Steve GannSelf Promotion or Blowing Your Own (s)Trumpet
November 13th 2006 01:05
One of the problem in self promotion is: Where do you draw the line? I send the odd email introducing my plays, scripts, whatever to prospective producers from time to time. But I ain’t very good at it.
Let me paint you a picture, sketch a few details or if you prefer give you a feeling for what I am talking about. I have been writing for over 30 years - plays and scripts for film and TV. So far nothing has been produced at a professional level. Now there could be a number of reasons for this. The first and most obvious possibility is that my writing is crap. Let us examine that possibility for a moment. Nah, that's not it -- and the modesty gland collapses again! So what could it be? What holds me back from the threshold of success and the accolades and rewards that go with it? As near as I can figure it out, it's a combination of dumb luck and my inability to promote myself. I'm not very good at it. I have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the word processor where I sit debating with myself:
B1: All right I'm here. So what do I say? Do I tell them what a wonderful person I am? Do I just blow my own strumpet?
B2: Well apart from a suspicious mix of metaphors, shouldn't that be trumpet?
See what I mean, instead of sitting down and espousing the virtues and strengths of my plays, I get distracted with a piece of garbled nonsense. Where's the sense in that?
OK a little focus here, please. The writer takes a medium, deep breath closes his eyes, concentrates and then clears his mind - which achieves absolutely nothing because how can we write anything when the mind is blank? Enough already! Concentrate. So how would a critic react to my play? You never know with critics. Talk about biting the hand that feeds them. They sometimes bite off both hands starting at the elbows. Vinegar and vitriol. Kenneth Tynan could be acerbic, but at least his acid was tempered by wit and sometimes humour.
But back to the topic. I'm getting distracted again. My play is titled:
View from the Shadows.
Steps up to the podium, clears throat, then in emphatic, stentorian tones:
Hello! Any theatrical entrepreneurs out there? Producers? Someone with more money than sense? Please let me titillate your curiosity with a smidgen or two of detail about the play. It is a memory play, not a conventional story. It is more the examination of a myth.
Katherine Louise Mayo was legend, a key figure in the world of medical research. But one day it all came apart and dogged by scandal, she dropped out of sight and disappearing from the view of the world. Now, James Fisher has come to sort things out. He wants to write the definitive biography of Katherine. He has come to visit Joanna Furth, her friend of later years. He is determined to find the real reason behind Katherine’s disappearance.
Time is not explored sequentially. We travel backwards and forwards picking up the threads of Katherine’s life. But what is real and what distortion? Was she molested by her father as a child? Is this a real memory or a fantasy? What of her other memories? Some do not seem to fit. How much is imagination? How much is escape from reality?
There is a quote from Edmund Bourke that I use in introducing the play: What shadows we are and what shadows we become.
If you would like to read the play, I am sure it can be arranged.
I have also written another play, but it is a story for another time.
Call me, if this piques your fancy. Please email me: johnhalllast@froggy.com.au
I promise to respond!
With a nod and a wink and say no more.
Let me paint you a picture, sketch a few details or if you prefer give you a feeling for what I am talking about. I have been writing for over 30 years - plays and scripts for film and TV. So far nothing has been produced at a professional level. Now there could be a number of reasons for this. The first and most obvious possibility is that my writing is crap. Let us examine that possibility for a moment. Nah, that's not it -- and the modesty gland collapses again! So what could it be? What holds me back from the threshold of success and the accolades and rewards that go with it? As near as I can figure it out, it's a combination of dumb luck and my inability to promote myself. I'm not very good at it. I have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the word processor where I sit debating with myself:
B2: Well apart from a suspicious mix of metaphors, shouldn't that be trumpet?
See what I mean, instead of sitting down and espousing the virtues and strengths of my plays, I get distracted with a piece of garbled nonsense. Where's the sense in that?
OK a little focus here, please. The writer takes a medium, deep breath closes his eyes, concentrates and then clears his mind - which achieves absolutely nothing because how can we write anything when the mind is blank? Enough already! Concentrate. So how would a critic react to my play? You never know with critics. Talk about biting the hand that feeds them. They sometimes bite off both hands starting at the elbows. Vinegar and vitriol. Kenneth Tynan could be acerbic, but at least his acid was tempered by wit and sometimes humour.
But back to the topic. I'm getting distracted again. My play is titled:
View from the Shadows.
Steps up to the podium, clears throat, then in emphatic, stentorian tones:
Hello! Any theatrical entrepreneurs out there? Producers? Someone with more money than sense? Please let me titillate your curiosity with a smidgen or two of detail about the play. It is a memory play, not a conventional story. It is more the examination of a myth.
Katherine Louise Mayo was legend, a key figure in the world of medical research. But one day it all came apart and dogged by scandal, she dropped out of sight and disappearing from the view of the world. Now, James Fisher has come to sort things out. He wants to write the definitive biography of Katherine. He has come to visit Joanna Furth, her friend of later years. He is determined to find the real reason behind Katherine’s disappearance.
Time is not explored sequentially. We travel backwards and forwards picking up the threads of Katherine’s life. But what is real and what distortion? Was she molested by her father as a child? Is this a real memory or a fantasy? What of her other memories? Some do not seem to fit. How much is imagination? How much is escape from reality?
There is a quote from Edmund Bourke that I use in introducing the play: What shadows we are and what shadows we become.
If you would like to read the play, I am sure it can be arranged.
I have also written another play, but it is a story for another time.
Call me, if this piques your fancy. Please email me: johnhalllast@froggy.com.au
I promise to respond!
With a nod and a wink and say no more.
| 59 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
