So. How about that Game of Thrones, huh?

No, don't worry I'm not going to get into that again. OK, I will. But only one sentence. Here goes...

Within the limited parameters of this season I thought it was mostly good, even sometimes great and, while they will forever regret not doing at least another season to land the ending with grace, the show has provided so many brilliant stories and characters and moments across its run that I leave it behind with more affection and approbation than annoyance.

Now, with that over, I can tell you this will be my last newsletter for a couple of weeks. I've got to square away one more project over the weekend but then I'm taking time away from emails, work, thinking, everything to basically sit on my sofa, tinker around on my PS4, read all the books I'm meant to have read and watch all the telly I'm meant to have watched. It's a terrifying, exciting time in my life, I think, with some wonderful possibilities ahead of me. I still have a lot of work to do on myself to be able to make the best of any of them, and part of that involves learning to unapologetically step away for a bit to find my joy again.

Maybe this is a good time to check in with that routine I mentioned in my first proper newsletter. For those who weren't with it then, you can find it in the archive but it was basically a set of habits I introduced in order to keep myself on the level. Happily, I've kept to them, in the main. The one that gets sacrificed a little too easily is the half an hour of reading for fun every day but I always try to make it up by reading longer the day after. I've even added another habit to try and jog my brain - getting backing my Spanish, using Duolingo to start with. I briefly went to Spain in January and was dismayed by how little I had retained and how unconfident I was with this language that I used to really adore. So small steps towards finding my way back to it, I hope.

(An aside: My grandma is back from India, and has just turned 86. I cannot fathom that she's that age. She's still harder working than I am. Anyway, when I went to see her on her return, we tried some Hindi Duolingo. She kept yelling at it for being wrong and it was hilarious. "They just say that in English!" she shouted as I broke the forth wall with a hard stare at colonialism.)

I'm also spending longer on my exercise bike. Have I mentioned the exercise bike? It was a joke at first, how could it not be, but it’s stopped me going mad(der) during intense writing periods. Genuinely the best £89 I've spent and I've done over 2000km on it apparently. For perspective, that's Land's End to John o'Groats plus half way back again. Not bad.

In the last month, I’ve upped my time on it to half an hour hard going six days a week. Result? Lost over half a stone and my stamina is already much improved just in time for (five a side) football season. It’s really unfair how the little, laborious things produce results, isn't it? Where’s the fun in that? That said, last week I tried to justify my Red Dead Redemption indulgence by playing it whilst on my exercise bike....however the connection was dodgy and would only work while I was using my VR headset so let’s just say that must’ve been Quite A Sight if you were passing by my window.

So yes, all positive which is both a surprise and a delight to report. Especially since I have found this week tough, work-wise. Not tough because the work was hard or that they were projects I didn't want to do, quite the opposite in fact. Just that I had a horrific week in my head during which I struggled to get myself up and push myself on. This routine did the job of shielding me from the worst of it but - yes. A real bastard and its weeks like this that make me fear that my aptitude will never match my ambition. I'd like to be more specific on what goes wrong and how I cope in the moment, but I've talked about it enough in the past. Would very much like to be singing a different song and will try to when I come back.

FINALLY! SOME FOLLOW UP!

In my last newsletter I mentioned that I didn't own any books about the craft of writing that were written by women and could someone recommend some. Twitter stepped up in a way that made me remember why I loved that hellsite in the first place and here are the compiled responses. I've obviously not read any in order to recommend (except for the Fuch's essay which I was given when I was part of the Theatre503 Five many moons ago which is definitely excellent) but I've had a Google of them all and hopefully will grab a few for the future.

Sincere apologies for not being able to attribute who suggested what -  I was slinging the suggestions into one large file and lost the context for some so felt like it was fairer to ones I don't have to just list the recommendations as is.

SOME BOOKS BY WOMEN ON THE CRAFT OF WRITING

The No Rules Handbook for Writers - Lisa Goldman

Fifty Playwrights on their Craft - Caroline Jester and Caridad Svich

Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott

Writing in Collaborative Theatre-Making - Sarah Sigal

Practical Hints on Playwriting - Agnes Platt

The Art of Writing Drama - Michelene Wandor

The Sound of One Hand Clapping: A Guide to Writing for the Theatre - Sheila Yager

NOT EXACTLY BOOKS ABOUT WRITING BUT STILL INTERESTING

Image, Sound and Story - Cherry Potter

Thinking in Circles - Mary Douglas

Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre - Mary Luckhurst (A history of dramaturgy). 

Moving (Across) Borders & Silent Rhythm - Multiple authors, and both books look great as a whole but was recommended on the basis of Kate O'Reilly's essays in particular 

100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater - Sarah Ruhl

Visit To A Small Planet - Elinor Fuchs (An essay which can be found here http://web.mit.edu/jscheib/Public/foundations_06/ef_smallplanet.pdf)

That's all from me - back mid-June when the wasps will be upon us, you'll all be looking beautiful, and I'll just be sitting here with the cats, as ever x

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