performance

Now and Then

Posted by

I’d like to know when things stop. The moment when something is done. I’m struggling to explain this but it’s on my mind a lot and I want to try. Let me have a go with an example.

If you write a book then at some point the manuscript is with the publisher and you’re done. You don’t know which point that is, though, or at least you don’t at the time because there’s always a chance you’ll have to do something more to it before it finally comes out.

Maybe publication is the moment. I’ve commissioned writers who wouldn’t respond to any request after they’d been paid and it happened enough that now I tell each new editor who hires me that I ain’t done until the piece is online or on the newsstand. Don’t wait to pay me, but I’m not leaving until we both know you don’t need me any more.

Except a piece of mine was published this week and I think it’s a good sample for another thing I’m pitching for. So as soon as it was out, I was pointing people to my new article.

Perhaps what I’m wondering is when new becomes old.

For instance, someone like Dar Williams releases a new album and at some point it stops being the new one. Long before her next is announced, you stop saying Emerald is new, you start calling it her latest. Then some day, somehow, you and I imagine she just thinks of it as one of her many releases.

It’s still a superb album but the heat of creation is over for her and the energy of discovering each track is over for me. I’m picking on her album because I like it so, because I’m listening to it again but also because I just went to check and it came out in 2015. What have I done since 2015?

Whether it’s an album or it’s the book she’s written since, there is still this furnace when everything is being made and anything can change and every pixel of it all is in your head. And then all of it is encased in the plastic of a shiny disc or the digits of a digital download, and it’s over. Except the singing of your song or the reading of your book until then that’s over too.

There must be a day, there must be a moment, when this happens.

In thinking about saying all this to you, wondering what you thought, I had the flippant idea that maybe the only absolute definite end to anything is death. But no, apparently not.

As ever, I don’t expect you or anyone to remember me past the end of this sentence but even when I die, my books will survive. I remember thinking this of the very first one, how BFI Television Classics: The Beiderbecke Affair will outlive me. At the very least, if some other author ever wants to write about Beiderbecke, their first job is prove to a publisher why their book is needed when someone has already covered the topic.

My name will at most live on in a muttered curse by that future author but the book itself will persist. Who knows, one day it might even start earning back the advance I got.

I framed the cover of that book and it’s on my wall with the date racing further into the past every second. It was published in 2012 and I think my second book would’ve been 2013 so clearly by then, Beiderbecke was no longer either new or my latest. But there is a day, an hour, an instant when it ceased to be either and I wish I knew when.

I wish I could work it out but I also wish I could’ve been conscious of the moment as it happened.

William Gallagher performing poetry at Waterstones Bookstore.

Rhyme of my life

Posted by

I’m truly not sure that I can convey to you what this week has meant to me, not least because a huge part of it is dizzying surprise. But here goes: last night I performed my poetry on stage for the first time.

It sounds straightforward when I say it like that and actually I’m conscious now that a real poet would’ve imbued the line with layers of meaning. You’d read their version of that line and not just comprehend that this was a life milestone for me, you’d also feel the tug in your heart that it was a milestone for you.

Poets do that and I can’t. All I can do is talk. Privately – no, now I think of it also quite publicly – I’ve been terrified of poetry. The power of it. There are poets who can make me weep on cue and that’s just evil.

I’ve been glad that at least I get this now, that while I came to it very late, I do at least read some poetry and I get this. I get to be made to weep, I get to have my heart tugged and my head wrenched.

But that’s different from writing the stuff.

Only, would I ask you to do something I can’t do myself? Of course I would. Consequently when I’ve run writing workshops that have been required to cover poetry, I’ve happily told you it’s beyond me and I’ve very happily learned from you.

Except a few weeks ago when poet Nyanda Foday conned me into writing a piece when myself and Maeve Clarke were running a summer school for Writing West Midlands.

Maeve Clarke is now the key part of that sentence.

For last night she produced the Birmingham heat of a poetry contest called Superstars of Slam and it was held at Waterstones. I went to support her and to just have a good time listening to the poets.

It turns out, though, that poetry contests will apparently often want what they call a sacrificial poet. This is a new term to me but then the term ‘poem’ isn’t exactly familiar yet, and Maeve had to explain. Judges will listen first to a poem that is not in the competition and to a poet who is not competing. It’s like warming them up. It’s like being the dull first questions in a lie-detector test, you know, where they are setting a baseline.

The judges assess this sacrificial poet and that’s the baseline for the night. Apparently it’s better than them judging the first real poet cold.

The only requirement to be a sacrificial poet, then, is to be a poet with a poem. One poem. Maeve knew I had one poem. She knew I’d written one at that summer school.

And she also knew that because I wrote it on my iPad, it would automatically be on the iPhone I was texting on when she called me over before the start.

I feel like I’m writing a Dear Diary entry here and I’m grateful that you’re putting up with me wibbling on, thank you. But I’d like to ask you to do one more thing: make sure I keep some perspective here.

I was not in competition last night. Having one poem does not make me a poet. And most of all, poetry evenings are supportive and welcoming and kind.

But this was a big thing for me, made possible both by Maeve and specifically by how she sprung it on me. I wish I’d shaved, but otherwise it was perfect: I had no time to get nervous.

Well, there was one moment. The three judges – Maeve Clarke, Giovanni Spoz Esposito and Afshan D’souza-Lodhi – had large laminated sheets with their scores on out of 10. Like Strictly Come Dancing paddles, but with less glitter. And as I looked over at them for approval, I saw all three sheets had the number 1.

That’s a bit harsh, I thought: scoring 1, 1 and 1. Fair, but harsh.

Then they turned them over. For content, I got a 6, a 7 and an 8. For performance I think I got a 7, an 8 and another 7. I was a bit too dazed to take it in but I believe so.

I think it goes without saying that these were the worst scores of the evening but you didn’t have to bring that up.

Mind you, I don’t have to bring up this last point but I see no possible way for you to stop me. That dastardly Maeve who needed a poet and like the producer she is knew where to get one, also filmed my performance. It’s an entire 35 seconds long, which means I’ve now gabbled at you about something forty times longer than the something actually took.

I have no problem with that. You’d best avoid me for a while or I’ll tell you about it all over again.

Anyway. Here’s Palimpsest – about the type of ancient document where words are written over over over each other in layers because the paper was so scarce – as performed by me. Poet William Gallagher.

The show comes first

Posted by

There are several things that I believe in, most recently the fact that if a hotel says nope, there’s no room at the inn, you should check their website and suggest that maybe they look again.

This is on my mind because I’ve just had the best night’s sleep of my adult life in a hotel that had taken one look at my exhausted face and had initially decided it would be fun to suggest I get back on the motorway and drive for another hour.

But that’s not what’s on my mind to talk to you about. Nor is this: I believe that it is always better to be crew than passenger.

The belief I actually want to natter with you about and which I’m delaying discussing at all, is that the show comes first.

Doesn’t matter what show.

Doesn’t matter what it needs or what I need or what I want. If I’m working on a thing, then I’m working on it and the job is to do whatever it takes. This is why I’ve never watched a clock when working: I suppose I’ve often enough been hired for certain hours but in my head it’s not 9 to 5 or whatever, it’s When I’m Needed until When I’m Not O’Clock.

This is so deep into me that this week the belief overrode all common sense.

I’ve been running a writing workshop series for Writing West Midlands and the Birmingham and Midland Institute. It concluded this week and for the last session, I wanted two things. One was a guest speaker to talking about what one needs when preparing writing for publication and one was to somehow cover editing and rewriting.

The guest was Katharine D’Souza who is also an editor and in an unrelated crime has been editing my collection of short stories.

So last Monday, I was planning this session and actually having a lot of trouble getting it right, getting it to be good. Katharine chooses that moment to let me know that she doesn’t like my stories. “It’s not all awful,” she didn’t say but nearly did. “They are typed very well.”

And my first thought is not a typical writer’s feeling of rejection, which takes many flavours but always adds up to ow.

Instead, my first thought is ooooh.

My first thought is that maybe we could discuss this in the session. She’s going to be there anyway, I’m going to be there anyway.

“Are you sure you want your writing ripped into bloody pieces in front of people?” she also didn’t say but I’m certain was thinking it. (Actually, I’m sure she did mention blood.)

“N – ye – no – yes – no – yessss,” I said, with total and instant certainty.

I say that to you as a joke but I did hesitate, just not over whether I was happy doing this in front of an audience. The hesitation, the thing that I think drove Katharine toward madness in that phone call, was that I vacillated over this point: whether it would be interesting for the workshop or not.

I also worried about how much time it would take: I needed something quite substantial, the session needed a really chunky, quite long piece. “Not a problem,” she didn’t actually laugh. “It’s ten stories, I could fill a month.”

So on the night, we took the starts of two of my precious new stories, the best things I’ve ever written, and examined why they are not the best things that anyone has written.

It was the right thing for the workshop, it was interesting and it got everyone examining text, looking at when to rewrite, when to give up writing and go home to a different career, William, and it so perfectly fitted in with the next part about publishing that I’m actually proud of that session.

Only, since this is just you and me here, I’d like to confess something.

It is true that my first thought was the show.

But my second was that it sounded like I was going to be destroyed here and if it were going to happen, doing it in a workshop was the safest thing. You know what it’s like when you’re presenting something, you’re in Performance Mode and I figured that no matter how excoriating the criticism I’d get was, I’d be playing the host and my concentration on the audience would mean the knives wouldn’t penetrate as deep.

Also, I’m less keen to admit this bit but it’s true and you’re looking at me like that, so here it is: I did think I’d look pretty good being willing to do this. I’d look like a mensch.

That bit didn’t work out.

But then nor did the criticism. Instead of this one editor, Katharine, telling me that I shouldn’t rule out moving to accountancy, I had something like 16 people telling me yeah, you should listen to her.

Or, to put it a slightly different way, I had a total of 17 talented writers improving the short stories that I care most about.

Bastards.

A favourite thing

Posted by

This is not about Brexit or any politics. And that’s not because I’m hiding from those topics, although I am a bit, but rather because they heightened something good. They made me appreciate something I’d forgotten was a big deal for me: the fact that this thing happened in the middle of that thing, just reinforced for me what I find special.

It’s only this. I profoundly relish being with colleagues late at night and having a drink after we’d done something big together.

Now, it does most definitely work best when those colleagues are my friends but they tend to become so in this late night moment. (It is scary how many friends I make through working with people. How many people I get to know and cherish when they hire me. I was saying to someone this week that she’s dear to me and I’m expensive to her.)

It doesn’t have to be all that late at night, either. I was doing this last night and it was only around 10pm. It was only for a short half an hour, perhaps less, and it is better when it goes on but last night’s was rather perfect.

Then when I said drink you inescapably assumed I meant alcohol and that was true last night. (I don’t drink but we were in a bar.) I do think it’s even better when the drinking is of builders’ tea and you’re gathered around a kitchen table. That’s where I first found this.

I found it many times after a regular weekly late-night hospital radio slot where a group had come together to make something. It wasn’t the most diverse group in ages or genders or anything really, and the greater the differences between the people, the better. There is something glorious about a lot of people coming from different backgrounds, with different hopes and aims, all focusing their every effort on the same thing.

That’s what makes the thing big. Not its size or scale or importance but actually, yes, its size, scale and importance to me. To us.

Last night I co-produced Private Moments, a poetry and prose event, with Charlie Jordan. I’ve known her for years, always wanted to work with her, finally got to do it – and to work with something like a dozen poets and storytellers. It was always going to be good: you just know when someone’s idea is right and will fly. It was always going to be an excellent night because Waterstone’s in Birmingham hosted it. A poetry and prose event in a bookshop. With chocolate.

But there was a point where I thought I would only be able to help produce it, that I wouldn’t be available to actually tell a story or eat the chocolates.

Between you and me, I was glad and hardly at all because I’m trying to lose weight. Instead, this lineup included poets and storytellers I’ve known and admired, it included ones I’ve just admired, and there were something like four former Poet Laureates in the mix. I was chuffed at working on an event that featured Charlie and also Matt Windle, Roy McFarlane, Cat Weatherill, Sarah James, Gary Longden, Jenny Hope, Lorna Meehan, Maggie Doyle and Marcia Calame, now officially my favourite person in the world.

She’s that because of what she said of my performance. Because I did perform. I was available in the end and I did perform and, oh my lights, that great list of names was now a daunting list instead.

I really do want to urge you to do this late night kitchen table tea with friends but I want you to have that same wind at your back. Sitting there like you’ve earned a spot, that you’ve all worked together and you’ve earned that drink.

I did a pair of short theatre plays once, vignettes in a whole evening of performances, and one time I was the star of the night. Really clearly the best writer with the best piece and that post-show gathering was brilliant. The next time I was the worst writer with the worst piece and that post-show gathering was crap.

This is better than both of those. A late night where you can stand your ground with people you do admire but also just really like. No comparisons of quality because you all stepped up. No post-mortem discussions of the evening, just good people and good conversation and your warmly sore back from having worked hard.