Take That and Party

It is almost exactly a year today since I was, briefly, mistaken for a member of Take That.

It's bizarre but true. I'm in Cardiff at a Literary Event. Only it's even more desperate than usual and so I escape from the dead embrace of the Bulgarian Chadonnay, the vulcanised chicken, and the whole decidedly glitz-free atmosphere of the very very functional function room of the St David's Hotel and repair to the bar. And it's here that I find Take That hobbing and nobbing with le tout South Wales. They're in town for a gig and only some particularly well-informed groupies (all of them Ladies of a Certain Age - that age being 37 and three kids roughly -) and us, the refugees from the Ministry of Literature, know they're here.

Now, the thing about TT is that everyone knows what fat Gary looks like. And most people know what sweet Mark looks like. But no-one is very sure about the the worker-bees, the drones. Howard? Jason? Could their own parents pick them out of a police line-up? The luckiest, most ordinary pop lottery winners since Andrew Ridgeley took the vacant chair next to George Micheal on the first day of year 7 back at Bushey High School.

And so when I find myself on a banquette next to Marky and Gaz I can see the faces of the Ladies of A Certain Age, those who lost their innocence to a soundtrack of Back For Good frown in puzzlement. 'Mark and Gary look Ok,' those frowns say 'But Lordy, the years haven't been very kind to Howard-or-Jason...'

It's a good night though... There's something about the presence of a boy band - even an elderly one, even one that perpetrated horrors like that cover of Could It Be Magic - that unleashes a rich hormonal soup into a room. This soup combined with alcohol, the lateness of the hour and the fact that those of us who'd been at the prize-giving next door have just sat through a crashingly worthy lecture on the Trinidadian literary diaspora delivered by Linton Kwesi Johnson in full on FE college lecturer mode when we just want to bitch and moan and do all the other things writers do at these things - all of this mean things get, er, unusual. There's nothing like being lectured by a former radical turned pillar of the establishment to make you feel you've earned a watermelon daiquiri.

And there's nothing like watermelon daiquiris all round to make things go a bit Cocksucker Blues. (Banned documentary about the Rolling Stones when they were in their Louis 14th period). Not the band. They stay gentlemen. And not me. I make my excuses and watch.

The Big Debate

In the end I went down the Hole for Ben's leaving drinks. Ben actually left the good old Arvon Foundation about four months ago, but people ahve kids and you know how long it can be to synchronise diaries. Good night though. Usual pattern we convened in the pub, and as soon as the music got unbearably loud and shit we crossed the bridge to the White Swan.

The white Swan is the very definition of a sad old gits pub.

It's great.

You can always get a seat - no matter how many of you there are - and you can always get served. plus they sell Bombadier which I feel nostalgic about because it's a Charlie Wells beer from my hometown.

And we drank and talked about books and I staggered the mile home at 12.30 and had to sleep in the attic (there was a cross note...)

And today Clegg seems to have been declared the victor in the big debate. Odds on a Lib-Dem govt have gone from 300/1 to 14/1. Which seems to be a bookie crying out - in his anguish and his pain - 'we have no chuffin idea what is going to happen! None at all.' Exciting times in a low-key way (because, like the nasty little attention-seeker from UKIP says (and rightly) in this instance) - 'it's not about a change of government - it's about a change of management.'

And tonight I'm off to see a boxing match...

The Big TV Debate

And I won't be watching it. I don't have a TV. For the first time not having what my old dad used to call 'the google-box' is an inconvenience. I'll have to listen on the wireless, where no doubt I'll think G Brown is the winner. Gruff but honest and plain-speaking in a Badger from wind in the Willows kind of a way, while everyone else thinks he's a sweating grimacing weirdo and that the real winner is Smiley Nick or that Ordinary Middle-Class Etonian 'Dave'.

quiet daze

From Mytholmroyd to Sauce in Hebden to meet the fabulous Joyce Branagh who is directing my short play Ven Y Va for the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival. Some good questions, and some even better suggestions and some stuff to mull over for a redraft.

She asked me what was at the heart of it. And I guess it's about when you begin to give up on heat passion and dance in your life. In a more simple way the play is about a very English couple who take up Argentinian Tango as a way of having a shared hobby that will maybe put some fizz back in their life together... Only maybe their attitude to dancing just reveals how different are the things they each want from a relationship...

The on to catch up with Mark Illis. And he bought me a posh butty in Squeeze and we spoke at length about many things: About a film we're writing together, about how great the Kings Lynn Literary Festival is, about what good odds you can get on Labour being the largest party come May 7, about the horror that is other peoples' children, about Eurodisney (he likes it. I don't) and all civilised intelligent, good-humoured stuff that doesn't mean very much.

Now to make a chilli, do a bit of writing and then pick my youngest child from school. Arts Festival meeting tonight, then a beer in a pub. Easy days. Too rare.

everything i want

it occurs to me that I have everything i want, never mind everything i need...

last great book read : A lie about my father John Burnside

last great track i heard: Everybody's Got Something to hide except for me and my monkey The Beatles

last great thing i heard somebody say: the more you write, the less you die

Workshops

What do you do when you can't make a living writing? You run workshops of course. And actually in some ways I prefer doing these to the actual writing. Sometimes writing, with all its frustrations and agonies, feels like a twisted compulsion. A perversion. Whereas my workshops? well there I'm meeting all sorts of people I wouldn't otherwise come into contact with, and I'm listening to their stories - plus we all improve together. We feel like a team. And I get to feel like the captain. Or the player-manager.

This doesn't mean that I'm the best player. Quite often I set exercises and have no idea how I would go about beginning the task, never mind completing it in fifteen minutes. And yet in both my regular workshops there are people who regularly pull magnificent and multi-hued literary rabbits from my tatty workshop hat.

I've just started up a new class and this is what we did for the first session:

1. Five minutes free writing beginning with the phrase 'I want...' I always start with free writing. The rule is that your pen must not stop moving. Whatever is in your hand should end up on the page without the critic on yourshoulder trying to get you to shape, organise or edit your work. We don't show these pieces to anyone. We dodn't use them. Each writer is free to throw them away and never look at them again. Alternatively, you might keep them ready to plunder for ideas when inspiration levels are low. Every time you do this exercise, something new or useful is thrown up. Even if you can't see it straight away. Every week we start with a different few words to set the group going, but this time I wanted to use I want because - wothout prying eyes but pushed for time and forced NOT to think, what people wrote would be the absolute unvarnished truth and something to hold in mind for the rest of the sessions...

2. It was a new group so I got everyone to write their autobiographies. Simple enough. Only they could only do it in 50 words. Exactly 50 words. Not 49. Not 51. Everything that is important about fiction writing is contained within this exercise. The strict word count forces writers to search for the exact precise word. Redrafting becomes essential as everyone strays over the word limit at first. Writers must also select and shape the raw material of their own life. Like a skilled stripper, revealing themselves in modest glimpses. These we did read out and have a laugh about. As usual this new group is a diverse crowd. Anglo-arabians, Canadian adventurers, Health Service managers, social workers and senior council officials, my friend Sarah who devises questions for TV quiz shows (the best job in the world. Can you believe they actually pay people to do that?), the retired, and the just starting out all mixed up together...

(An aside: sometimes as an alternative - I let people use as many words as they want but won't let them use the letter 'e'. It's hard. Like all good writing. And, again, trapped in a cage like this the imagination and the vocabulary are forced to work overtime...)

3. Next I got the group to write about their parents from a time before the writer was born. It could be a week before or years before. The parents could be together or apart. Maybe they hadn't even met yet. It could be first person or third person. It cover one incident or a period of time. The point was that we are all used to telling our parents stories, but usually from our perspective. We put ourselves at the centre of the world. It's an interesting discipline to try and be empathetic with our parents. To try for once to walk - if not a mile then at least a few steps - in their shoes. Again we are forced to weld imagination and speculation to a few hard facts.

And that we heard these and that was 90 minutes...

Feel free to steal these exercises... I'm sure I did...

It's been a while... I've been working on my novel Life! Death! Prizes! (Go to yr copy of chat for the provenance of this title...) This book will come out somewhere in 2011 and I'm currently working through it with a (Very, very good) editor. There's still a way to go but we're getting there. Inching towards something special - if it doesn't kill me first.

And now there's a gap while I wait for the next batch of notes. So I'm back on the other projects. The amusing piece of candyfloss about my terrible time at ITV ('You can't afford hobnobs? What do you mean ITV can't afford hobnobs?'), the play with Mark Illis and notes for my third novel... and somewhere in the midst of all this I ought to find a way of making a proper living...

I've been spending a lot oftime up at Lumb Bank taking turn in being the new (and lovely and efficient) Centre Directors, Ben and Liz, when they need a break. The last couple of weeks I've been Liz which was excellent because the tutors were Miranda France and Hannah Pool - both of whom are gorgeous, funny and committed to helping new writers become the best that they can be. The guest reader on Thursday was Geoff Dyer who has written some brilliant books. Colour of Memory ( a kind of Vile Bodies for the Brixton dole-ite generation of the 1980s), Yoga for people who can't be bothered to do it - which I guess was his break out book, as well as books on photography and essays and a recent novel, Jeff in Venice. All of them unique swirls of memoir and fiction. You should read them (Apart from The Search... don't really need to bother with that one.) In person Geoff is engaging, witty erudite, thoughtful. Great company. Which is why it was something of a surprise when a writing student put up her hand and her question turned out to be - 'Can't we get a bit more energy in the room?' Geoff was very gracious, restricting himself to a mild - 'Oh I'm sorry I'm being such a drag for you...'

This week I'm Liz again and it's TV writers. Specifically aspirant TV comedy writers... Tony Pitts and Keith Temple are the tutors and Jesse Armstrong came as the guest. Tony and Keith are working them very hard, making the students realise that comedy is a serious business (though they haven't entirely killed laughter at Lumb Bank).

I missed Jesse who to you is probably that guy that writes Peepshow and In The Thick of It, but to me is David's son. David Armstrong is a fine crime novelist who also wrote a great writing textbook called How Not To Write A Novel... He's also a great teacher of writing and has been to Lumb several times as a tutor and it was through him that I got hold of Jesse.

One of the nice things about being unemployed enough to get to go up to Lumb Bank quite a bit these days, is that I get to be part of my final programme. Last summer when I began putting together the programme I suspected it might be my last year at Arvon and so booked writers who were not only great at tutoring, but were also people I'd want to spend time with. As it was, I left sooner rather than later, so it's nice now to pop back and say hi and have a cup of tea...

Last night I missed Jesse A because I was at Shelf Library (Outskirts of Bradford) talking to their readers' group about TAG. I love doing these sessions. A dozen well-informed, well read, intelligent readers who have all read my book and have thoughtful questions about it. Plus they laid on snacks. It was a fantastic evening. And a tribute to two librarians, Anna Turner whose own novel comes out in January, and the librarian at Shelf itself (Shelf itself - must be a more elegant way of putting that.... Anna organises the Calderdale word of mouth festival, but it was the local branch librarian (whose name, shamefully, I've forgotten - it'll come back to me) whose energy and enthusiasm got a nice little audience together...

Tomorrow I'm doing a dialogue workshop at Birmingham Book Festival. Sunday I'm out Akroyd Library in Banksfield Museum Halifax teaching writing, Monday and Thursday evenings I'm at Hebden Bridge Library for my regular workshop work-outs and next Sunday I'm in Colchester reading with AL Kennedy (whose work I love...)

After that, my notes should be back and I'll be chained to my desk again...