Diary

In my writing workshops, I almost always ask people to share their name and one thing they've noticed about the world that day.

And when I remember to explain, I say that this is something fundamental about being an artist.

That we assert our right to be in this world, and express our response to whatever we experience happening in it.

It needs to be our response. No-one else's. Not the person we've been told we are or told we ought to be.

But ours.

And not someone else's response that we've encountered somewhere and that strikes us as forceful or persuasive or true.

But our own.

And it's not about judgement or opinion or condemnation or blame. It's about observation.

I've been neglecting this blog a bit for the past year, I guess because I've been so focussed on performing, and i seem to have let my writing muscles go all soft and flabby.

And that's been adding to my difficulties in writing my new play. I feel like someone who's being asked to run a marathon when all they're used to doing is a walk through the park.

So I want to see if I can do this exercise every day to see if I can get myself back into better shape.

Not being much given to making resolutions, this feels like a strange resolve to come to.

It may be exceptionally foolish, and end in failure.

Failure, I guess, would not being able to keep writing it. And if that happened, the exercise would be to accept that without judgement or reproach.

I'm not altogether sure what success would look like. Perhaps just carrying on.

And on the way to free myself of the need to please...

And so. We'll see.