3 days left of Not Being 40

Yesterday, hooplah!, I got the first draft of my tv episode in to the script producer.

This is only a small hooplah! because frankly I have no idea how it will go, it may well hit her computer and come bouncing straight back to me tonight with WE HAVE TO TALK emblazoned on the bottom in red.

No actually it won't do that because that sounds a bit threatening and spooky and she is neither of these things which is, you know, a pleasant surprise.

From her it goes to the producers and then to the network and then I get more notes and on I go to the second draft. But at any point WE HAVE TO TALK (the non spooky, non threatening version thereof could blink up on my screen (receive notes, insert notes, submit again).

I have actually very much enjoyed writing (and rewriting and rewriting) thus far. And how nice to have it in with 3 days left of Not Being 40 to play.

So far I have spent my non-script writing time farting about with my blog and putting this thing on the side that lists about forty blogs that I enjoy at various time. The 10 most recently updated show up on the list otherwise you can click to read more.

Having a blog roll is something I have meant to do for a while but I am a stupid fuzzy headed sort of internet person. I did manage to once put one on as a sort of example but it all seemed a bit hard. Luckily, blogger likes to keep up with all the stupid fuzzy headed people and so now they have this new...thing...that makes it very easy to do a list such as you see here. And in about seven and a half months I predict they will develop a "blog post generator" which will make blogging even easier.

Computery business is one thing that makes me feel stupid and another is Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra (what a fucking brilliant segue.)

I am part of a sort of magnificent seven of playwrights (a playwrights' alliance we actually say) who like to gather and write stuff as a group, it's a sort of reaction to the whole playwright in the garret sort of thing and the sad little lonely person one is at those times (also the terrible tracksuits one seems to slop around in all day) but also we are pitching for projects that seem a Bit Big and suited for 7 people to have a bash at, together.

And so, we are having a bash at Nietzsche.

Some of us playwrights already know a bit about Mr N, some of us, for instance had not only read Thus Spoke Zarathustra but also attended courses on said fellow.

But others of us had not and our whole experience of Thus Spake(or spoke) Zarathustra was recognising it as the book that the sullen teenage brother is reading in Little Miss Sunshine.

Hello, that playwright was me.

Because, as I told the others at Tuesday's meeting: I would not pick this book up in a pink fit.

Kicking and screaming is perhaps an exaggeration of my reaction to having to closely read things like: Of The Despisers Of The Body or Of The Bestowing Virtue which are but two of the little chunks of creative wisdom Zarathustra likes to spread around to his ever increasing disciples in Part One. Each segment contains a little homily or lesson and now and then a tightrope walker or perhaps some dancing beast or floating butterfly and each pithily ends with the line:

Thus Spake Zarathustra.

"It is not dissimilar to GodSpell," I said brightly at our meeting and this seemed to please some and concern others.

Like individually moulded cupcakes with brightly coloured icing and special little sugar doodads upon their sugary peaks, Zarathustra passes out his special thoughts and words although by the end of part one he seems to have run out of cupcakes and told his now rampant followers to piss off for a bit.

There are so many questions to be answered.

Is God really dead?

Is the Superman actually better than the Batman?

What will happen in part two?

Will there be more cupcakes?

Will I compare it to the Rocky Horror Picture Show? Can there be another tightrope walker please? (I bet not, because that first one fell off and died a horrid death)?

Why did no one tell Nietzsche to do something about that ridiculous moustache?

There was a moment during my wrestling of Thus Spake Zarathustra when I was vividly reminded of a nasty moment in Honours at Uni. Midway through my James Joyce class after having written three HD essays about JJ and various chapters of Ulysseus I said jovially to the small class of Joycean Fans: "yes but how many of you have actually read the whole book?"

I shall never forget the strange brittle silence that followed those words.

Apparently Nietzsche sees struggle as a Good Thing, afterall his hero seems to wander up and down mountains to make a point and so I grimly perservere (because a) the team is depending on me and b) I have already spent the grant money) and c) I think I am learning something.

To my suprise, I have found some revealing and rather resonant thoughts and moments.

Stuff seems to glimmer for me and every now and then I find myself murmuring...ooh I do that...

Will I be a better person after working on this project? I don't know. But I think I could be a different one. We shall see.

I think that this is a pretty good project for a Person About To Turn 40.

Zarathu himself went into the mountains and kicked about on his own for ten years when he was thirty and now, ten years on, he's back, baby, he's back, and check out his cupcakes.

Thus Bakes Zarathustra.