DISAPPOINTING MYSELF

I just want to take a brief moment this morning to express some mild disappointment… In myself, chiefly.

About two-and-a-half months ago I got an email asking me whether I might want to contribute anything to another evening showcasing new writing at the amateur theatre of which I was once a member. After all, I had done so once before, in the heady, youthful days of September 2010…

At the time I received that email, I was feeling rather snowed under, writing-wise, with the rather pointless process of daily blogging, and trying to think of an exciting (if ultimately much ignored) advent story with which to entertain my friends and other readers in order to fill the 25 December days up to and including Christmas Day.

However, I did have a few ideas for the event which sprang to mind, and I composed a quick email promising to think about them some more, and then, what with Christmas, and work, and having a rather persistent cold, and another long stay in hospital for my mother, it went completely out of my mind.

To be honest, though, even then I was convinced that because I hadn’t written a word for “performance” in over two years (since the last “evening event” I think...) it might prove to be a difficult thing to achieve. After all, during the intervening period of time, I have preferred instead to wallow in the pointless self-examination and perhaps ultimately less potentially rewarding practice of daily blogging as my preferred expressive form of the written word.

That’s my fault, of course, but I guess the perceived lack of “enthusiasm” after that last writing event finally defeated me hopefulness-wise, and I decided to go off and plough my own furrow instead, because I had been so very eager at that time to continue with the writing group even though it all eventually failed to happen and the massive sense of personal disappointment at this did cast rather a long shadow...

Perhaps having fallen out of that loop meant that I haven’t been given either the motivation or the much-needed “kick up the pants” that I really needed to pursue it either...

Who knows...?

Nevertheless, after the arrival of that email, I gave it “some serious thought” before trying to convince myself that one or two of those daily nonsenses might actually work as “performance pieces” because you know how much I like to “recycle...” Maybe I ought to have mentioned it to one of my “fans” who possibly could have been able to suggest some of them which might have worked in that context with a little adaptation...?

There was, of course, an “elephant in the room” of a long-forgotten WW1 piece I wrote a few years ago and which has lurked in a drawer ever since. I seem to remember that it was pretty good, but I never managed to round up some actor-types to have a bit of a read-through and so another opportunity died on the vine, although I've not actually looked at that since I finished it - whenever it was that it got written - so it might seem to be a bit rubbish now...

Perhaps an extract or two from that might also have worked under certain conditions...?

However, after thinking about it a little more, I did realise that I had written some words for performance last year; the failed sitcom entry I mentioned in these very pages. I did consider that it might just bear adaptation into a “radio play” format which might have been interesting… After all I could have trimmed it to 15 minutes and lost the “visual” gags, or even split it into two perhaps...?

I did then have two or three ideas for monologues which I ought to have had a pop at, given that I had enough lead time. A cleaner... An absentee father... Something about Time Travel... All of these popped into my head, but I never actually sat myself down and wrote any of them...

I don’t want you to get the impression that I wasn’t “enthusiastic” about the project, it’s just that my own “disappointment” when the momentum gets lost sometimes gets in the way of my confidence...

I still had plans to perhaps try and write a couple of pieces for it, but I was convinced that I still had ages in which to do it. Right up until the reminder which popped into my personal “news feed” a couple of days ago telling me that it was happening, er, today actually.

So, it turns out that I have no time left in which to write those then, and certainly no time to get them rehearsed.

Now I am left with that slight sense of disappointment which comes from having failed to actually do something which you know you ought to have at least tried to have done, and the gnawing sense of the fact of that world, of which I was once a very small and insignificant part, has now finally moved on and forgotten all about me, much like Blog and Twit worlds will one day do, too, and even the entire world itself, I suppose…

And so the theatre “new writing” night comes around without me and I do have a vaguely troubling sense of feeling rather “out of it” even if it didn’t manage to motivate me into any kind of action. All I can do is wish them well and wonder whether they will even notice the insignificant non-existent hole in their programme tonight...?

I still feel guilty though, especially seeing as the last time I was aware of them doing such an event was the cauldron in which Lesser Blogfordshire was first brewed, so perhaps I ought to have made a little more effort…?

Now, if only I can fail to create this new play I have no ideas for, I’ll have another in my  hopefully someday complete set of personal failures to mull over…