Write here, write now.

How I write.

Please take from this what you want, there are no hard or fast rules about writing.

First of all, don't listen to anyone except yourself.  You know if your work is any good, you don't need others to compliment you (but it does help).

lesson 1 

Idea – the idea is the most important part of writing my stories.  To me they usually come out of the blue and very quickly.  I usually write a half page synopsis of every idea.  If the idea is any good it stays with me, I think about it night and day and let it grow in my head. 

• Have a book to write these ideas in.  I have lots of idea books and when I need inspiration I have a look through.

Ideas I’ve never written are numerous.  Some ideas stay with you for years.  One of my plays, GRASS took 5 years, until I could get all the components to finish it.  Sometimes it’s because I can’t think of the end.  I think sometimes as I get better at writing I’ll be able to do the really mad ideas I have, I’m not good enough yet.

Ideas come from every where, friends, family, personal stories (Grass), internet, newspapers, photographs, flyers (walk this way). 

Lesson 2

Research - the world, the characters, the story.  I use the internet, the library and then I talk to people.  This time can take months, its writing but in your head mainly.  At night before I go to sleep I think about the problems in my story and I try to solve them. 

Who are the characters, where do the characters live, work, their age, etc?  The answers to these questions shape your story and the lives of the characters.  

I write a graph for my characters like this.  Every new play I start writing notes about the story.  The notebook and the graft is a great source of information if I’m stuck. 

I also write the story scene by scene where my hero is going - From Knife Edge  

●          Brian turns up and sets up theatre  

●          Brian gets annoyed by Alan, Brian invites Alan on stage.

I don’t always stick to this, but it helps. 

Lesson 3 

Write – Before I write I need to know the end so I know where I’m going.  Think of it like a journey, get everyone in the car and set off to your destination.  Along the way you might meet some interesting characters, your car might break down or there might be a massive diversion, but you always know where you’re headed. I think how it is best to start (usually slowly as an audience need time to settle) the middle part I make up as I go along; it’s the organic stage that I love.  If you’ve done your research the middle should come easier.   I like to get a first draft finished quite quickly no matter how bad it may be.   After I’ve written something I usually leave it alone for a week or two then I come back to edit. 

What is it about?  If a play were about love I would examine and explore the depths and widths of love.  Self love, young love, obsession, loathing, lost love,  

We write drama – what is drama?  It is conflict, things rubbing against each other.  One says yes, the other says no.  So my love story wouldn’t be boy meets girl they live happily ever after – that’s boring.  

Lesson 4

Edit – when I edit I start with first draft and rip it to bits.  Never be scared to take things out, if it doesn’t work cut it.

○      Find out what the plays about?

○      More in-depth Research, is the world and characters plausible?  I want an audience ideally to believe me and be carried away with the story and my characters.

○      Smooth out the scenes, most of my first drafts are disjointed, I might repeat myself.

Re write.  I have never finished writing a play yet.  Even as the play is being performed I’ll still be thinking, tinkering.   

Lesson 5

Structure - You need tension and excitement as well as climaxes.  

and finally...

Rehearsed reading – if you’re planning to get the play on, try and get people to help you listen to it.  Plays are to be played by actors and actors are great at finding all the holes for you.  When a play is cast the actor will concentrate all the attention on their part, they will underline or highlight only their words or their actions, that’s what they’re (we’re trained to do).  If an actor comes up with something better steal it, the play will always have your name on it.  Knife Edge was read in front of an audience of actors, writers, producers and directors – it was very nerve wracking, but a good way to pick their brains. 

I have a CSE in English  

My story would be like Romeo and Juliet – two lovers who can’t be together because of their families.  

Crimewatch

When I was starting out acting I would say yes to any job, we should.  I was in a small co-operative agency in Nottingham and I'd regularly be put up for all sorts of little jobs.  Once I went to Matlock in Derbyshire to make a film made by a bloke in his caravan, on another occasion I was paid to be a witness that law students at Nottingham University could cross examine, but my favourite was Crimewatch.  Crimewatch (formerly Crimewatch UK) is a long-running and high-profile British television programme produced by the BBC, that reconstructs major unsolved crimes in order to gain information from the public which may assist in solving the case.

Crimewatch was one of my first television performances when I played "lad 1 in snooker hall".  All I remember was standing in a snooker hall one afternoon drinking tea.  The second time I did it I was cast as the victim, a bouncer from Cambridge who was shot in the back of the head on wasteland.  I spent the whole day with CID, the victim's girlfriend and his best mate.  The small crew moved all over Cambridge following his last known movements, until after returning from the shops there was a knock at the door and he went over the road to his death on a slice of wasteland.

Nobody saw anything.

What I loved was the extent I was involved.  I went into the police incident room and saw photos, I chatted to witnesses and police alike, I was allowed to ask questions about the man I was playing.  I had a long conversation with his girlfriend, who told me first hand what had happened.  I met his best friend who he'd been with minutes before his death.  12 hours later and I'm back on the train to London and thinking about the poor family that has no closure.  I'm putting the clues I have together and coming up with my theory.

That Thursday (Crimewatch night) I settled in my living room to watch.  I was shocked at how many of my friends watched texting "I've just seen you on Crimewatch" and "I always thought you were a trouble causer".  It was no longer about the victim, but about my ego, my acting, me on the telly.  I puffed my chest out and congratulated myself and carried on with life.

A couple of weeks later I received a call from the officer heading the enquiry.  He told me they had a few more leads but nothing substantial, but he said "what did you think about his girlfriend"?   "How do you mean?" I asked. "Did she say anything?" I told him what she had told me, what I remembered and then I said "But she's lying".
"What do you mean?" the copper asked.
"You can't kid a kidder, I have lied with the best of them and I know she's holding stuff back?" I said.  "Yea", he said "We know".

To date they still haven't found the murderer.

P.S. This episode was Claire Goose’s first job too.

Anti Social Media

I sometimes look at this Facebook and I think “What is this SHIT!” The bragging, the beauty, the brothers, the sisters, babies looking like Winston Churchill, rivers flowing, beaches glowing, walks, dinners……the endless dinners, shit grammer and spell mistakes, the sorrow (too much sorrow), red politics, anger I think, this is shit.

And I switch it off.

Bin It.

Delete the App.

Then, ten minutes or so pass and I think they must have missed me by now.  Someone must have liked it by now.  They must be worried sick, those waifs and strays, fighters & lovers, nurses, actors, builders and riders, sisters and cousins.  The thieves and liars, the ins and outers, mothers, adventurers, posties and people.

Because all you people are my kind of people, friends.

Red Riding Hood - film

Here's a little film to get you all excited about Red Riding Hood

Grass, Snitch, Nark, Blabber.

Grass by Mark Whiteley

When I was 20, I witnessed an horrific beating in a pub in Nottingham.  Two young, alcohol fuelled, angry men on a Friday night out, I knew both the victim and the perpetrator.  What followed was one of the scariest times in my life. I was threatened, stalked and even arrested. 

After the fight I was asked by the Police Officer what I’d seen, we all know what can happen to a grass on the council estates of England.  What would you do?  I did what I thought was right and decent and ultimately, I ended up paying a high price for being a snitch. 

Before the Crown Court case I was regularly visited by gang members wanting to know “what I was going to say” in court, under oath.  As the date loomed I didn’t know where to turn or what to do, so on the morning of the case I ran away.  Of course as a 48 year old I look back on that ridiculous decision with mature eyes, but I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

On the run from the Police and living on friend’s sofas I battled between my conscience and my fear for my safety.  In the end, Iaughably, I was “on the run” for just three nights. I had a chance meeting with an old lady on a park bench, who had far more life experience than I did at that time.  She listened and told me about her brother, a conscientious objector, who ran away for six months during WW2 then bravely returned to face the music. 

The next day I walked into Nottingham Crown Court and was arrested for Contempt on entry.  I gave evidence and the accused was found guilty and given 12 months, suspended for 12 months.  I left Nottingham pretty soon after that.

25 years later and the ghosts of my past are back.  GRASS is a new British crime drama from award winning Manchester theatre company HARD GRAFT. 

Venue -  KAVA 17 - 21 Mumps, Oldham, OL1 3TL
Tickets from £6*
Dates 30th Sept. - 17th October 2015
Time 7.30pm

*£6 preview tickets on the 30th September

WIN

BOOK AND WIN!

This Box could be yours

For your chance to win this shoebox from our production of The Christmas Elves and Shoemaker, just book your Grass tickets before Monday to be entered into our FREE competition.

http://www.hardgraft.co.uk/whats-on/

Time to wake up

If you want to be in on the bottom floor here's a look at our new venue in Oldham.  We open in September, but I'll try and keep you up to date with how it's all going on here.

Better still, join the email list here  and get offers, inside info and nude portraits of me to savour.

This year it's GRASS a comedy drama, based on a true story about me and our rit.  It was first performed in the 24/7 festival in 2010 and was nominated that year for MEN Award (obviously I didn't win or you would have heard).

Anyhow, I'm really excited about this project and I think you will be too.

Share me with a friend and my love for you will never end.

peace people

Photo Gallery by QuickGallery.com

WE MADE A PODCAST!

Just remember, I only bought the microphone last week it can only get better from here on in.

Here's why we need to talk to you.
http://www.onelifewingit.co.uk/

Coming up....

I will be talking to Film Director Julian Kemp who made his first feature length film with £150.

If you fancy a chat about something/anything you're passionate about get in touch. Cars, holidays, family, death, camping, dumping people, dating, overcoming adversity, facebook, builders, hitchhiking, birds, trees, sky, acting, writing, jobs, ghosts, bands, telly, eating, diets.....We mean anything and the less famous you are the better x

Inspiration will come, I found mine on a bus.

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill on stage in Richmond North Yorkshire

In 2007 I was coming home from London to Nottingham on a National Express coach.  I’d been auditioning for yet another tv commercial.  It was a strange time in my career, I have had some really successful periods as an actor. I did TV, Films and Theatre but I was never really satisfied.  I’d had enough of playing “cheeky bloke next door” or “the thick bloke on Heartbeat”.  If you don’t know heartbeat just google it.  So as I was looking out the window on the back of the bus an older fella came and sat next to me.  I don’t remember his name, I don’t remember what he looked like, I just remember what we talked about.  He told me that he had just walked across England, coast to coast.  From St Bees in Cumbria, on the Irish Sea across the Lake District, the Pennines, the Yorkshire Dales, the Vale of York and the North York Moors to reach the North Sea coast at Robin Hood's Bay 192 miles later.  192 miles of beautiful English countryside and adventure.  This chance meeting inspired me to move away from mainstream storytelling and took me on to one of the most exciting journeys of my life, a journey I'm still on.  

That spring (2006) Daniel Hoffmann-Gill and myself started walking from Bangor to Boston with no money, no accommodation and no food.  All we had was a 90 minute comedy that we performed to try and make friends.   We walked across the country in 16 days, we never slept rough or went without shelter.   

It goes to prove that you never know where inspiration will come and if you sit and listen long enough things will change.

If you want to know where the next adventure will take me join the mailing list and I'll let you know as soon as it happens.

JOIN HERE NOW

From the 2006 advertising bumph 

This year we’re back with Coast To Coast.  A brand new show about how we survived, who we met and where we slept en route, from the Buddhist retreat deep in the Welsh mountains, to the mosquito infested Shropshire mere.  Hear about the man whom God told to leave for America to find his future or the street sleeper who taught us how to forage food from the skip at the back of Tesco.  Fast, funny and forthright this is a show not to be missed.

Coast To Coast is an extraordinary story by two outstanding storytellers, with video diary footage from our coast-to-coast theatrical odyssey.  This innovative show will entertain and encourage the whole family to pull on their boots and have an adventure of their own…