Laurie Graham, Author of At Sea

   The trouble with being self-employed is that when sickness strikes there isn’t anyone to deputise. Having wagged off for what was effectively two weeks, escorting my play on its travels, I really needed to come home and get stuck in. I had a few things on my list.

1. Complete construction of pantomime cow’s head.

2. Bottle blackberry whiskey.

3. Write new novel.

Then on Thursday two things happened. My editor informed me that the Bonus Features for the mass market edition of A Humble Companion were required immediately, if not sooner. And I caught a bug that forced me to spend more time in the bathroom than at my desk.

Five words a playwright hopes never to hear:  ticket sales disappointing so far. 

I’m not a total stranger to this kind of announcement. Usually it contains the word ‘book’ rather than ‘ticket’. Nevertheless, it still strikes a chill. After all, this isn’t the London Palladium I’m trying to fill.

Next Thursday’s performance at the Baron’s Court Theatre is gratifyingly sold out, thanks in no small way to the efforts of that diligent and dutiful uber-networker, my son, Alastair. Every other show is looking threadbare.

The way production schedules work it always seems

that just as I’m getting into a new book I have to double back and copy-edit the one I’ve supposedly finished. Copy-editing is important, as you’ll know if you’ve ever read a self-published book full of typos and bloopers, but it’s a drag. It is to book production what weeding is to landscape gardening.

All of a sudden I’m back in business. My publisher offered me another contract and it’s all systems go. The world looks like getting two more Laurie Graham novels, like it or lump it.

I can’t tell you how energising it is to be told you’re still wanted. Well actually I can. It’s like someone just brought in a Dyson Animal and declagged my brain. All the ideas, all the plans that have been on hold now have a possible future. Or not.  In the green glow of the Go light some projects don’t make the final cut.

People often ask me for advice about the writing process. I believe I disappoint them with how little I have to say.

‘I’ve got this great idea for a book,’ someone will say to me. ‘But I just can’t seem to get started.’

I can empathise with that. Except that quite often I don’t have a great idea for a book. I just have a mental ragbag of possibilities which I take out every so often, rummage through it despairingly and then go for a walk.

Another week has slipped by and I remain unemployed. The wheels of publishing grind slow. March. Normally by now I would be well into the first draft of a book. But we must enjoy what we’re given, not moither over what may be. I’m actually having fun making a pantomime cow.

So what to offer my best beloved readers? I thought I’d give you some Laurie

Graham dates for your diary.

April 23rd: birthday of Shakespeare and my Mum, and opening night of The Dress Circle in London.

May 9th:  Opening of The Dress Circle at the Brighton Fringe

    So here’s my morning so far. I walked to the post office to pick up a parcel which I eagerly anticipated was the cow hooves I’ve ordered from Texas. Whoa! I’m not importing animal parts. I’m not setting up a glue factory. These are  foam hooves for a cow costume. Yes, the panto wheels are creaking into motion for January 2014. But anyway, the parcel wasn’t my hooves. It was somebody’s novel, sent to me by the publisher in the hope of an endorsement.

Next Wednesday we have the read-through of my script for The Dress Circle. The read-through is a kind of Waterloo for the script writer or at least, the night before Agincourt. The moment when you hear an actor speak the lines and sometimes, inevitably, think, ‘Well that’ll have to go.’

I always attend the read-through. It isn’t at all obligatory but if you’re a control freak, and I am, you don’t want anyone else fiddling with your work. It’s an exciting moment anyway, as well as stomach-churning. Plays need to be performed, not hugged to the writer’s perfectionist chest. I hear the lines as I write them and I have a pretty good ear, but the actor brings something else to the mix. We shall see. Or rather, we shall hear. It’s an exercise in listening.