I’m too busy to do this but here I am

The minutes of the day are not fooling all the people all the time but I’m doing my best to turn in a day’s work. There’s no time to waste so I didn’t attend the medieval lectures or seminars and have nothing to stay about those, except I got my marks back for a mid-term assignment about the poem The Battle of Maldon. I got 62 (a B, same as 'To Autumn'), which is as I predicted. It says on the paper that I lost a lot of marks because I didn’t quote a historical source when I said that ‘so far as we might suppose’ the poem is an accurate description of the battle. There’s a good reason why I didn’t. The poem itself is the only existing source.

Anyway, this semester there is no final assignment for medieval English, rather a 2 hour exam, and I’m worried because I haven’t had a minute to look at the questions yet, but in theory the pre-submitted questions look doable.

Tuesday’s writer’s group meeting was...interesting. I should tell you about Zoe because although I said I wasn’t going to tell you anything about her she is more interesting than her play and if she would just walk around with a voice recorder in her pocket all day she would have the bare bones of one that is perhaps more interesting than the one she is keen to have produced. If she can just find a way of channelling her natural magnetism and nervous energy and become more empathic and self-aware I think she could turn that to good account. As life goes on one begins to see one’s own reflection...it’s called growing up, I guess.

If we scroll back about four meetings that was Zoe's first appearance and it was already well into the new group play. She came along and spent an hour talking about her play and everybody was ultra polite. To me it was a bit rich. Somebody who hadn’t bothered to show up to any other meetings gate crashed ours to talk about themselves for an hour. (On Tuesday last, before Zoe came, I briefly talked about my play for perhaps two minutes). So Zoe would periodically ask, “Am I talking too much?,” but having already told us that she suffered from severe bipolar mental disorder (we are frequently reminded) and that she hated bitchy people nobody dared say anything the least confrontational. For all I know, she may have spent another hour talking about her play. This was the day I was woozy from sleeping pills and excused myself. What I remember from that day was how she emphasised how incredibly disappointed she would be if her play wasn’t chosen.

The second time Zoe came the centre of gravity was as before. We had a long monologue, this time about her boyfriend and her hedonistic lifestyle and how she walked down the street topless (the other day) and didn’t see why she shouldn’t and it was all quite interesting but then we got onto discussing the group play she very quickly got bored and said send her the details because she didn’t know what we were talking about and left. What we were talking about was not complicated, it was a 1-minute-to-get-up- to-speed-on-it thing; but as soon as it wasn’t about her she was gone.

The third meeting (third counting from when Zoe first came) she didn’t show up to. It was in this meeting Nathanael said her play is not going to be chosen because she stated in the first meeting that she doesn’t think transsexuals are real women. I have to say, I think this is unfair of Nathanael and I didn’t realise it was in his gift to decide what plays do or don’t get put on (I guess it is). I didn’t see anything Zoe said that suggested she is unaccepting of transsexuals and their way of life, merely she doesn’t think that you can change your biology. (I guess you can a bit, but I think you’re stuck with your chromosomes). It’s just that her views about a specific doctrinal point ran contrary to Nathanael’s and we do tend to assume our political views are correct and suffer others to have different ones, until such as a time as others might see the light.

The fourth meeting Zoe showed up and spent another hour talking about her play. Note, this group is not really about our side projects... It’s more about our collaborative venture. And really the same speech was rolled out as before. She’d be devastated if it wasn’t put on, it would mean so much to her, it would mean the world and the producers would have 'total artistic control', but she didn’t want to pitch it herself because she was very very very anxious and she hated gossip and she was sorry about talking about others but she absolutely hated so and sos guts and she also hated such and such a person and she didn’t want to pitch it in front of them and she was a Wirraler (nice word) who lived 90 minutes away and she was no longer a student and probably couldn’t attend meetings in person in future but could she by social media? I don’t know how this lasted an hour, but it did. All through this time she never mentioned the fact that other people pitching plays might also have strong reasons to advance their cause (mine would be I’m 42 and it’s about time). The thing is, it’s what she really really really really wants and it would be so important for mental health, do we realise how many people on Bangor are on anti-depressants (yes, but how many really need to be) and how important an issue this is? She asked if Nathanael liked what she sent him. “Er, yeah. Looks good,” said Nathanael unconvincingly. She didn’t prize that open but seems to be aware it’s too long because she twice said she’d cut it down to an hour and Nathanael twice said “Oh no, 90 minutes is fine,” (because it must in fact be a minimum of 90 minutes) and she'd cut the sex scenes out of it because there was no point in having sex in plays, people were uncomfortable with it. 

Nathanael was actually very nice, making every effort to suggest all the possible options Zoe had for getting her play put on. In fact, it wasn’t until today that I realised just how flexible The Bangor University Writer’s group is. Technically, you don’t have to be a student or member of staff at Bangor Uni (Nathanael isn’t), you don’t have to attend in person and you can get a collaborator’s credit with the minimum of input. I do believe Nathanael himself would accept submissions from the coroner’s report of exhumed corpses. If the coroner said “We’ve found diamorphine in the body but otherwise she’s not saying much,” Nathanael would reply in his brisk, chipper manner “That’s fine. We’ll put some diamorphine in the play somewhere, not a problem at all.” 

As Zoe spoke I began to realise she is a likeable person behaving in a somewhat unreasonable manner and well, it’s just that sometimes you’re so wrapped up in yourself you don’t realise it. (I speak from experience). It’s not malicious, it’s just part of the process of self-development and she is two or three times more alive than the rest of us and if she just curb her tendency to speak endlessly...Or maybe if one of us had the courage to tell her let other speak. Maybe that’s it. I'm just writing a blog, take it with a pinch of...

Fun fact: Zoe tells us she was encouraged to finish her play by Lyle.

After Zoe talked about her play we read one of Nathan’s scenes (Nathan is not Nathanael), unfinished and Nathan absent. Nicholas, Bethany and I dived in and pulled it apart then Zoe essentially took over after being assured she would get a credit for the play and more or less made the scene hers and said what she wanted to do with it.

Anyway, after an hour and a half I made my excuses and left because we were off track. FYI, the play pitch is May 8^th and I’m entering an 18^th century tale written in Margate, except I’m going to double the length in 2 weeks, which is why I’m so busy, especially as I have end of term assignments, exam prep, a copywriting job and other business to contend with.

Thursday we had a happy seminar with Diane, though happy is a tremendously ambiguous word to stick on an infinitely complex series of thoughts, feelings and impulses that is a slice of human existence and I’m inspired by Buddhism to remember that I was still ultimately a suffering human being with little moment by moment ups and downs. But one ingredient of happiness is hope and the sunshine of hope was certainly peeping from behind a cloud. First of all, Diane had a spring in her step. She is never less than chirpy but she seemed genuinely pleased with our performance this semester. She started by saying that we had made tremendous strides forward in linguistic complexity and engagement, reflects very well on her if true. In so far as this applies to me I would say that was untrue, but it may well be the case with others. As I’ve mentioned, the course is about thinking outside of the box, novel approaches to writing and narrative styles and there was never a mind blown, didn’t think of that moment for me, in fact my hard drive is littered with novel non-fiction ideas, it's just a question of doing them. I guess it was nice to be reminded that I should do some of the things I do more often but it's kind of frustrating.

Diane said, “I just want you to know you are the A class.” For a moment I thought that was good news. Like we were going to get As for this semester. No, it just means that she thinks people who turn up to all the seminars will get As. I’m sure there is certainly a casual link between students who turn up to all seminars and lectures getting As but it’s not necessarily because they’re worth their while, rather because they’re serious students. I saw students on Thursday (in the screen writing and non-fiction seminar) I have not seen the whole semester and I think they’re onto something.

Anyways, Diane seemed tickled pink by a piece of homework I’d done and it was just me doing my James walking round commenting on his environment thing. If my best piece of work done for her was just of a piece with the sort of things I was doing in Inner Mongolia what does that say? It says to me that it’s time to put up or shut up for James. If I can write, write. I think I’ve always pulled myself apart.

Karen Rullens (poetry) was ill on Friday. Third time this semester  and she hasn't made the other two classes up. I hope she's okay. She's a fragile little thing but a treasure. There's something Oxbridgey about her although her teaching is very simple. Brings some poems in that people don't like and asks them what they think of them. That's pretty much it with some elementary remarks about form.

I’ll leave you with this email. Note, it’s not addressed to me personally and indeed I haven’t had a professional conversation with Zoe since about September. Other than that, I once passed her in the road.

Hello! 

I am writing to you as your personal tutor to invite you to a short meeting next week. There is a sign up list on my door on the second floor of New Arts, Room 311. 

I hope that this has been a happy and productive year for you. I would love to hear about any notable successes, or just about how things are going. If things have been difficult, please come and let me know about anything we may be able to help with. It is especially important that you let me know any information that should be passed on to the Examination Boards if things have not gone as well as you had hoped in your assessments. 

If you are in the second year and I teach you currently, you can raise any personal tutor issues when you come to see me about your portfolio. 

Best wishes, 

Zoë (but not the same Zoe as above, ed.) 

This is what makes me sad about uni. Even to your tutor your name is 'hello' and you might be in the second year, she's not sure. See you or maybe don't see you around.