Catchup

First off I’m really sorry about the heinous length of my disappearance. Oh you haven’t noticed. Ok. That’s me humbled. I knew tumbleweed was blowing through my blog when I started getting anonymous emails telling me that I could bulk buy Viagra and a very strange ‘comment’ which I quote in full:

But placid, there are well known companies which deserve benefit words and created an distinguished get Cialis now reputation.

Er right. What?

So, quick catch-up. I’ve been ploughing through work and feeling grateful to have any since at least three of my friends have been made redundant recently. This alas is not much comfort when you get the ninth draft of a script back from your producer with the note ‘I preferred the eighth draft’.

Took The Boy round to a series of sixth form colleges last week. I tried to stay in the background, only to reappear whenever he needed to fling a witty comment in my direction, or to place an umbrella over his head. When did I morph into a butler? At one point as we were wandering round a school, lost, he hissed in my ear: ‘Why don’t you go and talk to the other mums?’ So I sidled up to another mum who was looking really fed up and asked her a few banal questions about her boy going to sixth form. Her boy doesn’t seem to be interested in anything, especially not his GCSEs. She looked at the prospectus. ‘Apparently if they get into this school they have to do a course called Critical Thinking’. I watched her boy and mine hunched, gloomy and wandering round the Art department. ‘Well, The Boy is pretty good at being critical’ I mumbled. ‘I’d be glad for any vestige of thinking’ she added. ‘Perhaps we could enter them as a duo’.

We found our way to the psychology department, where bright eyed students were on hand to answer questions. I mentioned that I’d have loved to have studied psychology at school. ‘Look Boy, they do criminal psychology!’ I chirped over eagerly then saw his face shut down and realised I’d committed the parental Cardinal Sin of Being Eager. ‘Muuuuuuum’ he snarled and moved away as though I had bad breath, BO and swine flu.

Later on as we sat in the taxi I said that I’d been hurt by his obvious contempt. And reminded him that when I was fourteen and deeply into the Grease soundtrack, complete with hairbrushes for microphones, and fights over who would be Sandy (God knows why – Rizzo is a far more interesting character) my dad would wander past my bedroom door and start whooping: ‘Wella wella wella ooh! Tell me more tell me more – now what’s that supposed to mean – doesn’t mean anything . . . ‘ and on and on in a Touretty rant until mum shouted from downstairs that Hawaii Five-O was on. Now that’s an embarrassing parent. The Boy’s mouth turned up slightly at the corner and he touched my hand very lightly. I’d forgive him anything. He’s my boy.

Five Obsessions

Lovely Helen at Commission Me - has presented me with an award which stands for not Tragic Obsession with Big Hats and Small Dogs, but integrity, commitment to excellence and stubborn optimism. I'm very touched. And a bit guilty because I've been a bit lax on the blog front recently. And as a codicil I have to give you my five obsessions. Which are in no particular order:

1. Extremely mature cheddar. You can forget that namby pamby mild crap. Give me the sort of cheese that gives your gums an electric shock. Particularly good when a lump of it is eaten with a splodge of generic pickle.

2. The Boy's Height. It's really hard to tell someone off when you have to look up at them to do it. And their response is Chill mum in a really deep voice.

3. The Girl's developing confidence. I remember a mother once telling me: Once they go to school, they're gone and now I know what she means. She has a set of friends, influences, opinions and tastes of her own. Yesterday she insisted on wearing a tunic with clashing tee, odd socks and a beret. Fashion wise I think she's channelling Vivienne Westwood. Drunk.

4. Writing something good. And I've been telling my students at the OU to allow themselves to write rubbish, to break through that awful inertia that comes when you sit down and tell yourself you have to write something good. I've been teaching them a bit about freewriting - composting - where you give yourself the freedom to write whatever you like. It's like turning your psyche over and over until a little nugget emerges that you can do something with. It's all true. But the bottom line is while it's good to allow yourself to write rubbish, nobody wants to end up submitting rubbish.

5. Aveda Hair Products. I know - I know. Especially as when I went into the 'lifestyle salon' I picked up a few products - one a 'glosser' and the other a 'finishing paste' and asked what the difference was. One glosses zee hair and the other feeeneeshes eeet, said the very glossy assistant. Insulted and patronised like that the only thing I could do was buy some overpriced shampoo. And to my intense annoyance it worked fantastically well.

And now I pass on the nominations to:

Jane Smith at How Publishing Really Works

Kit at Kit Courteney Writes

The Daily Quail

Elle at Product Placement

Nicola Morgan at Help! I Need a Publisher

Hollywood is a funny old place

Kanye West interrupts the acceptance speech of Taylor Swift (no, me neither) and gets slammed by stern moral arbiters like Donald Trump. "He couldn't care less about Beyonce - it was grandstanding to get attention," thunders Trump, a noted champion of young pretty women. (For those of you with lives, Mr West bounded on stage to point out that while he thought Taylor deserved her award, Beyonce's video was much better.) And as a result of this display of bad manners, petitions are being scribbled and we are being advised to boycott Kanye West's music. On the other hand, when a fugitive child rapist is brought to book for his crime decades later, Hollywood gets up a petition to protect him. According to Whoopi Goldberg it's not even "rape rape". I'm speechless.

Boy Trouble

All you parents out there with Year 11 offspring – you have my sympathy. The Boy is doing his GCSEs this year and bitterly regrets choosing at least one. He doesn't like the teacher - he chose badly yadda yadda. I pointed out (sounding horribly like David Brent) that he can't go through life blaming other people for his poor performance. He promised to try harder. And then, a few nights ago he hovered outside my door a few nights ago, an anxious expression on his face that as parents of teenage boys know, means one of three things:

I’m in trouble at school
I’ve got a girl pregnant (yeah this little doozy of a thought pops up too)
I want something

So I was relieved when it turned out to be Number Three. Mum mum all my class are going to the Reading Festival tickets booked year in advance please please please pay you back work very hard pass my GCSEs . . . .
I hadn’t been proposed to with as much fervor. And it would be an incentive! No - not a bribe - an incentive! So I got him a ticket for the 2010 Reading Festival. I pointed out that the line up wasn't going to be announced for a while and if he was very unlucky he might end up listening to Chris de Burgh supported by The Krankies. But nothing could dim his ardour. He actually made me a cup of tea over the next two days and hugged me twice. Yes! A TEENAGER MADE ME A CUP OF TEA! I congratulated myself for understanding. I was providing a good incentive. Quite probably I was down with the kids as well. Why any day a publisher was likely to ring me up and suggest I write a book on Bringing Up Children with my light touch and ability to really get into a teenager's head.

Yeah yeah. I know. It's coming.

The next day I had a call from one of his teachers. He had an official detention for not doing an important piece of homework. I was on my way to the school for one of those Show Your Support For You Child In His/Her GCSE Year Meetings - I hadn't had my dinner and I was grumpy. I clicked off my phone and texted The Boy to tell him about the detention and he texted back saying that he didn't understand the question. But this was a total lie because teacher had already told me it was more a question of couldn't be arsed to do the work and he understood exactly what needed to be done. I was furious and felt ridiculously let down. I mean - the next day?! Husband and I grounded The Boy for a week which means he has to miss about 500 000 parties. Today The Boy sloped in from school and begged me to let him go to a particular friend's party. There's A Girl involved. I know he thinks I'm a soft touch and I said No. Not shouting or angry but if you say you're going to carry out a punishment you have to do it. Now he's next door kicking the shit out of his punchbag. I heard him thumping and crashing and thought I can't make him do anything and a tiny tiny whisper of . . . my son could hurt me if he hit me. Not that I think he ever would. But I found his rage and frustration shocking. And I feel angry and sad myself. But I can't give in. He was grounded for behaving badly and lying. I keep thinking . . boundries . . boundries . . over and over and . . I'm his mother not his mate . .

I don't know how single mothers cope. I take my hat off to all of you.

Final Draft

There was once a sketch on Smack the Pony where a hapless temp sits in front of a computer screen, her finger tremblingly poised over the keyboard. Gathering up her courage she presses one key and the whole computer explodes.

Well that's how I feel confronted with the behemoth that is Final Draft. I know that once I'm up and running, it will make the script writing process so much easier. I know it does amazing formatting tricks. And that when you finally type The End, you can look over a polished, pristine script that reeks of professional. But for now, as a total beginner, it makes me feel as though I'm taking an exam on the inner workings of the Inland Revenue. It's so big! So confusing! It keeps asking me things! And I'm convinced that the tone of the questions FD asks me are becoming more and more exasperated. Do you really want to do this? Are you sure? Do you actually want to save this? So this is what I've done so far.

1. Read the tutorial. Skipped bits. Got confused. Sulked. Shut the tutorial and had a biscuit.
2. Taken myself in hand in a stern manner and gone back to read the tutorial Properly this time. Had another biscuit.
3. Tried typing bits to see if anything bad happens.
4. Gone back over my actual script littered with supportive notes like too expensive and be funnier and think of a way of doing The Great Fire of London on the cheap from my producer. Noticed sadly that a bad line typed in a professional format is still very much a bad line. Sulked more.
5. Typed the title page.
6. Sat back and looked at it admiringly. For a long time. Ate two more biscuits.

I know what's going to happen. By the time I've mastered FD, I'll have a decent script but will have to be cut out of my house by firemen using specialist equipment.

Pre-Holiday Blah

I’m off on me holidays tomorrow so today has been taken up with those glamorous last minute jobs like:

Dropping off the cats to their eye-wateringly expensive cattery where each cat is housed in a two story chalet with litter tray and comfy cushions. Only we’re sticking the two in together because we’re cheap. There was a whole row of these chalets full of sullen cats, like those elderly people you see on British beaches, with blankets on their knees as the wind whistles by. We left Charlie having a poo and Lola glaring at us, nose pressed against the mesh. ‘It’s like the Paw-shank redemption’ said Husband wittily.

Clearing out the fridge – the liquefied vegetables, the brown lettuce, the limp carrots. Wiping stuff. Sniffing stuff. Quietly retching.

Asking The Boy to clean up his room before we go. A truly pointless exercise, even though his room smells like very old curry and sick. With a hint of death.

Deep breathing because I hate flying. I begged my doctor for a few sedatives, but his only concern was that I might be too out of it to ‘care for the children’. I decided not to say, ‘Yeah? So?’ but politely reassured him that Husband would be there too, while thinking ‘Wanker’. Surely being mildly out of it is better than getting bladdered? But even so, I keep thinking of the safety card in the back of the airline seat – the one that shows the plane floating on the sea. As Jack Dee said: ‘I don’t care if it floats. It’s supposed to fucking fly!’ I did find this useful set of hints though, by a Professor Robert Bor who is a psychologist and a qualified pilot which is oddly comforting. I'm still swallowing those sedatives though.

Ooh and sorting out my holiday reading. I’m bringing Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel because it’s so lovely to have a Booker nominee you actually want to read! And Lisa Jewell’s new book, The Truth About Melody Browne because I love her.

See you in a couple of weeks and happy holidays!

Abridging a book

Over the last month, I’ve been slicing and dicing a book for Radio 4, from its original 70 thousand words down to 22 thousand which works out as ten episodes each with 2,200 words. At the same time I’ve been thinking about plotting a book, and during my arsing about trying to avoid work research I found this totally marvellous blog which gives very useful advice on how to write a tight synopsis. The writer’s name is Beth Anderson and she writes thrillers which I’m sure you know are driven by a watertight plot and fast pacing. Anyway, I’ve abridged several books now and it basically means taking out anything that doesn’t drive the narrative forward. Firstly you have to read the book a couple of times to get a feel for it. Then you go through cutting any sub plots or anything that doesn’t move the narrative forward, while retaining the basic story. Then you go through again, and this time you might have to make decisions about cutting bits of the main narrative. This will often lead to chopping scenes and then stitching it back together in a sort of Franken-book where you hope the bolt in the neck doesn’t show too much. My producer once told me that the better written a book, the harder it is to abridge because there is so little fat on it.

It takes a bit of confidence to abridge a book because you're like a really nasty editor with a red pen, slashing and cutting through whole chapters. But it really does make you think about what is essential in a book. Because having stripped back that much, with some books, the whole plot falls apart. This doesn’t mean it’s a bad book, but the one I’ve just abridged only succeeds because the main character is so compelling. But the actual plot has holes the size of a swiss cheese. I had to break the Abridging Rule which is you never add words of your own to stitch bits together unless it's absolutely utterly necessary. (If you add your words the work becomes an adaptation as opposed to an abridgment.)

So if abridging a book reveals the plot holes, Beth Anderson’s blogs shows you how to write a perfect tight synopsis – a selling tool - one you can build a whole watertight book from. Very basically she forces you to write one sentence summing up the whole book, with no fluff or curly bits. One sentence that determines exactly what your book is all about. Then another sentence describing the beginning. Finally one sentence describing the ending.

Then you go back and fill in the major roadblocks. It’s very hard work, so much so that I haven’t done it. But I have printed it off and written How To Write A Synopsis in big black letters on it. And having finished my abridgement, the writer of the book would have written a much tighter plot if he had read that blog too.