It’s been a few weeks since you heard from me last, and now you are hearing from me, it’s not in sync with the regular fortnightly structure. I should probably apologise to you for that, but it’ll have to be a qualified apology, because I’ve been upholding one of the cornerstones of pretty much every professional development session I’ve facilitated in recent years: in order to say yes to something, you have to say no to something else.
As you may (or may not remember) from my last post, I was up against some deadlines in mid-June. Here’s a quick recap, and some progress notes:
- I’ve got a £30k funding application to write from scratch, and it could really do with being submitted on or before 30th June — UPDATE: it got done, four days early, in fact, so now it’s back to yet more waiting for an outcome…
- I’ve got a full-length play to write from scratch, and it’s going to be submitted for a competition, and the deadline is 1st August — UPDATE: I finished the first draft (all 155 pages of it!) on Friday and now it’s in the hands of my trusted first reader, and on the back of our notes chat, I’ll have about ten days left to whip the draft into a submittable shape…
- I’ve really got to get the redraft of The Radiant City finished, and that really needs to happen by 31st August — UPDATE: I haven’t touched and have barely even thought of this for the last two-and-a-half months, which is intensely frustrating, because I was three-quarters of the way through the redraft when that slew of application failures derailed the process and sucked up all my time and headspace. But the play will be gone into the ether by 1st August, so I’ll be back on the case with this from 3rd August.
It’s a sad irony that many people in my sector spend way more time writing applications for creative work opportunities than they do ever actually undertaking creative work. Maybe it has always been this way. All I know is, the situation is getting worse. The gulf between the time spent applying/waiting and the time spent doing is getting wider. The financial return on the time invested in applications is dwindling. There are days when this existential crisis — never mind the worry about paying my monthly outgoings — gets so intense for me, it becomes paralysing.
I really, really, REALLY need some of these applications to start bearing fruit soon. It’s July now, and so far this year, between us, Gareth and I have written six full-length Arts Council applications, applied to Trusts, applied for commissions, applied for jobs — and so far, nothing. Nothing at all. Often close, but definitely no cigar.
We’re now into the second quarter of the current financial year, and in that time, I’ve earned the princely sum of £750 (no, that’s not a typo). My savings have been having to take the hit, but neither my savings nor my sanity will cope with this pattern continuing for much longer. HMRC are already demanding payments on account equal to last year’s tax liability, but the story so far this year is unrecognisable from the story last year — and last year was a tough one, too, believe me.
If no money has come my way by Christmas, something will have to give. And that’s easier said than done — I can’t just manifest paying work into existence, and I can’t oblige anyone to give me a job when I apply for one. So, even if something does have to give, I don’t really know what that “give” will look like.
In the meantime, out of courageousness, folly or perversity — and I’ll let you decide which — I’m cracking on with my writing. A play for a competition that everybody and his cat will no doubt be entering, and where my chances of success are infinitesimally small. A novel that I believe in, but have no idea if any agent or publisher will take a second glance at.
But I have to keep going.
I have to keep going because, right now, there is no alternative.
I also have to keep going because, right now, I really don’t want to be doing anything else.
I’m a writer who writes. And right now, at least, and for the time being, I am a writer who is writing again.
