Writing Achievements and All That Jazz

While looking up topics I could write about this month, one question that seemed to pop up in many interviews asked writers about their greatest writing achievements, as if there's a scalable way of determining what's good and what's better. I think it all comes down to how it makes the writer feel, which is why I don't have one - I have three.

The first should be obvious: the writing and publishing of Balor Reborn in a week. It was a tiring week of trying to keep everything on camera, writing and editing a book, creating a cover and a book trailer, setting up the sales page, and sending out a press release.

The main thing is, I managed it. I managed to write the book, and it was my first step into the land of independently published authorship. It's set a precedence on my writing, of what I can accomplish in a short period of time, and it's been the standard to which I try to work as a bare minimum since.

That week led to the second great writing achievement: having an article published in Writing Magazine, about the process of writing the book. While the actual article didn't take long to write, and while I was perfectly happy writing it, it was a professional stepping stone, and it showed me that I can write something that someone would actually want to publish.

The third achievement happened way before that, and rather than being a work-standard achievement, or a professional achievement, it changed the way I look at the word. It was the writing and performance of my first play, The Rest is Silence, a play that dealt with depression and suicide at a university level, performed by my friends in the Drama Soc, with two of my best friends taking on the lead role(s).

The actual writing of it meant a lot to me, to get to tell a story that highlighted what depression could feel like, but the consequences of the play were huge in a different way. From ticket sales - and some merchandising - we raised over €750 for a suicide charity in Ireland, Console. It was the first play I'd seen in my college to sell out, and it was the first original play to hit the stage for as long back as anyone could tell me. As far as I'm aware, it was the first time an original play had been performed by the Drama Soc, and not the last.

I can't pick any one of those three achievements as being greater than the other two. Each meant something different to me, and to different people, but each one shaped the way I write and work today. In the six months following the staging of The Rest is Silence, I became a published author, with a book and an article to add to my credits.

Milestones

So, this is post number four hundred. Yep, 400! I canny believe it either. I can barely remember when I set out blogging. I know I wasn't very good at it. I wrote short posts with little structure, terrible English and no audience. I won't direct you to the very first post I wrote for this blog. It's terrible, and I wouldn't hurt you like that.

I was hesitant about writing this post. It makes me feel old. And that got me thinking: something in society has made us mark milestones in our lives. Birthdays, anniversaries, heck I even purposely remember the anniversaries of days when I met my best friends. Things that mean a lot to us have a lot of special meaning that we put down on a calender. Of course, when people hit milestone birthdays, they try to avoid them. Thirty seems to be the big one, especially for those without children.

I can't explain that one. But I guess I felt the same sort of apprehension in this post. I wanted it to matter, you know? I wanted to do something that wouldn't just be a moan or a joke or just a statement that this blog is four hundred published posts old.

Four hundred... still feels weird.

I guess, if I were to try make this blog feel better about how many posts came through it, I would tell it what has been accomplished since the first post. But that's boring. I do those reflective posts a lot. So here's something new: The Rest is Silence was on stage this month and it raised over seven hundred euro for charity. Like, what? How did that happen?

Okay, I suppose it's because my college is awesome. If it weren't for the Drama Society putting on the play, and then the kind donations of the staff and students, we wouldn't have raised a cent. But we sold out. For the first time ever. I still can't believe that. I couldn't walk for half an hour.

And that's something I'll be trying to remember every year. On March 14th 2012, The Rest is Silence went on-stage for the first time ever, and it sold out.

I suppose more news is also in order: I'm writing a new play. I've actually begun writing it, so I can officially say that. I'm hoping to put it on in college next year. It's a supernatural mind-blower. I can't wait to get to work on it properly. And I hope people like it. That's always important for me. I don't just write for me. When I release something into the world, it's not for self-gratification (unless I'm just moaning on my blog, then it's just for emotional venting...). I like to entertain, and when I get nervous I can take solace in the fact that I can entertain from behind a page.

I won't make a full announcement about the play until it's finished and I have an idea about whether or not there will be a director for it. I may direct this one myself. It's not so difficult a topic to deal with as The Rest is Silence.

Back to the original point, though: should the milestones matter? Turning thirty isn't such a big deal, if you can look at your life the way other people do (most people can't... I'll probably be freaking out.) Anniversaries of friendships are probably just weird. And marking the first time my play went on stage every year will lose significance from the moment the lights go up on a second script.

And so, at post four hundred at Mightier Than the Sword (I can't believe I gave my blog such a clichéd name...), the milestone can be passed. For the next ninety nine posts, I don't have to worry the fear of my blog getting old again. (I got 99 problems but a milestone ain't one?) I can pretend that five hundred doesn't matter that much, and then it'll take three months to get the last four posts out into the world.

I suppose it's human nature to mark a milestone and do everything we can to avoid the ones that make us feel old. Damn you nihilism.

Out of My Hands?

For me, The Rest is Silence is coming to an end. In terms of how much I can personally do with it, I mean. I hope to get it into the hands of people who can use it to continue the work we began with the first show.

We've raised a few hundred euro for charity, but that's not the important thing. The money isn't substantial enough to be important, yet. What matters with this play is that it's gotten people's attention. That's what I wanted from the offset: people need to pay attention to the issues it deals with. Mental health, depression, suicide: they affect so many people in the world today we can't afford to turn a blind eye on them anymore. It's not everyone who ignores the issue, of course, but when so many people had to be told who 1Life were, there was certainly a problem.

If you don't know, I'll fill you in briefly: 1Life are Ireland's only 24-7 suicide helpline. Its phones are staffed by trained counsellors and therapists. It's unique, but not everyone knows about them.

We chose to fundraise for them in the college, alongside the play, to help raise awareness of the issues at hand, and to help them keep the phones working. Yes, they receive plenty of support already, but when lives are at risk, is "plenty" enough? Not for me.

So, we put on a play, sold some bracelets and keyrings, wore bright yellow t-shirts and generally did a good job of telling the people of the college who 1Life were. Incidentally, for the first time since I started in the college we sold out the play. There was a great response to it, and a second college has agreed to host a show of it next week. This is before it goes to the competition on Thursday.

But I wonder if I have to let the script out into the wider world. It's something I'll need to talk to the people behind the phones about: do they want to attempt to distribute the script to theatre groups, schools and colleges themselves, or do they want me to try get it put on somewhere else? The cast aren't free this summer, not all of them, anyway.

I want to keep it going, yes, but I don't know if it would be a case of me driving the project. I mean, I would love to, but it's up to them. What do you think, Reader? Is this something I should push myself, or something I need their help with?

Either way, I had loads of fun with the play (you know, aside from the really sad parts of it), and it received a lot of positive feedback from the first audience to see it. Someone's even coming to see it again!

Let me know what you think. And if you want to know when the next shows are, visit this page: http://paulcarrollwriter.com/the-rest-is-silence/

Life and the World to Come

Way back in July, I made a few decisions that would, inevitably, change the way I lived my life. Almost five months have passed since I made the choice to do a massive writing challenge to finish Bliss's Camp NaNo 50K. That, in itself, wasn't massively life-changing, except that it made me realise how much I could do if I stopped messing about, and if I put aside whatever was happening in my life that might distract me from my work.

In that same week, I made the decision to set up a website - which I worked on from then until the middle of September, when I launched the site. That involved a lot of planning, of course, and a lot of mulling over what would eventually end up on my site on Day 1. Over the next month and a half, I edited Stepping Forward, fixing up a novella I was already pretty happy with to give away for free.

That's been the first big change in my life: I now have a book out in the public domain.

The website has, since, been host to a number of articles, poems and short stories. While these haven't exactly changed my life, they have gotten me thinking about the different ways I live my life, and the way in which I write. I also decided to use the website to play host to a couple of projects in the New Year, one of which is an X-Men story I've been planning for some time. (I've checked, and given the fact that Marvel pick up writers and stories from self-published works - and that's the only way they will now consider someone new - I am perfectly within my rights to release this story as I see fit.) That one doesn't have any immediate effects on my life, though it will at least encourage me to stick to creative deadlines.

The other project is an adaptations ezine, which will help me (a) hone my critical writing and (b) review books, films and the adaptation process. Again, no immediate effect, but it will involve, once again, sticking to deadlines.

Aside from my website, I also decided to apply for a writing position at The Phantom Zone. While the rush of college work has stopped me writing for the site in some time, I still have this job. More than that, I still have my first ever writing job. It was something for me to be proud of.

In the two months that followed, I wrote and edited a play, The Rest is Silence. This is where things took another big turn: as a result of this play, I'm going to have something performed on-stage. More than that, it will, hopefully, raise some money for a worthwhile cause.

At the same time, I've set up an ezine in college, which has gotten someone else writing. He's a good friend of mine, and he's decided to put his quirkiness to good use. The immediate benefit for me? I can have a good laugh reading his blog when I'm stressed; he has all of these really funny observations and stories that aren't as noticeable in a group of ten (yes, there are ten of us... we're a bit of a mob.) It's also fun to be able to talk about writing with someone who's only just started to think of it as having potential to be more than a hobby.

The driving force behind a lot of this work was an old friend of mine. Whether I was trying to make him proud or merely using that as an excuse to make myself do something with my life, I mustered up the courage to finally put my name out there. As I said in my dedication in Stepping Forward, he taught me there's more to life than just existing. No matter what happens between us, I will always remember that I was too scared to do any of this on my own. Having a reason to get going has made the past few months some of the best of my life.

That's the immediate effect of knowing him; after so many years writing, and so many years living the same mundane life, I ceased to just exist. As a result of that friendship, I started to live.

At Least an Hour?

So, I'm writing a play? Did I mention that enough? Did I mention it's called The Rest is Silence? What, several times? Well, I finished writing the first draft of it on Thursday. I've been typing it all up, since. With one scene left to type, I have discovered that it's a lot shorter than I had envisaged it being.

One word: frick.

It needs to fit the standard length of a play, which equates to at least an hour. The Rest is Silence is nowhere near that long, I don't think. I mean, I still have to do a reading of the play to see how long - in terms of time, not pages - it is, but it's still too long. I need to flesh it out a bit.

Thankfully, I have a couple of things to help me do that: my first NaNoWriMo experience, and the original not-written-down plan for The Rest is Silence, when it was just 'that play I'm going to write soon'.

The first NaNoWriMo experience was for Meet Sam. My initial plan left a sizeable gap in the timeline of the book, and it was something I was okay with leaving. Until it came to writing and I was way behind the desired word count for where I was in the book. So I had to fill in that timeline with some more events, though the actual plot of the novel never actually changed.

The original plan of the play had a couple of things that didn't make it into the written plan. Of course, mostly I had just forgotten. But I still remember what I planned with them. I'll have to call on them and write these scenes as soon as possible. I think that means more disappearing tomorrow morning! I have a habit of doing that.

The problem is that I need to listen to the play once or twice, after recording it, to make sure that (a) it sounds right and (b) it looks right in my mind's eye when I look at the stage with the dialogue being spoken. I'm a very visual writer, in that sense. If I can see somewhere I'm going to write about, I will. With the college plays, that just means locking myself up in a particular lecture room when no-one's there, because the plays go on there.

If I can finish writing the additional scenes tomorrow and finish typing it all up shortly thereafter, then I'll be fine. Ish. I'll also have to record myself reading the play tomorrow night to have any hope of finishing up on time. Then I'll have to do the play-back sessions, most likely long after lectures on Tuesday. Wednesday, I have plans. Tuesday morning, I have plans. But I need it all done to print off on Thursday morning and hand to the head of the Drama Soc and say: 'Here it is, it's done, please show the director!' At which point I will run away as far as possible, until I collapse from exhaustion.

But that's college for you.

In other news, I found out about a new museum I can include in the Writers' Soc plans. The Little Museum of Dublin was discussed on Twitter, earlier; it contains artefacts (can't say that word without thinking Warehouse 13...) from 20th century Dublin, tying in perfectly with my plans to try and see The James Joyce Museum. Which reminds me... I need to arrange a Writers' Soc meeting soon, don't I?

Third year is tiring and we've barely even started!

Once More With Feeling

The past couple of days have been... well, different. Finally getting a chance to talk to somebody (albeit only through Facebook mail), we came to a conclusion that for the time being we need space. There's too many things that need to settle before we can really talk properly, again, but it didn't feel like I'd lost a friend. I don't think I did, anyway. We've done this before, but this time it's really necessary. Yes, I was upset when it happened, but once I calmed down... well, I've been happy. It feels right, this space between us - we set it up, it didn't just happen badly and for no reason. Things didn't end.

To keep myself busy, last night, I started to edit a novella I wrote last summer called Stepping Forward. I'd planned to edit the first three chapters, but I discovered that when the time came to do it they were much shorter than I anticipated! So I just kept on working. And working. And working. And I finished editing the book.

I'd been fairly happy with the first draft, when I wrote it, and the one person that actually read it (the friend mentioned above) liked it, so when I finally tidied it up I was delighted! It's been over a year since I wrote it, first, and in the space of a single night I got the finished book together! I will probably be doing a cover for it at some stage, as I'm wont to do, but for now I'm calling that book finished!

This morning, I then wrote a scene of The Rest is Silence. I have a lot of work to do on that play, but my ideas for it are exciting. This morning's scene was probably one of the more challenging ones... though there are still some major things to happen that will require a lot of emotional energy from the actors! I hope they get what the play's about!

To bring the day to a close, I made a banner for my website. As I write this, there's a badly-done version sitting on the website. The lovely Lisa Sills is redoing it for me, and the results so far are great! I can't wait until I have something to show the world as being my official banner for my website. Sure, I didn't do the finished piece, but the idea behind its design was mine! People have given it some good feedback, so clearly I did something right.

Between now and Sunday, I have to finish up with everything on the site - that means hosting, a domain name, the finished banner and getting it all set up properly. It's going to be an exciting few days. The plan is to release the website on Sunday, when people will have access to everything I've been working on the past month and a half. This is my gateway into the world wide web, going beyond what I've ever set up. All the little bits and pieces of my life are coming together on this site.

Feedback on everything will be greatly appreciated! Until then... my thanks go out to:

• Rebecca Woodhead, for her advice in everything I've done of late. This is both advice she's given me personally and things she's written about in Writing Magazine. I couldn't have done this without her.
  
• Lisa Sills, for her help in the banner and her continued support in this project.
  
• The aforementioned friend, for everything before this website. I couldn't have put together so much if there wasn't someone out there who made me feel like it was worth it. No one else continually gave me the encouragement to write and to be myself like he did, without greed, malice or spite. The very last thing he said to me was the final bit of encouragement I needed.
  
• The friends who continually make me happy; the smartest girl in college who I can tell pretty much anything, the comic book girl who gets my little eccentricities, the Ninjas who make me laugh even when being in a bad mood is easier and the long-time friends I kept from secondary school who never fail to offer new and interesting insights into the world, none of whom have even begun to bore me after all these years!

This website is everything I could want it to be; parts of it were put together with my head, and parts of it were put together with my heart. Sometimes I fail to use either one of them, but not in this case. This feels like something has finally been done correctly.

Deadlines Approaching!

My website is, hopefully, being launched on September 11th. I have a lot of stuff to do between now and then, but I chose the date for one reason and one reason only: it's the day before I go back to college. I want to have the website up and running with content to view (and share?) before then, but I'd be too pushed for time to try get everything done before then.

Because I slacked a little the past couple of days, I have to play catch-up on my workload. I've got to write four scenes of The Rest is Silence, which will be no small feat, and that's only one of the many things I have to do. Thankfully it's also the only explicitly creative goal for the day, the rest being website work, editing, etc.

I have to finish editing a short story - the first short story that will be going on my website. That's my primary concern, because I don't want that section to be blank when I launch. The story is called Dear World, but I can't tell you much more about it without spoiling it. It's something I hope people like, that they can maybe connect to, but that I mainly wrote upon seeing a publication opportunity. It wasn't accepted, but then I didn't really believe it would be. I still like the story, though, so I'm posting it online. I just don't believe in posting on a website someone else set up. This is my baby, so it's staying in my house.

Once that's all done, I have to get some poems selected for the launch of the site. I'm not the best poet in the world, but some of the stuff I've shown people has been liked, so I'm going to share it through the website. I sometimes write with particular people in mind, other times I find the connection with a person after it's written. (Classic example in my novel Meet Sam was realising how much like Nick a friend from college was, who I didn't meet until ten months after the novel was written!)

To finish off my day, I have to type up articles for the website. I have five categories for non-fiction on the website, and each one needs a piece written in it by launch day. Of course, I need more pieces to post in the future, which is where next week's workload comes in. I have to write more articles, edit something, get more poems ready, and work on the banner. Still working that one out, mind you!

See, I have deadlines for a lot of stuff. All the basics for the website need to be ready by the 11th at the latest, but preferably the 10th. My play, The Rest is Silence, needs to be written, typed and edited by the time college starts back on the 12th. I'm not in until the afternoon, but I don't want to be working on it, then. I have a deadline list, and the play needs to be finished so I can write my novels throughout the college year, while continuing to work on the website and for The Phantom Zone, and then I'll get into the heavy planning stage of my X-Men story that I've been talking about on Twitter and Facebook; that needs to be planned in some details by December 10th.

I might be mad with the amount of work I'm taking on, but I wholly believe it's possible to do all of this. And hey, there's a reason I chose December 10th - Christmas break! I will finally be able to collapse, then, after a tiring first semester! (I'm not entirely sure of the date I'm off, but that's my deadline, anyway!) In the meantime, I have to get a lot of other stuff ready, before I even go back to college. I don't think I'll ever stop working, you know that? It's like I'd heard on the radio, and mentioned a short while ago, a professional does the work even when he doesn't feel like it. Thankfully I happen to know some amazing people who will make the winding-down periods in my life so much better!

Oh, That Play Thing

In college I'm known for two things (aside from always attending lectures and being kind of annoying... latter might be an understatement): writing and drama. Thankfully, there's way to combine those two joys - I'm writing a play. So far, the details of the play are quite secretive. I've been describing it as "complicated" to avoid giving anything away.

The briefest and simplest explanation I can provide for the play is this: It's about mental health. Yes, that's possibly one of the vaguest statements someone can make about a play, trumped by 'It has characters and a climax or two'. But that's all I'm saying about the topic of the play.

I'm hoping that it will be put on in college - during brief talks with the VP of the Drama Society I indicated that, if we don't have a director with a play to put on, I'd like the society to consider my play. Of course, given the fact that rehearsals generally begin quite early, I have to have the play written before college starts back. That's four weeks to the day.

Lisa Sills assures me that I shouldn't have a problem doing it. She wrote a 120 pages screenplay in a week, I can do a 60-ish page play in four weeks. Plus, you know, I do have experience writing a lot in a short amount of time.

The reason I'm writing this post, of course, is simply by means of an update. It's easier to explain the play in one place than to try explain it in four others, each with their own character limits. Too messy.

Moving on... If we don't have a director, I've expressed interest in directing the play. This is mainly because I don't want to act in this play. I've written it so that the Drama Society can put it on, but also so that any other theatre groups can. I'll be explaining that better closer to the opening night (if there's an opening night).

In the meantime, I have a title for the play. Finally. After weeks (if not months) of trying to come up with one. Ready? Comfortable? Okay: The Rest is Silence. 

I'm not going to go all English student on you and explain its significance, but I will extend my thanks to Nancy and Kate on Google+ for the feedback and discussion, and to my brother for giving his opinion on the options available.

Now I just have to write the play. But I never start without a title! That is Rule Number Uno for me. If/when the show goes into production, I'll be announcing those details. Though probably not here. See the links in the sidebar (those colourful buttons to the right) for announcements of various sorts.