Musing

Been a while since I posted. This blog has largely served its purpose, which frankly never involved any serious expectation of being read (which isn't to say that it being read isn't nice!). I have another idea for a blog which would, I think, have the potential to be properly popular, but I really don't have the time to develop it at present. Given the weight of things that I'm taking on, this isn't likely to happen soon.

Anyway, I heard today that a company is interested in reviving Guilds, the musical comedy I co-wrote for the Edinburgh Fringe '07. I have rather mixed feelings about this.

Reasons to go ahead:
- The show took a lot of hard work, and deserves to be seen/experienced by more people.
- We're very proud of it.
- It might cause, in a networky way, something else to happen by someone seeing it.
- Probable expectation of some nominal royalties.
- We are not famous or in-demand enough to afford pretentions like insisting that our work is performed in such a way as preserves the original intentions.
- Seeing a fresh take on the show might be very rewarding.
- Seeing it performed again might be very exciting. It was last time.
- Being among a company of people who like the show even half as much as the original cast would be tremendously rewarding.
- The central idea of the show is genuinely original and fresh, and has a lot more mileage left in it.
- Quite a nice ego-trip. Let's be honest here.
- A chance to address some of the less-than-perfect features of the show with the benefit of hindsight. New professional shows get loads of preview performances so the writers/directors can get it right before it opens. We had one chance. (Well two, actually, with the break in the middle of the Fringe run, and not all of the changes I/we made were improvements).

Reasons not to go ahead:
- It will never be as special as the first time, where the cast comprised many of my closest friends.
- The atmosphere around the original production was like nothing I've ever experienced, and any revival will never come close.
- Some of the jokes have aged and will need rewriting.
- One of the central themes was absolutely bang on the zeitgeist in summer '07. It is now way out of date, and the wrapping-up of the show will hugely suffer from it. It is too deeply woven into the plot to be replaced without a significant rewrite, and I doubt that an adequate replacement could be found.
- They won't do it "properly", no matter how good the company is (and I honestly have no idea whether or not they are). Seeing it done wrong will really annoy me. Even the original production, in which I had little direct influence, was not entirely "right" in my eyes, and that was with the composer MD'ing (with whom I shared a very close concept of the show) and a receptive director.
- What goes in the Fringe stays in the Fringe. Some shows only work there, and I think this is one of them. Would need to be a double-header at the very least.
- Seeing a new production may tarnish the memories of the original show, which are among my very happiest.

Basically, it comes down to this: is seeing a second production of the show worth the fact that it cannot possibly be as special as the first one?

I really don't know the answer to this.

Upbeat: I

Well, it's six months now since I started this blog. I still have a lot of novel still to write, but I feel that I'm settling nicely into the style, if not the routine of actually writing enough.

Ages of Man is dead, long live Upbeat. I still don't intend posting any more material that is destined for said book, but here I'm going to throw together a sketch to fill out back-story, and to try to develop a voice for Ellen. I recently wrote a scene from her perspective (probably the only one in the book), and realised that her character could do with a bit more development, as could my writing of her voice. This is a not-very-thought-out attempt at so doing.

---

Ellen heard the 'phone ring, and knew without looking who was calling. She didn't rush to answer it.
"Hello, mother, how lovely to - "
"Ellen, darling, how was last night? When do I get to meet him?"
"Mother! He only took me out for dinner!"
"Well I want to know everything about him. Gary, you said his name was?"
"Harry. He's a - "
"Prince Harry? Wouldn't it be wonderful if you married a Prince!"
"He's a history student, we met at - "
"Is he as handsome as Timmy was?"
"Mother!" The conversation was settling into a familiar pattern.
"I'm only asking."
"Well, yes as a matter of fact. He's quite tall, with curly blond hair. We met at a party, his flatmate is one of my old school friends. He's - "
"Good. I wish I still looked as stunning as you, then I'd find myself some dishy young man."
"Mother! Don't let daddy hear you say that, it's not nice!"
"Speaking of daddy, he's having a shoot next weekend, would Gary like to come? I'm just dying to meet him."
Conversation, such as it was, continued for a quarter of an hour. Ellen's normally endless patience generally wore thin during conversations with her mother, especially the ones about her love-life, which most of them were. To her mother it was absolutely imperative that she found a suitable match before she was too old (i.e. 22) and it was even more imperative that he be handsome, athletic, charming, and from "good stock". If Ellen actually liked him, then so much the better.

Half-formed idea

The musing following my previous post has lead me to think about why the setting is weak, and I've come to realise that this is due a lack of any narrative drive. It is simply there as a backdrop to the action.

It's occurred to me that an underlying assumption in the majority of amateur performance - be it theatre, orchestra, choir or whatever - is that people will go out of their way to see it. In reality, audiences are generally strongly biased towards friends/relatives of the performers, who will have been 'encouraged' to attend. There are exceptions of course, but if an amateur group suddenly ceased to exist, hardly anyone not involved would notice or care. This is in stark contrast to professional groups. Furthermore, the audience's appreciation is often insensitive to the quality of the performance. The performers tend to behave as if the performance were as important as for a professional group - understandable, as it is their pastime - even if the standard falls far short of that (talking the talk?). Would the performers actually like it if they got what they wished for? Would an audience of 3000 and a frank review in The Times really please an amateur group?

Bearing this in mind, I wonder if the orchestra storyline could be made to stand up on its own by turning this on its head - perhaps setting it in a world in which amateur performances share the same properties as professional ones (large audiences, reviews in major newspapers etc.), perhaps setting it in reality but having the (poor) orchestra suddenly become famous.

It's not quite right yet, but I think it's a thread worthy of more thought.

Why aren't I writing another show?

I've just listened to some recordings of Guilds, the musical I co-wrote (a working DVD, alas, hasn't yet reached me), and was at once reminded of several of the most satisfying aspects of writing a show. My writing, such as it is, came alive in a way that simply isn't possible with a book. I would send off fresh lyrics to the show's composer, and in return would receive a recording of a new song. The characters, previously existing only in our imaginations, took on a life of their own when the roles were filled by real actors, most of them close friends. Being among the cast/crew and seeing how much joy the show was obviously bringing them. Watching audiences being entertained, laughing (in most of the right places...) and applauding. None of these happens to an author, at least until he gets so famous that his work is adapted for the screen or stage - hardly something to assume will happen!

Why throw that away and write a book instead? Why confine myself into one of the most solitary processes possible? Several reasons. The first is purely pragmatic; when I'd decided to start writing again, my previous collaborator was not available, and I wasn't desirous of trying to find another and trying to develop a similar rapport. Second, I'd found that the plot and dialogue had come much more naturally to me than the lyrics, and while I believe that my lyrics show a strong degree of craftsmanship, they lack somewhat in emotional clout. I can do 'clever' a lot better than I can do 'sincere', and that is a limitation indeed for a lyricist. I want to try a different medium, and see if I am more suited to writing in it. I'm not a huge fan of straight theatre, so it was either through-composed opera (probably something like Britten) or a novel. Opera librettists are unquestionably second-class citizens, and I fancied finding an appropriate composer even less than for musicals. So a novel it is.

My writing style is increasingly turning out like early Pratchett, but without the fantasy. While pleasing, and a little unsurprsiing, this worries me, because early Pratchett used the fantasy to drive the plot and to provide interesting situations for his strong characters to deal with in a decidedly non-fantastic manner. His later work is more character-driven, but still retains the complexity of plot and setting afforded by his rich fantasy world. Guilds, if anything, fitted this mould better - it had real characters in a ridiculous setting that was self-consistent and fully real to its inhabitants, and a lot of the (plot-driven) show's freshness derived directly from its setting - this aspect of the show is one that I think we did very well indeed. Leaves of plausibility floating on a lake of silliness. Upbeat worries me because it is, if anything, too real - it is a very mundane setting and the plot is, frankly, uninspired. I think the characters are strong and the story a good one, and I think the book will be funny, but I'm worried that the plot and setting are insufficiently interesting to provide a good enough backdrop to a character-driven novel. Having realistic characters is essential for any writing, and the interest must ultimately derive from them. I worry that I'm turning away from the most successful aspect of my one previous project.

(On a side note, I find the Discworld novels are relying less and less on the fantasy, and there are times now when the fantasy actually gets in the way - pretty much all the fantasy (setting excpeted) in Making Money could be cut without harming the book, except for the Deus Ex Machina golden golems. Not his best.)

Perhaps the solution to this is to keep the characters and the basic story, but dump the orchestra tour and move the story somewhere more interesting. One of the strengths of the project so far is in making humour from the extremely mundane (the edited stuff does this better than the blog posts!), but this is possible in pretty much any setting.


Hmmm.

Insert Title Here

I have just got back from the first dissection meeting of a new and very promising writers' group, at which I got a lot of useful feedback. I am taking away the message that I am on the right track and am worrying about the right things, though I may need to be a little more careful about some of them.

I have a prospective title.

This was in no way discussed, but an idea has spontaneously occurred anyway. I very much admire the Woody Allen film Match Point, particularly the way that the title tied in not just with the setting, but with the structure as well. The film opens with a tennis player describing how a match can be won or lost if the ball hits the net cord, as it is little more than a coin toss which side of the net the ball will land, causing jubilation to one player and despair to the other. This theme is repeated later in the film, and how the film ends depends on a very similar event (which I won't spoil).

The ending of the novel is very clear to me. George will finish it single (again...), but very much changed for the experience, and he will set off to start university with a new, justified, sense of optimism (not revealing details!). Upbeat is a possible title. It means two things - optimistic in mood, and, musically, the unstressed beat preceding a (more 'interesting') bar/phrase/movement. Both of these fit the feeling with which the novel ends. A paragraph setting this up at the beginning, and another at the end would tie the plot, the setting and the title together nicely I think.

Update

Just a brief update on the situation of this hugely unpopular blog. I intend to discontinue posting new material on Ages of Man (or whatever it eventually gets called) as I believe the project is viable and do not want to have any more material in the public domain. I will continue using this blog to post about the process of writing itself. I will also use it for writing exercises - I have acquired books on good writing technique, and while I'm delighted that there were a number of chapters which taught me nothing new, there are areas which would benefit from working through given exercises, which I will do in due course. I intend to work on a detailed plot for the novel next.

I've also been pretty busy with Real Life lately and haven't had any time to write, but this will hopefully cease to be the case soon.

Titian Encryption

This has provided me with a perfect excuse to recycle shamelessly this parody which I wrote a few years back.

THE TITIAN ENCRYPTION
---------------------


A short story by Now Brand, the famous author.

Author's note: "All buildings and paintings in this story exist and are faithfully represented.
Furthermore, I did not make up any of the analysis or history whatsoever. None at all. Honest."


-------

Robbie felt confused. He'd been called at night to the National Gallery of Scotland in an emergency, but he couldn't understand why. An academic, he was dressed in his usual festive reindeer woolly jumper with leather patches on the elbows. He couldn't understand why he had been called in so urgently. Why have I been called in urgently? I don't understand it.

The gallery had a Titian (the famous artist) exhibition running, but had been emptied by police chief Vache due to an incident. Robbie entered the gallery, his Oxford Brogues with half-inch heel and carefully-tied laces resounding against the white marble stone floor as he walked at 72 steps per minute. Vache lead him into the gallery, which the forensic team had lit dramatically with spotlights perfect for the forthcoming film. On the floor lay a dead female deer, and next to it was written, in blood, the following legend:

3.14159
O DNA DATA: A CANINE!
(VIZ I NOTE A COLLIE)
R.S.V.P. ROBBIE BLAGDON KILLED ME

"Incriminate yourself" barked Vache.
"No." replied Blagdon.
"Here is Scaffy Nephew, our resident cruciverbalist."
Robbie's eyes moved across the room and met Scaffy's. Hastily putting them back in their sockets, Robbie shook her hand. Scaffy was like an Egyptian obelisk - she was tall, slim, attractive and moved with the lithe grace of a hummingbird.
"I will leave you alone for no good reason" said Vache, leaving them alone for no good reason.
"What does this writing mean?" enquired Robbie.
"The number is only pi"
"But pi is the divine number! That has symbolic significance of the highest order!"
"No it hasn't."
"But the words! All about dogs - we should look at local pet cemetaries for hidden messages on dogs' tombs!"
"No. They are anagrams. They say 'Tiziano Vecellio' and 'Diana and Actaeon'."
"The famous Titian painting! It's right here in this gallery!"
"What a coincidence."

They left the female deer carcass and moved to the famous painting. It depicts the myth of Actaeon hunting in the woods with his dogs and chancing upon Diana (Artemis in Roman myth) bathing with her nymphs in a stream. Diana was embarrassed to be seen naked, and changed him into a deer. His own dogs then chased and killed him.

"This painting has hidden meaning. Look from Actaeon's point-of-view - Diana is not recoiling but opening her legs to him! Renowned scholars consider these two as a couple. Also Actaeon's legs meet a nymph's legs at right-angles, signifying unity between the sexes - male and female in perfect balance, black and white, yin and yang, Torville and Dean. Actaeon is gesturing towards the stag's head on the pillar, suggesting how 'dear' Diana is to him. This entire painting is intended as a hidden message that Diana did not kill Actaeon, but was his lover."
"But I thought there were contradictory hidden messages in another famous paintings by the same artist? Doesn't this cause a major symbolic dichotomy?"
"A clash of the Titians? No - I ignore all evidence that doesn't support my claims. Perhaps the dead deer is a message from the mysterious Brotherhood of Oxfam"
"The brotherhood of what?"
"Oxfam - an ancient charity order with spurious links to freemasonry. Although everyone rightly thinks they are a great force for good, soon stupid people will believe they are evil because of the following blatant falsehoods."
"What does Oxfam mean?"
"Ox in Portuguese is 'boi' and 'fam' is a contraction of 'familiar'. Conspiracy nuts say it means 'familiar with boys' - suggesting this group may practice secret sex rites with children. Incidentally, Titian was once head boi of Oxfam, as were Renoir and Da Vinci. Also, Titian, Renoir and Da Vinci were in the group, as were Titian, Renoir and Da Vinci."
"So they painted and deflorated? Fascinating."
"So much in life is hidden in plain sight. Like the symbolic significance of tobacco packaging"
"But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
"Shut up." Robbie sensed his incessant lecturing was losing people's attention.
"So, back to the message. What does RSVP mean?"
"RSVP is a mystical abbreviation used in brotherhood communication to confirm attendance at meetings."
"Wow - my grandfather used to call me 'Really Silly Villy Pilly' - does that mean this message is for me?"
"It must do - perhaps he is in the order!"
"I once saw him in a sex rite, but I just thought he was a pervert."
"For centuries Oxfam has concealed the secret that Actaeon and Diana married, and that their descendants are still alive today. They hid their family tree, called the Gruel, and one day they will use its secrets to fight all the other charities!"
"Gruella warfare?"
"The Gruel is like Pandora's box - it is just the tip of the iceberg, and when the ice is broken, a can of worms will be opened and all hell will break loose!". Robbie didn't tell the whole story yet to build dramatic tension.
"Where do we go now?"
"Someone has written 'Go to Teviot' on the wall next to the painting."
"Let's go!"

"The Teviot Row House building is a renowed and historic building, built as a building for students as a student union building. It is the oldest purpose-built student union building in the world." explained Blagdon as they entered the building. Robbie looked tense. He looked at Scaffy and saw that she was just as tense as he was. This made him feel equally tense, and when she noticed she also became as tense as him, which made him similarly tense.
"I have an idea" said Robbie, tensely. He lead them upstairs to the canteen and joined the queue for lunch (it suddenly no longer being night). After a long wait, he arrived at the counter and was served some venison pie.
"I told you pi had some significance! Pi sounds like pie, and Venison is deer meat. Also, pi comes from circles, and this pie is circular! Pi is an an irrational transcendental number, and my arguments are irrational and transcend logic. The symbolic links are irrefutable! I am very clever indeed!"
Scaffy didn't look impressed. They took the pie to a table and sat down. Cutting open the pastry, Scaffy pulled out a filled pancake from inside.
"I have seen these before! My grandfather cooks them. They are very difficult pancakes to open and contain hidden messages. It's a crepe-tex! But why would Teviot have them?"
"Perhaps they are in the conspiracy as well! Maybe they are funded by Oxfam? Or the Freemasons?!"
Robbie was excited now.
"There is a note inside the pie:"

GO AWAY YOU NOSEY BITCH

"The meaning of this is obvious - a bitch is a female dog, and black Collies have long noses, and if you tell them to go away, they do! The password is definitely Collie! This is easy!"
"A collie-dog's cakewalk?" Scaffy carved 'Collie' into the pancake using a knife, which then opened. So did the pancake. Inside the crepe-tex was another note:

I AM SICK OF ALL YOUR POINTLESS ANALYSES SO SHUT UP
V.P.L. LOOK UNDER THE MOOSE

"So, what is the symbolic meaning of that then, smarty-pants?"
"Erm, I'm not sure. We should consult Surly Teabag, the renowned English stereotype."

They walked downstairs to a large, mounted, moose's head. Underneath was a handful of off-white, gooey mess stuck to the wall.

"Ah, one of Oxfam's secret methods to hide documents, having symbolic meaning referencing the sacred feminine deer. Diana and Actaeon were united as humans, but also as deer, and Oxfam use the feminine deer as a symbol of unity between the two gods".
Scaffy pulled the sticky mess off the wall and found a note underneath.
"But why use this floury goo to attach things to walls?"
"The symbolic links are obvious. Dough adhere: a female deer".

At that moment, Bishop Ringaringaroses, international man of ministry, burst through the door with his sidekick Silage, who snatched the message from Scaffy's hand and gave it to the Bishop.
"Hahahaha! I have the gruel", shouted the Bishop, enunciating his words like the report of a Heckler & Koch MP5/10A1 submachinegun (the special version chambered for a 10mm hollow-point round rather than the usual 9mm with full-metal-jacket) in three-round-burst mode.
"But this is not enough - please sir, I want some more! Give me the crepe-tex" said the Bishop, taking the pancake from Scaffy. "Thank-you Silage. Have some cognac". Silage drank from the proffered flask, and collapsed on the floor.
"He is fatally allergic to the carpet-fluff I put in the cognac. I am from the RSPCA and want to take the Gruel from Oxfam and use it against them!". He opened the slip of paper.

SILAGE IS OF THE BLOOD OF ACTAEON

"You fool, you just killed the only surviving descendant of Diana and Actaeon. The holy bloodline is lost forever".
"Oh well. Anyone fancy a game of pool?"


EPILOGUE
--------

And so, with the pointless destruction of thousands of years of history, the holy and wholly holey plot comes to an abrupt end. Silage lies dead, Robbie and Scaffy look lovingly into each others' eyes in a crude attempt at inserting romantic undertones and Ringaringaroses continues his cunning diagonal moves. Tune in next week for "Cherubs and Imps", an identical adventure by the same author starring Robbie and some snazzy upside-down writing. Now the mysteries of Titian's paintings remain hidden in plain sight, waiting to be discovered again.

Titian Pish.