I’d like to put up an excerpt of the play I’m currently (desperately) working on with my wife of the past ten years, but I don’t think I can. One, as you probably know, I’m very conscious about jinxing things. I don’t like drawing the Fates’ attention to things that are still a little primordial, as poking a finger in primordial soup isn’t often good for protein strands. Two, I don’t know if I can for copyright reasons - an even part published piece might prejudice our chances in the second round of the application.
But I want to! I’m loving even this painfully limited taste of living a creative life, meeting with likeminded people and discussing something I actually care about - something that genuinely draws me in. Despite doggedly, perhaps even arrogantly, referring to myself as a writer, my only recent creative experience has been me, sitting in a darknened room and feeling apathetic and hateful with myself because I can’t summon motivation to do what’s important to me. The missus and I now have a perfect working relationship - you know when you do because you can tell and be told by your partner that an idea one of you has proposed is rubbish. It’s that kind of dynamic I’ve missed ever since I went to the Fringe in 2002 with Pictish, and we’re as close now as we used to be ten years ago when she’d stay round my house, and we’d stay up till 7am watching Eddie Izzard, drinking tea and smoking and eating dip.
Our little tale is met with genuine excitement from everyone who encounters it. I even called Little One up quite randomly the other day mid-redraft because everytime I look at the script now it gives me tingles. Everyone seems to know this story (though I myself had never heard it until we started work), and it touches and fascinates people on so many levels.
There’s also the encouragement from the quite alarming progress we have already made, coming back to me still every hour or so like a kick in the head. There were only 5 or so other groups (about 12 people in total including us) at the venue viewing last week (this occurred to me in the pub afterwards - I thought it was just one night’s viewing in a week of many). Five other ideas. I have no idea how many we beat, but to get to this stage, to be that good enough is awe inspiring.
My schizotypcal temperament is also trying not to fixate on the many “signs” we’ve received. To the more closed-minded or “rational” of you, a “sign” is when the immediate space of the universe around you buckles to the extent where it throws a reflection of your life, your thoughts or your feelings back at you. This is why perfect moments, such as sitting somewhere at the height of happiness and then noticing a rainbow, are just that. Everything really does make sense because you get a glimpse of your place in the universe. It’s up to you how you read these signs, or “coincidences” as the aforementioned “rational” mind would term them. I’ve always looked upon them as an indication that your life is proceeding on track, and everything in this brief aspect of it is taking place as destined.
We may not get there, so it’s foolhardy to get excited. Even if we don’t get it, Little One and I have agreed to push ahead and find a way to put it on independently if we can. There’s no reason to get complacent at this stage and just sit back and assume we’ll be awarded funding. It’s just everyone else seems to believe that we can take this somewhere, and I can see no logical reason why I shouldn’t too.
The shark is still swimming. Still desperately swimming on.
