Draft 1 part 2....

So where we left things (before an intermission of angry-doctor-ing) I'd handed in a first draft. I'd got to the top of that mountain. And I was waiting on feedback.

Full disclosure- there's no cliffhanger here, it's all fine. No great disaster is befalling anything. And that's all good. But the process and emotions of getting here and to the next is worth documenting. And oddly has been a difficult blog to write.

This project, while technically a commission has been a collaborative effort between me and the producer. We didn't know each other beforehand (I'd had a short piece in one of his writing showcases) but we  started talking in September last year, and have worked on it since there. It's been a fortunately brilliant collaboration for two people who don't know each other- more on that later.

So in all I've been talking about this since last September and writing piecemeal since then. This has been interrupted by bursts of job issues (as ever) a general sense of 'really should I be doing this' and if I'm honest, some moments of really poor mental health (a blog on that is on it's way). As well as periods of I'm-doing-too-much-this-might-finish-me. So until now it was worked on in a series of short concentrated bursts (translation, there were deadlines, I ignored them and then scrambled to meet them). And all of those previous deadlines were 'unofficial' ones, a check in, a collaborative meeting to see if things were on track. Around April I'd got about 40 pages worth of edited, refined writing done we were both really happy with. But in order to meet the original agreed deadline for a full draft I had to say 'let me run with this a while' in order to get something on the page. And as a writer I needed to be left in peace with my 'kids' to get something done.

And I got it done. And then some. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I often joke that after 10 years of study I am child of Kushner and cannot write anything short. I also write like I talk- at speed and length. But I also knew I needed to get a lot of words down in order to pull it back to something useful. Over-write and edit is the only way it works for me. And so over-write I did.

And I sent off over 200 pages.

In my defense this was coupled with a disclaimer of 'I'd rather show you too much than have to fill in the gaps.' Which I still think was the right call, but what that meant was a scary amount of words and ideas that hadn't been discussed. And so handing that over was terrifying. What it also was is the longest piece of work (in time and word count) that I've done since the PhD. In fact, in adding it up (with pieces abandoned) between January and June I wrote more words than in my actual PhD.

But unlike academic work from which there is some distance (or in the case of my PhD some 'get this away from me or so help me') by the time you hand it in, with this creative work, it's personal. It also was barely 'finished' before deadlines ripped it from my hands and I was forced to hand it over

What followed was 10 days of utter anxiety and meltdown. I take full ownership of most of this...most of it. Having handed over my work I had to wait. Which went something like this:

Sunday- sent it in- utter denial went to bed.
Monday- received email about it, went into total meltdown. Came home. Cried.
Tuesday- as Monday.
Wed, Thur, Fri- calmed down a bit. Started thinking about the play and everything I'd done I now wanted to fix.
Friday, I had an email with some questions about it that I physically couldn't bring myself to open. Saturday: complete and utter crash, couldn't think or do much of anything.
Sunday, got my head back in the game and felt a bit more positive.

That took a full week. By the next week I felt a bit calmer and had a bit of 'fight' in me.

In this- and in giving me a bit of fight back I'm incredibly grateful to my 'girl gang' who dragged me through that week, with messages of support, and listening to my- entirely irrational at times thoughts. Writers: get yourself a group of friends who will let you be irrational, and precious about it, who will let you say that it's all doomed then tell you why it isn't. And will let you shout things like 'I'M KEEPING THE FUCKING UNDERTAKER' at them.

Of course at this point nobody had actually SAID it had gone horribly wrong. But I had taken a few lines of email, and a bit of silence to mean that. And of course, as ever once you speak to someone it all becomes clear. I actually described this creative process as like being in a long distance relationship, and trying to raise a child. (If you know, neither party found the other remotely attractive, it's not that kind of love story). Everyone wants the best, everyone kind of likes the other. But also you're 200 miles apart and living crazy busy lives.

Also what I have come to realise is just how intimate an experience it is sharing work like this at such an early stage. My collaborator has seen writing of mine that firstly, no earthly soul should see it's so bad, and that's a real act of trust. I wouldn't normally share work at that stage with my closest friends. But also, the contents of the writing itself are also an incredibly personal, intimate thing to share. In some ways because it's letting someone into the dark recesses of your mind- in my case a place nobody every needed to be. You open yourself up to such judgement- especially when something is still developing, just on the 'what where on earth did THAT come from what is wrong with you' elements. The fact I still won't show this to my friends, because I'm not happy with, or in a robust enough place to deal with them seeing 'inside' my head in that way, shows just how much trust I put in my collaborator.

Not only in trusting someone to give honest, but constructive feedback on something really not quite ready, but also to let someone in on aspects that can, and do spring from some very personal places.
Which amounts to  sharing some elements of the deepest part of you with a near stranger...who at times doesn't know which bits come from truth and which ones you entirely made up but even so, that stranger becoming very close to you very quickly. It's an odd beast.

And in writing all that, there's the emotional exhaustion that comes with it- be it in writing in some things fairly close to home, and indeed some other elements which while nothing to do with me personally are fairly emotionally exhausting to write about. Remind me to pick something lighter next time yeah? (she says, with a play about Cancer patiently waiting rehearsal redrafts).

Added to all that is the intellectual, emotional and mental health hangover that comes with doing any major project post PhD. I once described a PhD supervision as someone saying all the worst things you think about yourself, to your face over and over. And repeat for 3, 4, however many years. In some ways it makes you resilient, but in others it makes you raw as hell.

And so I'm lucky. I'm lucky that- despite a bump in the road caused by my brain- I have a supportive partner in this, who isn't looking to tear me down, but build me up (even when he doesn't quite understand how my brain works). And the relief of laughing through a two hour Skype call, rather than crying through a PhD supervision is something I'll be grateful for.

This process is proving both a learning, and at the risk of sounding wanky-writer-y a healing one. Learning that I can produce a volume of work, I can take critique, but also that I've come out the other side of academia still able to do that. And that there are people in the world you can work with, who won't set out to destroy everything about you. I'm learning about myself in this project, and sort of putting myself back together intellectually and creatively. That'll do for now. That's worth it for now. ...even if this play is terrible it's worth it.

Also, always fight to keep the fucking undertaker. He's worth it too.