<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: andale mono;">Sicily under blue skies was balm to my soul. There are occasions when&nbsp;everybody needs a week in Sicily.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">What's there for the writer when you don't speak the language? Well, don't you? Italians have the most expressive hand and body language. I was able to hang on conversations without giving offence because my fair skin and red hair make it abundantly clear I'm not a local, much longer than I could have done in Edinburgh. If radio has the best pictures than total incomprehension makes the best scenarios.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Dramas were played out in caff&eacute;s, by the&nbsp;steps of the duomos&nbsp;and shouted across the market in Siracusa. What was that lusty young fishmonger blasting across the ice mountains of fish? "My sword fish is bigger than yours!" "My octopii have nine tentacles!"</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Of course not all the drama was humorous. There were real tears in the side chapel of the Cathedral in Siracusa. I saw the hearse leave later.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Get to a wedding if you can, was advice given by the friend who travels there regularly. Easier said than accomplished but I did witness a particularly telling little&nbsp;farce gawping in the street outside a wedding. The assembled guests had been photographed and gone in when a scooter blasted up and an angrily anxious man got off. From another part of the one way labyrinth a battered transit arrived. Out popped two more scared and anxious young men. What have we stumbled into? The van men open its side and lift out two huge flower arrangements which they hustle up the steps and disappear into the depths of the church with. Then the bride and her parents arrive and enter, processing towards the white-robed priest. The young men hover. As soon as the congregation is on its collective feet to photograph the bride, groom etc they dash to the van and several more huge flower arrangements appear and are taken into the church to be slipped into their pre-arranged places. A little slice of Italian life to be mused over with the Marsala as snow blasts through Edinburgh.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Not all Edinburghers leave town! Some of us relish the four weeks of cultural overdrive, thank our lucky star for being resident and get stuck in. Only this year I was elswhere when the Fringe's 2 for 1 ticket offer weekend was on. Drat! However, careful study of similar offers on the back page of the Scotsman newspaper's Festival supplement can produce unplanned delights and bargains. In the meantime what have I seen?</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Last night I was at Fiesta Criolla in the wonderful Greyfriars Church. The church is situated across from the statue of Greyfriars Bobby and sits in a graveyard full of interesting tombstones&nbsp;in the shadow of the Castle. I always feel music sounds wonderful in church acoustics. Perhaps some of you will know why this is or indeed whether this is. Certainly the performance of <strong>FIESTA CRIOLLA </strong>by <strong>ENSEMBLE ELYMA, </strong>conductor, Gabriel Garrido was astounding. The piece covers a range of style from serious classical church music to rumbustious songs of the people - albeit people with wonderful voices and backed by a group of talented musicians. The blend of South American rhythms in voice, movement and instrument thrilled a full audience.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: x-small;">About half the audience had to leave in suitable breaks because the performance which had been scheduled to last an hour overran by 45 minutes. Excellent for those of us not going on to a 7.30 performance elsewere in the city.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Performance is everywhere during August. Walk this way and encounter fringe performers handing out flyers, high quality busking and folk from all over the world. Pass a tent and listen in while hush turns to laughter. Do a little eavesdropping in the street, on the bus (I've got my ridacard - more anon) or while wating in the queue to get in to your event. As writers, we must find rich and varied material.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: x-small;">My opening page on Writelink is currently showing 'comments waiting'. I can't find them so if anyone has left one that should have had an answer, my apologies. It's not rudeness. It's incompetence at finding my way round the site.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Now, off to put the tatties on because entertaining visiting relatives and friends is all part of the festival experience.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: small;">I heard the <strong>Cleveland Orchestra</strong> last night when they played <strong>Ives</strong> and <strong>Bruckner 8</strong> in the Usher hall. Great to hear the organ used for an early piece by <strong>Ives</strong>.&nbsp;The hall delivers a world class sound and the orchestra was fantastic.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Out this morning, using my ridacard to bus hop, for coffee with one of my writing groups. Lots of chat and eventually the lady who was occupying another table could contain herself no longer and came over. She was Susan Wilson who was staying in the hotel and had just done her talk at The Book Festival. A lovely Canadian, she was clearly enjoying the whole experience and casually dropped into the conversation the names of one or two of her friends in Edinburgh. We all reeled. Talk about starting at the top!</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Getting over my jealousy, I headed off again and encountered a North American combo busking on Princes Street. They were very colourful in full costumes with those dramatic feathered headresses and attracting a well deserved crowd with their great music. I bought my ticket for my first Fringe show which will be a set of three one act plays. The venue at the Merchants' Hall was full of mums and children waiting for the start of a junior event. Scottish schools go back tomorrow so getting around in the early morning and the afternoon will become much more problematic. Three cheers for the ridacard.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Home for a late lunch taking note of all the artists in costume wandering from their digs to their venues. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Now re-grouping before an early tea (as we say in Scotland) with friends and another concert by the Cleveland Orchestra.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: small;">On a beautiful Scottish island golf course two years ago, I was bitten or stung by an unidentified insect. I dropped to my knees in pain unable even to scream.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">There are Fringe experiences, folks, in that category but as a playwriting practitioner I have to demonstrate a bit of solidarity, so I'm not saying where I was last night. Just remember when choosing your events, humour is so personal that if you truly want to be lifted out of any kind of gloom,&nbsp;you need to select&nbsp;work you know you'll like. If you want the true Fringe experience, however, you do have to sit through the performances that make you wonder, like my insect did,&nbsp;if you're having a heart attack.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">That apart it's been a good couple of days since I wrote on here. Celebrity spotting is well up to standard. I've stood aside to let Jonathon Mills through the gap, (he's the Festival Director). I've spotted Simon Callow at the same concert. I've helped the Membership Secretary finalise Edinburgh Writers' Group's 2010-2011 programme. I've had three discussions with the flower convenor of my Church and two with the florist. Being the Festival, the church is hosting a concert tomorrow night and that means as the week's flower arranger I can't have access on Saturday. That means I have to go round this morning before sharing a glass of bubbly with <strong>The FT's Mrs Moneypenny</strong>. That means I've got tomorrow unexpectedly freeish to re-write the 3 chaps a publisher has asked to see on the basis of my first chapter.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">&nbsp;I do hope none of you had forgotten this is a writing forum.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: small;">Yesterday's champagne and Aga eats were a real treat. Mrs Moneypenny delivered exactly what she had promised.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In an audience comprising Mr and Mrs Alastair and Maggie Darling (she helped with the cooking, he's on a diet - according to her -&nbsp;but&nbsp;I didn't see him&nbsp;take any of the snacks - I was sitting behind him); Susan Rice; folk with titles; and a lot of Edinburgh's other suited financial whizzers, the Financial Times columnist gave a sparkling rendition of what she does in her weekly slot. Lashings of humour with a thread of serious message running cleverly throughout.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Women should not expect to do it all but there is no glass ceiling - just recognise where you need help and what to outsource. Accordingly, as she was wearing around &pound;1,000 of couture and a beautiful spray brooch couriered thence by Aspreys, she got Richard to help with the cooking. Cost centre 1 (aka eldest son Robert) to put the pizza in the aga oven and cost centre 3 (aka Angus or youngest son) to help distribute. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">I would say grab a ticket quick but the show has been sold out since last week. If she takes it elsewhere, do grab a ticket. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Putting on a show was her task for this year. In another year, the task was learning to fly. She told us that part of the difficulty of that was her weight. Although she feels like an immaculate size ten masquerading as a BMI of 37, the doctors are serious about the impediment extra weight is to flying light aircraft.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Cheered me up no end. I've had plays on at the Fringe, but not with champagne and canapes. Maybe I need to spray some paint&nbsp;into the atmosphere in case there's a glass ceiling up there. I certainly need to remember that an immaculate size 12 masquerading as a BMI of not actually 37, is no true impediment. Any champagne sponsors reading this?</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: small;">Stamina is a necessity for the Festival and Fringe goer.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Since I last posted, I've been to a fringe Clowning event called <strong>Pas Perdus</strong>. It was performed by four multi-talented young men from Belgium. Catch them if you're in Edinburgh, at Southside, 2.20 pm for the rest of this week.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">&nbsp;I was introduced to clowning by an actor friend who took me to a show several years ago. She'd not been able to 'get it' during her training but loved to watch. So do I. Good quality clowning is an art form and fascinating for those of us whose business relies on the spoken word. How do they do it? I watch and try to learn how silence might enhance my own work.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Then out to the Royal Lyceum Theatre, one of my favourite places in the world, for the Wooster Group's &nbsp;<strong>Vieux Carre</strong> by Tennessee Williams. It featured many of his usual themes: the cloying slightly mad nature of mothering, the homosexual author discovering himself, untreatable diseases in the 1930s like TB, poverty, the American South. Updated for a modern world of multi-media, the actors moved through a dream-like&nbsp;set of apparent clutter with some appearing only in film on the screens at the back of the stage. Two hours passed. Brilliant.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Greek tragedy featured in the major production of&nbsp;<strong>Gospel at Colonnus</strong>. Wonderful blues and soul singing from the company including The Blind Boys of Alabama. They moved around a stage of differing levels with confidence, unobtrusively assisted by other cast members. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Not listening to much music of this kind, I had a slight sense of being 'not good enough' as an audience member as much of the cast was known and loved by sizeable portions of the audience.&nbsp;I experienced this once before at a flamenco concert in Madrid where the audience 'owned' the singer. The female vocalist supporting the headline act must have felt the waves of hostility from the female audience members who quite simply couldn't wait for their hero to re-appear. This grumpy Edinburgher sees it happening on shows like Britain's Got Talent where the audience are so keen to applaud she often can't hear the act. Only last night, the audience at the Usher hall spent a long time settling down while they pointed out their friend in the Festival chorus or the Scottish Opera orchestra. Ah well, it was probably a lot more interactive in Puccini's time.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Today's a Fringe day only. Off out quite soon to GRV and the Roxy Art House. Sometimes the venues are as interesting as the events. GRV was the canteen when I was a student at Edinburgh Uni. It's also great to get into places that are closed for the rest of the year or available only to members.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: small;">'Are we doing anything at the Fringe, then?' the husband wanted to know. It was vaguely combative which might be ascribed to my let's see what draws us in attitude. Husband has a diary and the croquet has been a bit neglected while all this arts stuff, visiting relatives and school hols goes on. Tickets, however, can be controlled.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">I have a diary too. Maybe. There was a little grey book in my handbag...</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The Roxy Art House is a converted church. GRV is a converted uni canteen. The Assembly Hall still has its day job. The Vault is just that and&nbsp;maybe the smallest venue I've been to, it's a bit like sitting in one garage under George iv Bridge watching a performance in the next door garage. Claustrophics' note: doors on either side. Suffering very mildly myself, I like to know. It's also perhaps the smelliest as there are several cafes and a restaurant in the immediate vicinity so delicious aromas swirl around the queue.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">For many years, I scoured the 1300 or so entries in the Fringe brochure in order to advise friends, make a selection for the Addictions' unit where I worked and choose goodies for myself. I had a halcyon period where my friend was able to make suggestions and I discovered clowning and physical theatre but generally it's been down to me. Hence, I suspect, the hesiitation this year. Husband just cut out 4 and 5 * reviews and got on the booking site.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">There are worse ways to do it. See my entry about going to friends' plays!</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The shows were good. Bette/Cavett was a dramatisation, with 1970s adverts breaking up the narrative, of an interview between Bette Davis and Dick Cavett. The drama included an unplanned invasion through the emergency exit of two youngsters who descended through the auditorium, down four flights of wooden stairs and left into the corridor. Our actors carried on without missing a word or even allowing their eyes to wander sideways. Deserve an extra * just for that.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Tony Tanner at the Assembly hall delivered an astonishing tour de force: a one man play about the relationship between Diaghalev and Nijinsky. We sat entranced for an hour listening to one voice.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The stand up sketch show had its moments and the student production also. Husband awarded four * for his selection.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">&nbsp;</span></p>

<p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: small;">Wanting to be a writer and sitting down with paper, pencil, computer, typewriter, slate or whatever is to hand, are life-changing steps apart. It's too easy to doodle; to make beginnings; and to be content with the odd published letter or mini-opinion piece. We need the proverbial kick ...</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: small;">The greatest stimulus to my writing has been the Edinburgh Writers' Club (EWC). I'm currently the President. That makes me wildly biased but read on.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">Not everyone is clubable. Many folk simply don't take to the idea of joining with others no matter how devoted they are to their favourite pastime. Yet writing is a lonely business. We've all had the experience of trying to share our enthusiasm with family and friends but seeing their eyes glaze over. Not so in a writers' club. Sure, there are some who just want to talk about their own peerless prose or unmatched poems, but they soon get over it and sharing becomes two-way.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">I joined EWC after meeting the husband of its then secretary at a drinks party. I'd just naughtily told him I was going to write for Mills &amp; Boon (twenty-six years and so many rejections later, I am bloody but unbowed) when he replied, 'My wife does that.' Well, actually she doesn't although she is a well-published short story and non-fiction writer. She sent me the syllabus and I began to realise throw-away remarks at parties were not what writing success would be made of.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">Over the years, sometimes on the committee, sometimes not, I've met many wonderful and inspirational people through EWC. People who have had the gumption to tell me calmly that I'm not a this writer or a that writer, I'm a playwright. I've&nbsp;done the same&nbsp;for others and there are some folk out there who have success in certain fields because I saw what they could do. A two-way thing.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">In the internet age when we can have a lot of socialising on-line, there's still a lot to be gained from going out in the rain and wind to a meeting and socialising in person. It came home to me again last night when the club held its Reading Night. It always takes a wee while to tease the contributions out but on the night, an additional six folk brought stuff to share. Five minutes max per person&nbsp;and we heard lots of exciting, fresh work. In addition, we had a short discussion about where the ideas had come from and whether they were personal or universal.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">Writing clubs do it in so many ways. EWC has competitions and the presence of a deadline with the knowledge your work will be read by at least the judge, works wonders. I hope there's an EWC equivalent in your area. check them out. They'll have something to offer you and you'll have lots to offer them.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: small;">The annual dinner and prize-giving is the highlight of the writers' club's year. At least it is on paper because occasionally something innocuous on the syllabus jumps up and surprises us all. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Last night EWC had a lovely meal and we said our goodbyes until the autumn. For about 13 years the historical novelist, Alanna Knight, has been our Honourary President and she came to the event and presented the prizes.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">No one should underestimate the sense of pride folk feel in winning that book token. It may cost them considerably more to attend, but they do and they quite often bring their other half to take photos. Quite right too: they've worked for recognition.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">We had two jumping up surprises on our syllabus this year. Firstly we ran a Flash Fiction competition which attracted the highest entry I've known in&nbsp; over twenty years of membership. I was describing how you go about it to my dinner companion and realised something: it's very like the precis we did in school all those years ago. Of course you have to write your own unabridged piece and then shorten it.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Secondly we had an illuminating talk by Adele Hartley on the horror genre. An unexplored field as far as I was concerned but as she talked about how less is more, I realised I had at least one incident at the back of my mind that would work up. So much of horror is in the unexplained and not blood and guts throughout.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Lots to do over the three months we don't meet. Getting published is one aim - not to mention finishing that novel, writing that play and keeping this blog more up-to-date.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Note from the Christian Aid folk this morning. So far the sale has raised over &pound;108,000. How's zat for a church full of second (or thirty-second) hand books? </span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: small;">Widows and mistresses had the most fun in the Regency, but gosh is the late husband in my WIP causing me problems. This is the WIP I set aside to enter M&amp;B's first chapter competition.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The chapter went up and one or two of you were kind enough to drop by - thank you. Sadly, it didn't catch the selectors' eyes but I enjoyed the characters and the premise of Beloved Bluestocking (still on the M&amp;B site <em>romanceisnotdead</em>&nbsp;for anyone interested). I think it will be my next project if I can finally get through the character problems I'm having in the current one.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">EWC held a character workshop last night ably led by <strong>Louise Ironside</strong> who many tv fans may recognise as a prolific writer for River City and now Waterloo Road. I came away with good ideas about character creation but, unsurprisingly, none about how to de-construct a muddle already in existence.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">You'll all have been there and I know many folk would say if a character is taking over to kill him off. As mine is already dead that option isn't available. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">So, having done the ironing, some domestic admin and let off steam to you long sufferring readers, I'll get on with it.</span></p>