Merry Christmas! I spent it in Venice, which was misty, moody, and very magical.
Even moodier after started playing with a neat little App that added filters and textures to the pics I took on my phone.
Which set me to thinking of a writing experiment: Take an old piece of writing. Something unfinished perhaps, or something that felt a bit stilted or stale – something you knew needed putting to one side until later.
Well, now’s later. Take that writing, and add a filter to it. Maybe a whiff of faded parchment, or a sepia tinge, or the ghostliness of a daguerrotype, or some perky orange Kodachrome. Let this filter bring light and colour and feeling to your writing: new life.
I was reminded the other day of the Blue Peter advent crown. Made from wire coathangers, four candles, and some tinsel and balls, it was made and remade every year. They adapted the ritual (I think), and rather than lighting the candle each Sunday before Christmas they’d light a candle on each of the four twice-weekly episodes running up to it, Mondays and Thursdays. We made one at home, though I am not sure we ever really rigged up the candles.
It makes me think about the magic of four. Four elements, four seasons, four gospels, four corners of a room, the balance of four legs on a table. Balance, structure, harmony.
And those candles bringing light into the world.
Write something (a short story, a flash fiction, a poem) in four roughly equal parts. Four sections that shed light on each other. You can make it Christmassy if you want. Or Solstice. Or End of the World.
PS I discovered after I posted this that today is the last day (and right now it’s 23:59!) of children’s programming on BBC One. It’s all moving to the CBBC digital channel. I guess that the tv shows will survive, but in a margin, no longer part of that unifying teatime of the Clangers, Jackanory, Hector, and Val and John and Peter.
End of an era. It makes me wonder what fills that gap, or how this changes that slot, or how this pattern of consumption will reflect itself (light again) in future generations.
This week I was very lucky to attend the world premiere of the film Les Misérables. Yes, I lead that kinda life. Well, maybe – we thought we were just going to a preview, but it turned out our names weren’t on a list so we were sent over to Leicester Square where we, um, walked the red carpet also trodden by the stars. Anne Hathaway wore Givenchy. I wore cords, a Barbour, and Blundstone boots.
And even then we thought surely the stars must be in the other Leicester Square cinema (a premiere so grand it had both the Empire and the Odeon Leicester Square). But no, the producers and director and writers were there to give a charming welcome, and then to introduce the stars – all of them: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen, and the already very accomplished child stars Isabelle Allen and Daniel Huttlestone. It was rather star-studded, but it was also possible to pick up on the real sense that this was a down-to-earth team brought together through their collaboration on a creative project they felt about passionately: this was work.
And the movie’s pretty fabby. I imagine some people might find the pace at times slow or uneven, and in dramatic terms perhaps we rush through some key moments, relatively, but hey: the music makes up for that. Soak it up. And then look at the source material, too. This is 1,200 pages of nineteenth-century soap opera: episodic, expansive, and (we like this) socially aware. The grit and the shit are really gritty and shitty, the scabs are really scabby. This is a proper film: big sets, crowd scenes, close-ups, loud.
And does that music soar! Some super numbers. Really super. Pretty much the whole film is sung, so all those haters who gripe about the artifice of players bursting into song in musicals can instead enjoy a seamless progression of music – there’s a lot of what is called recitative in opera. What’s really striking is the way in which the singing was all shot live, rather than lip-synced to playback songs: it’s really raw. And not all the songs are performed like West End belters either, which for me tilts on its head a bit that whole issue of perfection in performance. I’ve seen various comments in various forums nitpicking about the quality of this or that, but yada yada (they remind me of opera queens one-upping each other in the comments on YouTube – ‘Lucia?! Her Queen of the Night is nothing compared with Mimi’s’, etc.). In Les Misérables many of these songs are so powerful because the singing is throaty and fragile and forced and stretchy and reaching. Wow.
Some of it is pretty potent. Anne Hathaway’s ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ (used in the trailer) is one single take of wow. And Samantha Barks is pretty fantastic, especially considering this is her first movie (and she was a runner-up rather than winner in one of those tv talent shows):
I did not realise that 60 million people have seen the stage show. Another wow.
My enthusiasm probably got a little carried away. I mean, some critics were very critical. I guess I am constitutionally prone to getting swept along by rousing overtones and big set pieces, and my own critical faculties switch off. Which isn’t always a bad thing, I tell myself.
And when the movie came out I read an article that’s no longer around that suggested that we as a culture have forgotten how to watch movie musicals. And that got me thinking …
As a writing experiment, reconfigure your life as a musical.
Don’t forget the big rousing number to end Part One (and repoint the narrative), and then the resolution of the finale and maybe an encore and reprise (nice way to think about shaping yer narrative arcs).
Then create some song names. For example, for a certain family member of mine I can already see the opening number in the programme: ‘The May Queen’s Maid Wears Monkey Boots’.
* adapt this idea for other stories or pet projects – novels, as well as life stories
* write your own little elevator pitch (remember, sometimes these are kinda unlikely: ‘A woman leaves an Austrian convent to become a governess to the children of a Naval officer widower’, according to IMDB)
* create your own playlists or mixtapes for your own jukebox musical – but also imagine some numbers of your own making (someone else can write the lyrics or the music, if you wish – writers sometimes delegate too)
This is more than a weekend’s work. This is a lifetime project. But it might also be a fun way to outline a longer work too, for example. Thinking about those big musical numbers can help you think about the major plot points in a novel, for example.
Meanwhile – see you at Les Misérables! Of course, I have to go again.
What a privilege it is to be part of an industry that is, by and large, free of prejudice. Our industry is based on the telling of stories. These stories should help and inspire people, and I believe they will.
It was another lifetime, another century, but I wanted to note (and thank) my colleagues at Little, Brown UK (now part of Hachette too) for being so strong and supportive of all the gay-themed books I edited and published when I worked there. It did not really have to get much better there, because it was already pretty good to start with, and wasn’t really an issue: these were books with readers, and we published them, and sold them, and people read them. And then that makes a difference, we hope, in the world. It’s all a publisher could wish for.
So all credit to everyone at Little, Brown UK back then and now, as well as all those authors, agents, and other publishers, for being so no-nonsense, and being part of making that difference.
It Gets Better, And Better. (Today is my twenty-year anniversary of meeting my own husband. Yes, I’m going to say that rather than civil partner. That Gets Better too.)
Today is St Andrew’s Day. He is the patron saint of Scotland, Greece, Russia, Sicily, and Romania. Andrew was one of the twelve disciples, and the founder of the Church of Byzantium. He was apparently crucified by Emperor Nero, but before that sorry end he is said to have brought the boy with the five loaves and two fishes to Jesus. I always loved that miracle. I ended up loving my food, too.
Various traditions associated with St Andrew’s Day involve single women looking for lurve, e.g., dreaming of your future husband on St Andrew’s Eve. Or husbands coming from the direction where you hear dogs barking. Or husbands being suggested by the shadow of molten wax. Or throwing shoes at doors.
Some Romanian traditions involve wolves, who, it’s said, can eat all the animals they want on that day. Apparently they can speak too on St Andrew’s Day, but anyone who hears them will DIE.
(Isn’t it weird that if you repeat your own name to yourself often enough you start wondering if that really is your name?! Maybe that is some sort of magic too.)
Patron of wolves, ropemakers, and fisherman. A motley selection. And some bizarre superstitions.
This week’s writing experiment tasks you on a bit of research into your own name’s saint, or your saint’s day (the feast day associated with your birthday). Or just make one up: create your own fireside goddess, or household deity, or holy man or woman. Someone to look over you. Maybe you can even print out a picture and create a little shrine of associated objects.
Then, write a story or a poem about your own saint or saint’s day. Something fun, something with life, something in some way or other holy, and wholly your own.
