Last night was the third Tuesday of the month and the last Pontardawe Script Cafe of the year. It was an open mike session and eight scripts were read out and mulled over. I wanted to break out of my normal style and try something different. Since chairing Script Cafe this year, I haven't done much writing myself. I've sent off my two full length plays to various theatres and am awaiting the usual rejection letters. I've written a few poems for our exhibition about climate change in October but it doesn't feel like a great output and I haven't felt inspired.
I've heard writer's block described as a lack of ideas or anxiety about writing crap- it's all crap so why bother writing anything? It is hard to keep motivated when you aren't getting anything published. For me it's been a bit of both and also because of other priorities, I've lacked a regular routine. When there is so much else to do in life and writing is hard work, it is easy to let writing drift, and that's what's happened. So last night it was fun to see my play,' Emergency Ward 301' given an energetic reading/performance by three of our members.
The play is set on a hospital ward. Two patients, Dave and Nick are in bed discussing their operations, while the Surgeon, Andy, performs his chaotic surgery on them. It all becomes too much, they turn and start performing brain surgery on him with a chain saw.
Comments included,'Daliesque', 'Goonish', ' Reminiscent of Monty Python.'
Celia Thomas in an email wrote,
' A clever use of metaphor which sadly we didn't pick up on- the main characters meant to represent David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Andrew- an admirable attempt to show the state of the NHS today. Derek thought it could be staged using a white sheet. Thought provoking. I thought Fawlty Towers takes over the national health- very gruesone but fun too. Well done!'
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