Thursday 29 March 2012

Manic March

Another month has flown by in the blink of an eye!  This one jam packed with performances and stage appearances.  Venues include The Waddington Street Centre in Durham, Little Theatre Club at Middlesbrough, Stockton Library, ARC Stockton, Blu Bar in Middlesbrough, Trent House in Newcastle and tomorrow night I will be doing 2 x 10 minute sets at The Studio in Hartlepool.  I didn't mean to do this many performances/readings in one month and feel a tad tired, not only due to the travelling and socialising and fitting everything else in around these events, but also the amount of energy drained out of me from the high stress levels of actualy getting up in front of audiences.

I have more performances booked in for April but nowhere near as many as this month, thankfully!  One of them will be at Take Ten in Newcastle, where I performed in January and was asked to go back, so I'm looking forward to going there and trying out some new material.

I've realised that I need to find the right balance between applying for funding and opportunities and working on said opportunities, performances and readings and writing for submissions and competitions.  Easier said than done but with a little diary management, it can be achieved!

Here I am performing at Take Ten in Newcastle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRFwbP50PLs&feature=share&noredirect=1

The other biggy for this month was my very first workshop as a proper paid professional writer!  The workshop was an intro to writing for theatre and took place at Middlesbrough central library.  It went very well indeed and there were 4 adults in attendance (considering how gorgeous the weather was outside that afternoon, this was a very good number!).

And....I finally got around to making my business cards.  They're pretty basic but smart and do their job nicely!

The Shake the Dust project is coming along.  I've now attended 4 sessions in the school I've been allocated.  The next 6 sessions will be held after Easter then the regional poetry slam will take place at ARC, Stockton.

So, just to sum up, everything is starting to fall into place just nicely.  I will continue to keep a watch out for opportunities and, as previously mentioned, I do have a few performances booked in but in April I hope to concentrate more on writing material to send for submissions and competitions.  I recently had word back from the James Kirkup Prize, informing me that I had been selected as a runner up in their competition that I entered.  My poem 'Transporter' will be published in an anthology with other runners up.  Yeay!!

Manic March

Another month has flown by in the blink of an eye!  This one jam packed with performances and stage appearances.  Venues include The Waddington Street Centre in Durham, Little Theatre Club at Middlesbrough, Stockton Library, ARC Stockton, Blu Bar in Middlesbrough, Trent House in Newcastle and tomorrow night I will be doing 2 x 10 minute sets at The Studio in Hartlepool.  I didn't mean to do this many performances/readings in one month and feel a tad tired, not only due to the travelling and socialising and fitting everything else in around these events, but also the amount of energy drained out of me from the high stress levels of actualy getting up in front of audiences.

I have more performances booked in for April but nowhere near as many as this month, thankfully!  One of them will be at Take Ten in Newcastle, where I performed in January and was asked to go back, so I'm looking forward to going there and trying out some new material.

I've realised that I need to find the right balance between applying for funding and opportunities and working on said opportunities, performances and readings and writing for submissions and competitions.  Easier said than done but with a little diary management, it can be achieved!

Here I am performing at Take Ten in Newcastle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRFwbP50PLs&feature=share&noredirect=1

The other biggy for this month was my very first workshop as a proper paid professional writer!  The workshop was an intro to writing for theatre and took place at Middlesbrough central library.  It went very well indeed and there were 4 adults in attendance (considering how gorgeous the weather was outside that afternoon, this was a very good number!).

And....I finally got around to making my business cards.  They're pretty basic but smart and do their job nicely!

The Shake the Dust project is coming along.  I've now attended 4 sessions in the school I've been allocated.  The next 6 sessions will be held after Easter then the regional poetry slam will take place at ARC, Stockton.

So, just to sum up, everything is starting to fall into place just nicely.  I will continue to keep a watch out for opportunities and, as previously mentioned, I do have a few performances booked in but in April I hope to concentrate more on writing material to send for submissions and competitions.  I recently had word back from the James Kirkup Prize, informing me that I had been selected as a runner up in their competition that I entered.  My poem 'Transporter' will be published in an anthology with other runners up.  Yeay!!

Friday 2 March 2012

Regression

My parents have recently been having a sort out and came across some rather embarrassing memorabilia from my pre-teens.  So what does one do?  Does one simply hide it away under a ten ton shelving unit?  Not if you're me one does not!  No, I go and post it on my blog for everyone to have a bit of a laugh and a giggle!  So here you go, as previously promised, a handful of my school reports and the first ever record of my story writing talent!!  Along with a photograph of the scrawny 11 year old self just to add to the humiliation!!







Thursday 1 March 2012

And I Thought January Flew By in a Flash!!

It wasn't my intention to leave my Blog posting for an entire month but things have been so hectic, even taking a week off from my day job hasn't slowed me down!

The Brass Book project is still ongoing and although I have managed to get some ideas for a poem, I'm struggling to finish it.

The ARC New Writers Scratch Night Special was a SELL OUT!!  The night was a huge success.  Everyone involved had a fab time.  We all received excellent feedback on our plays and as a result, most of us, myself included, have signed up for the New Playwrights Lab run by Andy Willoughby at ARC.  This is a brand new course where writers can develop their skills and create a piece of theatre that will be performed at a mini festival at ARC in May.

My Durham walk is all set to go and I'm still waiting to hear back from Middlesbrough about the walks proposed to them.

The Advanced Writers Group at Middlesbrough is coming to an end on Monday.  This will be the final group meeting however there are 2 events that the group will be performing at.  One in Stockton Library on 23rd March and the other at Middlesbrough Reference Library on 11th May.  Myself, along with two other members of the group, will be appearing there as a suffragette protest party so if you don't want to miss out on a giggle you best get yourselves there!!

I have finally attended my first day at school as part of the Shake the Dust project and have another 3 half days booked in.  I've been selected as Blog Champion for our region for this project so I'm currently working on a Blog to be posted by the end of this week.  The regional blogger voted as the best one will be going to that London for the National Slam Championship later in the year so I'm keeping my fingers crossed and trying to make my blogging fun and interesting.

I took on board the feedback received from Red Nile and applied for a second event that they're running in this area.  I must have listened well, as my application was successful and as a result, I will be joining a large group of artists, from all disciplines, on a walk up Eston Hills.  The purpose of this event is to encourage collaboration work.

The launch of Slippery Souls was a great success despite the freak snow storm that landed just as people were arriving!  Rachael has done extremely well and is busy planning further events to be held in libraries across the region.

And thanks to Rachael, her hard work promoting her own book has landed me a possible two appearances in Newcastle for their upcoming poetry events.  Thanks Rachael!xx

So in reflection, February has been another successful month whereas networking and socialising in the writing world is concerned, but very little of my own penned creations have manged to escape onto the page!
This is often the case when setting up something new  It does kind of take over your life for a while until you start to make progress.  Hopefully things will even themselves out and I will be able to balance my diary more evenly.

Watch this space for some very interesting (and embarrassing on my behalf) doccumentation, that has found its way into my hands from my childhood!!