision of the writer. Plays and films? Directors obviously. And the vision they bring of what your vision is/was can change what your vision is going forward. Because one idea, one alteration, can spark the next and the next. Until the dominoes start dropping in different directions.

So, we changed these two characters to this one other character and moved this character from there to here and moved this chunk to here, slid pages up and down and from left to right. One character became two characters and pages dropped off the front and pages that were at the back moved to the middle and the shape started to look really good.

And once you know the shape, you get to play with the words.

Today has been shaping 100 pages of script and cutting out things that people no longer need to say. And now I'm onto that bit where you start writing dialogue for people who were already there to say to people who aren't there yet, and won't be for ages yet, and writing dialogue for people who weren't there yesterday but quite definitely are now.

The tricky bit? The tricky bit is the lines that bridge the bits. The lines that bridge the bits that were there to the bits that weren't and the bits that weren't there but are now back to those that were already in place.

Which may only make sense to me.

But that's where I am now. I'm in that bit where I have 'this bit' and I have 'that bit' and there's this one line that will fall into place, connect the two things that need connecting and kick the next five pages on at a speed you wouldn't believe.

And it has to be 'the right' one line. It needs to have weight, give information and get a laugh.

And at the moment, I haven't got a bloody clue what that line is.

But I will. In a few minutes, I will.

I just need to break state. And that breaking state is going to involve listening to some music that I already had on, picking up the guitar behind me and messing round in a key that is hopefully in the region of the tune I'm listening to, and doing this.

This is me, breaking state, cleaning my head up for a bit so I can get through to the next moment.

This is the process.

One day you can ask me what line I was writing while I wrote this. And I'll have forgotten.

(Soundtrack: Ah, that'd be telling. You can't give all the secrets of your craft away, can you?)