Tag: writing
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The Pitlochry Play #1: the sound of water
I’m here in Pitlochry, land of Pitlochry Festival Theatre and much, much more. Today’s day 3 of my playwrighting residency at the theatre and I’m rolling around like a pig in poo at the luxury of all this writing space and thinking time. I’m not here to share anything about my “process” with you, but I can’t…
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Wanted a Genie, found a Muse
Lovely news – I’ve just been awarded a writers’ residency at the fantastic Pitlochry Festival Theatre to start work on a new play. And it all started because I couldn’t get to Mull and in the (relatively) short time my child was away with relatives. In July, I’d been facing the standard single parent dilemma:…
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Glittered Knickers…
I love it when a plan you never knew you had comes together. An old friend up at Bath Uni decided we needed an International Women’s Day entertainment night in Widcombe. It’s over 20 years since I did one of these, back at the students’ union, so when she said, “Want to do something for…
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A Song & Dance for your details…
A much-loved but unproduced theatre script, A Bit of a Song & Dance, made the BBC Drama Script Room long-list! They had a record number of entries, and a phenomenal amount to read, so I’m especially pleased – and grateful! As all writers out there know, there’s subjectivity in all of this, too, so I’m…
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1 year on; 3 new screenplays & a magic cauldron
Ha, make em laugh, eh? More like, make yourself laugh. I just spotted an old post from a year ago: The Awful Art of Unwriting. It’s a confessional, where I admit to not having done a new spec screenplay (as opposed to a play) for about 5 years. In the last year, I’ve written three: one comedy…
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9 1/2 weeks. OK, 12. But I couldn’t resist.
If you were born after maybe 1975, you might not get it. But if you’re roughly my age (a grand forty-four and a half) you might now be hearing a dodgy John Taylor* theme tune and getting memory-whiffs of a tousled, sweaty Kim Basinger staring in a confused fashion at all the identical rows of…
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Fingery-Pokery – The Artist’s Way
I heard about it. I saw it in a friend’s vast personal library. He said “Here, take it.” It sat on my shelf for a year. I started it. Wow. I’m reading / doing / taking / following The Artist’s Way. It’s a course in a book. I’m fed up of feeling my work is…
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“weird” “new” “habits”
It was when I joked, “Yep, it makes me feel like a MAN!” and then the women laughed knowingly that I realised I’d surprised myself… When I’m not doing fee-paying client work over here, I’m parenting or writing. Or researching for the writing. Or applying for grants, entering competitions…you get it. This time last year…
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The Awful Art of Unwriting
I’m not entirely sure why but er, um, I haven’t written a speculative screenplay (plays, I have done) for err, um, five years. There you go. I have no more secrets. What the merry heave-ho have I been doing? ‘Cos I’m pretty sure I call myself a writer a lot of the time. There’s been…
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Taking the helm of the Rondo Writers’ Group
What IS the collective noun for a group of writers? A murder of crows, a sleuth of bears, a flange of baboons and a flight of dragons. Take your pick what would we like? A blot? A tippex (for writers of a certain age)? A row? A bin? But that’s merely an intro… I’m very,…
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Unravelling security blankets you didn’t know you had
I had a horrible realisation the other day. I haven’t had a show on stage for a year and no new work’s been on-stage since a personal train crash….Never under-estimate the impact of a writer’s daily life on their work.
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Giving good story: it’s all about the posture (but never posturing!)
If you love writing, you just love writing. I’ve got several fresh projects on the go (film, stage and TV) and it’s a lovely time, tending the garden, straightening the bamboo poles, checking the rainfall, soil and consulting the manual…I also have several (*metaphor switch alert*) fully formed babies out there, trying to find their…
Gill Kirk, writer 