A Gripe at the Griffin

I've been away on hols for a week in Byron Bay, about a nine-hour drive north of Sydney. It was a great road trip and a relaxing holiday, and I didn't do one bit of writing. I did, however, do some research for 'DeCodeMe', and I'll have to read through my producer's notes on the treatment soon so I can get back into it.

One of the things I was looking forward to when I got back was the result of the script read of my short play, 'Project 629'. I told my playwriting tutor that I was going to miss the last class (as did one other writer), but I handed in my play with the understanding that it would be read by actors and videotaped, thus giving me an important opportunity to watch it analytically and see where I could improve it and tighten it up. So I was very disappointed to receive an email when I got back saying 'Sorry, yours wasn't recorded'. With no explanation given other than I wasn't in attendance and they ran out of time, I feel a bit hard done by, and I've told my tutor so via a frank exchange of emails. But what can I do about it now? I have considered making a complaint to the Griffin Theatre, on the basis that I paid my course fees like everyone else, only to be the sole person not to have had their play read and recorded. But although I feel aggrieved, I'm not going to do that. There seems little point as its a cliquey industry and I'll only damage any chances I have of forging relationships and opportunities in the future. So I'll just have to put it down to either incompetence or unprofessionalism on the part of my tutor (is it so hard to allocate an equal amount of time for each play to be read and recorded?). Maybe it's a cultural thing. Anyway, it's nothing personal against my tutor, but it seems very unfair to be the only writer not having their work recorded.

But moving on, the short story version of the first draft of Project 629 got shortlisted for the autumn Meridian Writing short story contest but it didn't make the top three. Which is ok. I'm still pleased it made the shortlist.

I also found out when I got back to Sydney that I'd qualified for the last 100 of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Contest. My second story in the first round of challenges, 'Fishlips', scored enough points to land me the third placed slot in my group (the top five went through to the next round). So this morning I wrote my second round challenge, which had to be a fantasy story set at an alcoholics anonymous meeting involving a baseball bat. I was supposed to have the whole weekend to do this but its been a busy weekend being back home so I bashed it out in two hours this morning. Fingers crossed it's good enough, but I can't really complain if it isn't as I didn't spend that much time on it.

In other news, my short script, IN A HOLE, has been shortlisted for the Circalit/Gabriel Bisset-Smith screenplay competition.