Should I try writing stuff ?

I might be just having some kind of psychiatric episode (I am in a fairly odd mood today), but it has occurred to me that I might have a story or two to write.  More specifically I've been reminded recently of the whole "10 minute play" concept and one or two ideas have been rumbling around in my head which might work quite well in that context.


One is a recurring family conversation, which I think might be interesting to re-tell as a kind of collision between memory, event and psychiatric session.


The other would be a fleshing out of an improvisation exercise from class a couple of weeks ago.  The idea that occurred to me at the time produced a more interesting little story than I expected, and I think it might be fun to see where the conversation went if it were a little longer and had a little more direction.


I've never really thought of myself as a writer in this sense, and I don't know how I'd feel about having someone else perform stuff that I was, in a way, writing for myself.  But if I managed to go through with it, particularly to the extent of getting it accepted for performance somewhere, it could be a very interesting experience.

Never Let Me Go - my thoughts ***SPOILERS***

If you haven't seen the movie or read the book, be warned that this is a dumping ground for all my thoughts about what the story is about, what I thought of its characterisations and how they were portrayed on screen etc.

That said, here I go.

On the choice to set the story in parallel with the existing universe rather than in some imagined future:

Apart from simply being interesting, I think this choice is clever for at least two reasons.

• The entire story is structured as a means of having us think about our own mortality without having to face it directly.  We don't like to think about the fact that we will all die some day in the same way that the students of Hailsham both know and don't know they will all be donors.  In providing a fictitious world in which to contain this story, the author has chosen not to further separate it from reality by placing it in a completely imagined future.  We see these created children, both in the sense of being clones and also in the sense of being a literary device, within a very real context rather than one removed from us in time.We're left instead to focus on another reason for the choice of science fiction as a genre for this tale.  We are asked to ponder our mortality in an indirect manner.  We are further invited to consider this in the context of what it means to be human, which we do by constantly wondering 'how can they not see that these children are human beings and can't be treated like this'.
• The story is not only in parallel to contemporary history, but parallel to the lives of people likely to be starting to ponder their own mortality.  The characters are in their late 20s to early 30s during the 1990s, making them contemporary with a 2005-2010 audience in their 40s and 50s.  Once again I think there is a very calculated tension between keeping a 'safe' distance from the audience and providing a connection to the characters on a very personal level.  It's an attempt to provide a safe, fictional place from which to ponder some inevitable but uncomfortable realities of life which still provides quite salient cues connecting the audience to the plight of the characters.

On the nature of the characters:

Why clones.  A variety of reasons, including the one that Ishiguro himself gives - that they are a means of helping us think about what it means to be human.  We look at them and ask what is it about them that makes them considered to be somehow not quite human.  In doing so we come to a greater, though possibly not entirely conscious understanding of our own sense of humanity.

On a more literary, pragmatic level, being clones, raised in an institution, the author is given greater latitude to work with characters who are not quite whole.  They can more believably represent specific aspects of human behaviour and psychology rather than strangely flawed 'whole' human beings.

Tommy is an innocent.  He tries to understand the world simply from what he can see and on the basis that everyone acts from the best intention.  He doesn't really understand the purpose or reality of his place in this world.  When confronted with the truth about the way other people think and behave he loses control and flies into 'rages', both as a child and an adult.

Ruth has some understanding of her short life but is unable to accept it.  She tries to take on characteristics of 'real' people and is jealous of the love between Kathy and Tommy - not because she sees it as a way of prolonging her life, but because it represents an aspect of humanity that she can't have.

Kathy understands her fate, at least at some level, from the beginning.  The greater her understanding, the greater her acceptance of that fate.  She is not immune from the the pain and disappointment of life, but she understands that to live a life is to accept that it involves good and bad.  She is hurt by Ruth's actions, particularly when their motivation is revealed, but she doesn't dwell on what might have been, instead focusing on what can still be experienced in the time which remains.

I think the choice to keep the science fiction, the remoteness of the story from reality to a minimum is extremely effective.  It poses a problem, in that readers and audiences do seem often distracted by the choice - the parallel history aspect in particular.  If overcome however, the minimal separation of the story from our real dilemma allows for the message of the story to gradually seep in, at an almost subliminal level.  Yes, the metaphor is pretty clear, and that in itself may be off-putting to a more critical audience.  I still think for the reasons mentioned here it's a story which quietly seeps into the mind, particularly on multiple readings/viewings, each of which reveals some new and subtle insight (real or imagined).

About the movie as it relates to my ongoing interest in all things acting:

For the moment, I'd just like to be able to have the opportunities Andrew Garfield has had in making this film !  Just to have a go at a role like this would be fascinating.  The ability to underplay emotion as the 3 leads do (as is a characteristic of Ishiguro's work as I've experienced it so far) is something I find endlessly interesting.  Then to suddenly snap and express it all in such a shockingly, heartbreaking, horrifying way.  It's a strange thing to say I know, but I'd really love to see if it's something I'm capable of.  It's something which is related to what I've experience already, finding a way to let go of at least a degree of inhibition, but the moment he created was truly horrifying.  As he says himself in an interview, it was a horrible thing to have to do, because it had to come from somewhere.  I'm pretty sure I have that 'somewhere', so it would be interesting to have an opportunity to give it a go.

Somewhere to talk about acting

I've barely started and so have no idea what I'm talking about, but I wanted to record what I do learn, like, dislike and the overall experience of it as time passes.  So here it is.


Since I've already been doing classes for a few months, I'll start by posting the video of my Level 1 graduating performance (which is really what made me start this blog in the first place - I needed somewhere to post the damn thing that people could actually get at it ! ).


This is my couple of minutes from my group's presentation of monologues at the end of our 10 week Level 1 course at Darlo Drama (www.darlodrama.com).  I expected it all to be a bit confronting but fun, but I had no idea just how much fun, and just how much I'd learn from every minute of the whole experience.  Needless to say I'm now doing Level 2 and planning to keep doing it while ever they'll take me and I can afford to pay them to do so.