finished telling i reckon - writing group - storybook

told B - another refugee worker - very good telling & response... much encouragement... more thoughts on how to keep the final kicker a surprise...

then told another B - artist - while he was performing his end of the day packing up... which wasn't such a good telling... i didn't have his full attention...

so i decided i was probably through with telling... on to the writing...

but i went to a writing group last night & whilst i didn't have anything to read i did tell it to the organiser of the group over a beer later... actually i had 2 listeners - we were all quite drunk - 2 C's...

i got a good response... although at the beginning T from the bookshop was there & that made it a little difficult... also male C has written a novel recently - is working on the 2nd draft & has an agent... so he was very much in "sell it to me" mode... which i'm not quite ready for...

C put a structure on it that may or may not fit it... i found it a little like teaching... many people will tell you that you need to know what you're aim is in a lesson, be very clear in your own mind what you're getting across - & what is most important - i follow this in my teaching but i also like the stumbling, getting there in one's own time approach...

C seemed to be saying i need to know what my aim is... what's most important? quite possibly all good advice & relevant... but i'm not there yet...

female C listened well & asked a some good questions... we chatted a bit afterwards, walking homewards...

so i will be going back to the writing group i think - i have 2 weeks... in that time i want to have written something to read...

and then storybook... it's an open source writing thing... uses databases to track characters, locations, scenes... i've started using it... i've mapped out all or most of the events that i currently know about in it... i haven't yet decided which order to put all those events, but i can do that within storybook...

it might be yet more displacement activity - but i find it useful right now x

DL, a bit to Bo,

told DL - my partner in refugee work, over a cup of tea in san marino... he was enthusiastic.. told me he'd buy that for a dollar... (3-2-11)

then i told the very 1st scene to bo (5-2-11)... in the kitchen of baby robin's birthday party... positive response...

went into the big green bookshop yesterday (6-2-11) & T told me he'd been thinking about it... even told me he'd been thinking of writing it for me, which i really don't want him to do... i wasn't quite thinking properly & didn't express this to him, but i don't think he will... good that it was in his thoughts...

i told my friend Josiah that i was writing a novel, but i hadn't written anything yet... she laughed & said that meant i really was writing a novel...

x

bookshop hat trick black scientist

told T @ the Big Green Bookshop yesterday - although with M there also chipping in tiny jokes every now & then - T himself not averse to a bit of gagery also...

it was good - a bit daunting because both other times i'd told that story in that bookshop i'd had some kind of negative appraisal - (or at least i'd seen it that way)

& about midway through T was looking a bit weary...

but it worked - it made me wonder whether it has enough momentum... but telling people while they are working in a bookshop is not the best judge of things - they are keen to get on with whatever they're doing and the story is quite a lot longer than you 1st realise....

told with the tube train up front, then clara sitting on the train platform thinking back... then the scientist thinking back... but with facts in both cases that that character doesn't know about...

i realised that the scientist character is becoming art terry... the recording artist & piano tuner... lovely man... black, american... the scientist may or may not be american...

at the moment he has links to the indian space program... of course he could be from india... but i don't think he is...

the trouble with writing characters who aren't from where i'm from & don't look like i look like - is can i write them? the problem of not writing any characters who aren't from where i'm from & don't look like me is... i suppose self evident...

i suppose i want to get away from the mad scientist cliché & art is one of the coolest people i know... so at least in my mind the scientist is cool - just how i get art's lovely nature down i don't know - but of course i don't have to - art is a model for the scientist - he isn't the scientist...

still telling people - there's an art teacher (another one) @ one of my works who i want to tell...

x