A Frank Confession

I haven’t written any new material for nearly a year. I realize this is hardly a world-shattering fact. But it’s an unusual position I find myself in. I usually write like a nutter. And I love it. Especially at 2 in the morning. This is when I work best. When all I can hear outside my window are the occasional bellow of a gang member or screech of cat-fight, otherwise silence “like an abattoir in the dead of night”. Um, that’s actually a line from Hard Man Les, a character in my play Gob, but I like it, so there. Punching away on my keyboard in the early hours always brings to mind Dylan Thomas’s lovely poem about writing not for fame or riches, but for the secrets of common humanity:

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labor by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

I can picture Thomas in his cottage in the village of Laugharne, whirring away with his typewriter, fingers permanently curled round a whisky glass, fag butts spattered across the carpet, collapsing finally sweaty and puffy into bed at seven in the morning. I’ve done this too, except I don’t come up with poems like 'In my craft or sullen art'. No, I come up with unintelligible drivel.

I wonder though. Was Thomas really a total piss-head when it came to writing or does it suit the Welsh hell-raiser myth? Personally the only time I’ll allow myself a beer when I’m writing is when I’m doing stage directions. I mean, anyone can do stage directions. They are beaucoup boooorrrng. Writing is an art (Thomas subconsciously acknowledges this by putting the word in the title of his poem!) and requires a good deal of concentration, a bit like driving, and you wouldn’t drive drunk would you? And if you did, you’d probably crash…hope you see my point?

I digress. The fact of the matter is I haven’t really wanted to write any new plays for a while. This is partly circumstances. Two simple equations will illustrate my point nicely:

Demanding job = knackered = less energy to write
Relationship = weekends taken up = less time to write

The relationship has gone, but the day job remains. In other words, life has got a bit in the way. But the other reason I haven’t written for a while is nothing has really got my goat lately. I don’t feel particularly churned up about anything. Really good plays have this starting point. You get worked up. It won’t go away. Follows you around day and night. Face it, you’re obsessed. The play’s gotta get written.

Martin Amis said: I don’t want to write a sentence that any guy could have written’. No, I don’t want to inflict on the public a play they couldn’t give a damn about either. So it’s not writers’ block that worries me, it’s can I get worked up enough these days? Watch this space…