Hannah Nicklin

New Year

So, yes, here we are, the first blog of 2009! It will, I’m afriad, be a rushed one, as always I’m low on time, and also not feeling brilliant (cold coming I think) so apologies for garbling…

So, a few pretty good/hopefully things have happened or will happen in the new year with regards to writing, which I really, really need – 1) so I know there’s good reason for me to carry on trying and 2) because my money situation is getting extremely, extremely dire. If something hasn’t happened by about May/June time I’m going to have to start working full time, maybe even move home and work full time for a few months to just inject a bit of cash into my situation… then move to… well one of two places- Leicester or London. And I do want to move. I don’t like Wolverhampton. So it’s either London for writing (if I sell a play this year then that’ll be what I use the money for- to move down there), or Leicester for friends – and I think at that point I’d consider applying for a PHD…

But yes! I should tell you about the possible opportunities. Well , the first is this play I’ve been writing with the Royal Court Young Writers’ Programme – I’m currently redrafting the piece which is due into them on the 15th of January – which, if they like they might offer me a place in the ‘invitation’ group (which means more trips to London) where basically they develop a second draft with you and you meet lots of famous writers and important directors who work on it with you, or if they actually love it, they could commission a second draft, or actually programme it… so that’s pretty good- just need to make my piece good (what I should be doing now in fact)! The other big thing that’s happening is also on Jan 15th I’m meeting the literary manager at Scary Little Girls Productions – just before Christmas I was just trawling the web on my lunch break and came across the fact that they were looking to commission a playwright to write a piece about the women involved in the Easter uprisings of 1916 in Ireland- which sounds bloody interesting- and combining research with writing- which I would love! So on the off chance they wouldn’t simply laugh at me for my lack of experience/previous commissions, I sent a cover letter explaining why I thought I’d be perfect for it, along with a couple of examples of my writing, and they phoned me back a week later to arrange a meeting! Apparently they’re also thinking of working on a new writing season and would like to have a chat about my writing and the commission, as well as the new writing season – so, fingers crossed. Oh and the final thing that might happen is that Loughborough University phoned me up and asked me if I was interested in taking a piece (writing and directing I think) to a European and Mediterranean arts festival in Macedonia, I don’t think it would pay, but I think it would be paid for-and as well as being a great opportunity, it would look good on the CV.

So yes, fingers crossed very hard that at least something will happen this year, I need the money, but I also need the reassurance that I’m not wasting my time…

Also due to extreme lack in time at the moment – I’m giving microblogging a go. I’ve signed up to twitter and have added an app to my phone and facebook so I’ll be able to update both fbook status and twitter on the go. I’m super busy until January, so if lacking main updates – look to the left!

Hope all had a good Christmas break, and here’s hoping 2009′s the one!

Hxx

Last One

So- that’s it! Finished… very weird. First drafts to hand in to the Royal Court on the 15^th, some other writing stuff looking nice and promising (though not holding my breath!) and I can finally maybe not be quite so poor without all of the travelling – oh and the time! 2 days a week back to do stuff with. I have a lot of stuff bubbling away in my brain at the moment- particularly a radio idea which I may start work on after the 15^th of Jan- and then see if I can get in contact with the producer I know at the BBC to talk it over… so all in all I’m feeling nice and positive. Just about. It fluctuates so much -and is bound to take a dip when I get into redrafting – though having said that- this redraft should be a lot less stressful than Being Someone Else – I can see the problems, and it’s a simpler idea, so hopefully it should feel good- honing it into a more demonstrative form! But, yes, the Royal Court YWP has been a brilliant experience- to make contact with the London ‘scene’ – to meet some nice fellow writers, make some friends, have a good reason to write and to keep my brain ticking over! The last session was finished with a really interesting conversation about if and how theatre can change people/the world. Really interesting- just skimmed the surface on it, but so interesting! I love discussing that kind of thing (though I probably came across as a bit odd).

And now it’s Christmas! Yay! Love Christmas, looking forward to giving myself a week off, giving out cool presents, and not having to worry about where the food and heat is coming from! Oh and the countryside – miss it so much! Need to go on some nice long walks, maybe even a trip to the Yorkshire coast. Love it! So yes, this may be the last regular blog entry as I leave for home on Saturday the 20^th, so thank you for reading along with me on this small blog journey, and onto the next I say!

Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.

Just a quick one

Read please:

Closing Time

Hello There! So, I am now oficially post rough-draft-1. Finished about an hour long version of the play late Sunday night/early Monday morning, printed off, and duly took it to the Court with me on Monday. So yes… obviously massive things wrong with it and most of it doesn’t make sense, but not bad for 2-4 very painful days work!

My main concerns…

• Structure- the piece struggled out of one structure (very short scenes) into another, chunkier one halfway through, all of which are structures that I’m new (and thus not sure about how sucessful I can make them) to as before now I’ve always written closed time/space pieces

• Characterisatlon. It feels like only Ona has any. I think that Dominic’s journey isn’t clear, and that he and Ona are both currently vying for protagonist- to a degree that serves a purpose and illustrates a journey in itself, and to another, it’s just confusing, argh!

• Content. Obviously the play is completely different to how i imagined it, this is what happens when you write something- it twists and turns under your gaze as the characters grow and start to make their own decisions (sounds hippy-ish but it really does work like that) Although I think that is to be expected, it now feels like Maria is now tacked on, though I’m not sure how to involve her more. It was going to be a story about women trapped by male expectations but now it’s a story about the damage done by commodifying humanity. Also, I still feel passionately about the aims of Sci—Fi theatre, but sometimes the play seemed to just want to be about trafficking-not extrapolated into a single—child future… in which case it’s a very different, much grittier, and much more responsible, research heavy piece, none of which I’m afraid of- but it would be good to be able to decide a direction.

• Dramatic Action. I felt like there was very little, and too often found myself forcing my characters to speak to fill the page, naturally a product of an intensive first draft, but need to work on heightening dramatic action, and avoiding it being a solely stylistic/genre piece

• Form- The piece feels like a one act-er stretched too thin, (from previous experience of this script template, I’d say it was 60-70mins at the minute) does it need more story, or more characterisation? Or does it just need to be a one act play…?

So Yes! Bit scary, but good to have soemthing. We took 3 copies of the script into the Court, and exchanged with two others and the course leaders – in groups of 3 we produce a reader’s report of our pieces and discuss them next week- and Leo and Natalie get their feedback as soon as they can.

We also did something really interesting asa whole group- basically each person read out the first 2 pages of their script, and then everyone else wrote down frist reactions/questions etc on a little piece of paper anonymously, they were then shuffled, and handed over to the writer – Leo read out a first draft of his too. So we each left the session with 14 or so pieces of instant reaction to the first moments of our play- which was definitely very helpful! In general my feedback was that the piece was intriguing and full of detail, very vivid in terms of place (can also mean too many stage directions), the one which was clearly the course leader’s said it had a great sense of dramatic action and build of tension and that the “dialogue feels authentic and dangerously compelling” which is cool! though obviously some negative points, the most interesting of which was from one of the other class members- who suggested that I be careful the piece doesn’t make Georg a ‘big-bad-Lithuanian-wolf’, and that I could be construed as racist. This person also thought it was set in Lithuania (they said that the UK has brothels too, so in itself maybe I need to be clear that it is the UK in the first few pages) but still a good point- I am concerned about Georg being a stereotype, but I hadn’t thought about the implications of his being foreign, he just was- so perhaps something to be aware of? I have been concerned about him being a stereotypical pimp, but then it could be argued that part of being a pimp is playing to stereotype? And how do you be a nice pimp? interesting stuff, and having never knowingly met one myself, might be worth some kind of research (how do I do that?)… food for thought.

So, only two more weeks of London – this feedback session, and then a session on redrafting- then a month to redraft to a solid first draft level and we hand it in ont he 15th of January! Phew!

Oh I also went to the National Portrait Gallery – very cool, saw an awesome portrait of Emmeline Pankhurst which took my by surprise, and quite an astonishing picture following the passing of anti-slavery legislation where black people sit amongst politicians and peers in the 19th century houses of parliment. Stunning, really makes me want to pick up my paintbrush again- it’s been a while, I really want to work with oils but I can’t afford the paints/brushes/linseed and whitespirit that is required… ho hum!

I also need to earn some money, I’m just too poor. Especially now, around Christmas time… being poor isn’t nice :-(