Morning folks,

Been a funny old week, this. One where I feel like I've done enough work within a balanced life but seem to have very little scriptwriting to show for it. That's intensely frustrating. I was reminded of Chuck Wendig's blog on the balance between self-care and tough love (which also came up in this week's Scriptnotes podcast). In particular this bit:

Self-care can go day after day, where you’re not really making anything — you’re just floating. And sometimes it’s real, sometimes you need that downtime, you need to ruminate, to ideate, to put those lumpy rocks into your brain’s rock tumbler in order to polish them.

But other times, you’re just taking a vacation. You’re floating just to float. And then you drift. And you don’t know where you’re drifting to, not at all.

That might be valuable. It might be essential.

It also… might not.

And it’s really hard to know.

I feel like I've let myself float a bit too much by doing so much work around the scripts themselves which
I don't think is invalid or in some ways useful but it's also not enough. Writing isn't a job that has a causal "do this to get this" workflow, especially when you're writing theatre where the freedom of it brings all sorts of thoughts floating into your head such as "how can I use the form of the play to reflect the thematic content" which is a great and exciting and useful question and my God is it fun to let your brain spin on questions like that. Again though, more often than not, you just need to finish writing the nuts and bolts of an argument between a couple that you've been putting off for a week.

So yes, I'm going to try and push myself back into as much scene writing as I can next week even if I don't feel like I've answered the bigger questions. In fact, when I first started out writing, I would mostly plough my way through rather than plan all that much or have lots of character exercises. There were a few useful questions I'd ask myself but it wasn't anything too in-depth and I was just never scared to just start. Eventually the characters would begin to speak to me and would tell me what they wanted the play to me. I'm not sure when I stopped trusting them. I'm not sure where the fear crept in. Maybe it was becoming a television and film writer where people want a great deal of prep work from you. This has accidentally become part of my playwriting process too to the extent where, with one of the plays I'm writing right now, I wrote a twenty page beast of an outline document that mapped the characters, the intent and the story, scene by scene.

On one hand, that's incredibly handy. On the other, it's also hugely intimidating. Like "wow, past me has done so much good work here, why do you want to mess it up?". That raises the bar for just getting on with it. But just get on with it is what you need to do. I'm repeating myself now but I feel like I need to say it once more for myself. JUST GET ON WITH IT, VINAY.

I had a glimpse of what that could be like yesterday, putting my arse in the chair for a late night writing session and feeling the worries eventually drop away. Didn't need to plan. It was totally fine.

So often it's that fear of getting lost that stops you finding anything, hey?
 

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Foot Like A Traction Engine

Something else I've recently embarked on as part of trying to stay present: Taking proper pleasure in tiny moments. I had one on Wednesday when I scored the most ridiculous goal during football. The ball hopped up to me and I just smacked it, from what I think was my own half, with my left foot and watched it sail through the night towards the other goal. I turned away, assuming it had gone off, only to hear cries and turn back to see ball in the back of the net. Apparently it had somehow kept spinning and nipped in behind the keeper. An absolute fluke and one I will take full credit for for the rest of my life because it makes me feel good at something I'm not very good at.

Contrast to writing which I think I'm good at though at the moment I need to prove that more than I am. (God, that's a horrible sentence isn't it?)
 

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Kitty Korner

I took little Chill Cat to the vet to get an update on a genetic gum condition which affects his teeth badly. They said they'd keep an eye on it last December, with the feeling that they might need to take two teeth out. They confirmed this week that it'll be three. I looked at his charismatic little face and felt gutted for him. No more dry food for him and no more holiday fund for me. I suppose this is what it's like to be a real parent, right? Spending money you set aside for fun times on your child's needs.

And also the irrational, outsized fear for them when it comes to small medical issues. Basically, I had a lot of very strong, very strange feelings in that room that were probably far too intense for a house pet.

I see that the cat I had to put down the other year is still on the system with a little (RIP) next to his name and it properly nearly sends me.

I think about the cat needing teeth removed for something that’s not his fault.

I think about how one of my own front teeth, in response to the blunt trauma of a racist incident many years back is slowly seeming to yellow due to the dentine thickening and choking off the root.

I think about how that’s a neat metaphor for the legacy of trauma.

I think about how I’d be really annoyed by that metaphor if I encountered in in a drama and/or novel.

I think about how I find metaphor both deeply clunky and incredibly potent.

I think about how I'm going to end the newsletter with it.

P.S. I had a reunion lunch with the younger members of the An Adventure cast this week, including a brief cameo from Shubham who's currently in India filming a TV series and getting absolutely hunch. Aysha's in a play at the National. Anjana's been nominated for an Evening Standard award for Best Actress. Martins is in a big Shonda Rhimes show. Basically...all kind, talented people who are all smashing it. Filled my heart, it did.

P.P.S. While I'm talking about such people...I went to the new BAFTA Breakthrough Brits intake shindig on Thursday and I ran into an alumni from my year, one Marnie Dickens, writer of Thirteen, whose new show Gold Digger starts on Tuesday and you should totally watch it because she's terrific and it will be too.

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