Jane Austen on Film

For my last assignment of the BFI Film Journalism course I chose to write about Jane Austen on film. I'd read there was to be an ITV series of newly-commissioned works in the Autumn. They'll be adaptations of the the lesser-known novels: Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park and Persuasion. The picture alongside shows fanciable Ciaran Hinds as Captain Wentworth, hero of the last mentioned. I wouldn't fancy being at sea in one of those eighteenth century galleons, though - Anne Elliot's choice when she marries him.

As usual I enjoyed the research and did a ridiculous amount, much more than a 600 word piece required. The best bit was watching just about the only version available of 'Northanger Abbey', made in 1957, in a private viewing room in the BFI. I paid £8.50 for the privilege and thought only afterwards that maybe I could have watched it at Goldsmiths for free. They have a good collection of tapes and DVDs and it's just the sort of thing they would have on their shelves. Never mind. After all, it all helps to swell the coffers of a very worthwhile institution.

It was funny, too, to read the letters in the Radio Times, one complaining about the ladies being shown entering the spa pool at Bath, albeit fully clothed, and another from an elderly woman saying that the screening time, 10.30pm, was past her bedtime. What a boon the video recorder turned out to be.

I'm so relieved the courses are over. I learned a lot in a short time but never again do I want to face with all those deadlines . The Film Journalism had the most content and I certainly learned about feature writing as distinct from the review writing I'd done before, but I enjoyed the Goldsmiths classes. The main thing I learned there was that journalists are extremely badly paid in a very insecure profession. One student told me the excitements of meeting celebrities and the sheer variety made up for it.

Now I'm free to get back to writing what I like and I've made a start on revising some short stories with the idea of entering them in competitions and sending them to magazines. Oh dear, yesterday' s impulse buy of The Lady was a disappointment. I was attracted by a front cover which said 'Short Story Competition: £1,000 Prize.' The judges looked promising, one Alexander McCall Smith who writes the funny detective stories set in Botswana and the other Adele Geras whom I don't know but she read languages at Oxford and has written some prize-winning stuff herself. There was only one story in the magazine, and what a letdown that was. It was a tale about a widow who turns down an invitation to spend Christmas in Portugal with a lively old school friend because her pregnant daughter goes into early labour and her grandson gets chicken pox. I'm hardly a model mother myself, but really!

Roy and I are off to my home town in the north tomorrow and then on to Scotland on a coach trip with my sister and her husband. By coincidence we are going to be staying at what was once a leading spa resort, called Strathpeffer.

Books

I called in at West- minster Library on Charing Cross Road to reserve a copy of the new John Osborne biography and the librarian cautioned me, 'That will cost you £1.50.!' I told her it was still cheaper than buying the book and she had to agree; she could see from the compute screen that it costs £25.

I don't usually reserve books here. In fact they have a very good selection of new books, inlcuding lots of thrillers, my favourite genre. I almost daren't go in there when I have a big pile of unread books and newspapers beside the bed.

As it was, I came away with a book called 'The Unfinished Novel and other stories' by Valerie Martin. Well, I couldn't resist the title and the blurb promised a collection of soul-searching stories about artists. The first of the collection was a first-person-narrator story about a about a painter with a very good twist at the end. I read it, fittingly, in the National Gallery after I'd left my Chinese class and found the timing was all wrong for films at the Haymarket Cineworld.

I've been revising a couple of my own stories to enter in the Senior Moments competition, closing date 15th June, so it's good to be reminded of successful examples. I try not to get too discouraged by comparisons. I was astonished to read that Annie Proulx revised Brokeback Mountain 60 times!

I actually bought a book at Ottakars at the weekend -Creative Writing, in the Teach Yourself series. I'm enjoying it as its is very readable and practically inclined, and I was sure that the author's name must be a made-up one, as it's Diana Doubtfire. However, in the acknowledgements she refers to a husband and on with the same surname, so it must be real.

I am pleased because I think I've found a suitable writers' circle which meets fairly near to where I live. I found it on the Internet and contacted a woman who gave me quite vague directions to a cafe at Crofton Park. There's a park and a railway station of that name but no road that I can see. Still, there can't be all that many cafes. I've asked for more precise directions.

I'd been to the BFI Library earlier today to research for my Jane-Austen-on-film feature, but hadbeen destracted by a book called 'From Screenplay to Film: Brokeback Mountain' with essays by Annie Proulx, and the scriptwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana - fascinating and very useful for the redraft of my Ang Lee piece.

Brokeback Mountain is one in a collection of short stories set in Wyoming and is in of my bedside pile . Never mind - less than two weeks now before I get a chance to catch up.

I'm almost sad to think that soon I'll pass no more through this doorway on a Saturday morning. Deptford Town Hall, built in 1904 in 'Edwarian Gothic' style, is round the corner from Godsmiths College and is used as an annexe for teaching purposes. These two characters are called Tritons, some kind of mythological sea-gods.

It also houses the PACE offices - I think that stands for professional and community education. It's where I've been doing my Practical Journalism course since September and where I at last delivered my portfolio on Saturday. Apart from a get-together for a class party, that will be it, and I can't say I'm sorry, because although I've enjoyed the course and learned a lot I really want to get back to fiction writing.

One thing I have learned is that Journalism pays badly and is a very insecure form of employment. Whilst I've been attending the classes the tutor, Carole Woddis, lost the Glasgow Herald theatre-critic post she's had for fifteen years. I'm glad to say she's been successful in having a couple of articles posted on a theatre-related website called 'Rogues and Vagabonds' but she says the pay is diabolical.

It's a small class, only half a dozen of us left. Two people were already working as journalists; Carol, a forty-something freelance is currently writing minutes for the council on a two-month contract after being unemployed for a month. Another is an aspiring fashion writer, suitably pretty, who makes ends meet by living in a basement flat in her parents home and works with her boyfriend, who is a photographer. She's currently on a short-term contract with 'Eve' magazine and says her desk is right next t the fashion editor's, so she is pleased.

Apparently the best way to break into journalism is to work in however lowly a capacity in a magazine or newspaper office. One young woman works in the Goldsmiths press office and edited the 2006 prospectus, so at least she can count on a regular salary. There's a young man temping for an office agency who wants to write freelance articles for music magazines. When we did restaurant reviews he wrote a very funny piece about his local kebab shop.

A lot of the time in class was spent reading and critiquing one another's work, which was interesting, and I'm looking forward to the same in the Advanced Fiction class which starts in September. That's if I'm successful in signing on for it.

The view from the living room window is particularly pleasant at this time of year, when the Horse Chestnut is in bloom.

I've completed my portfolio of work for the Goldsmiths Journalism course, althugh there are still a couple of Saturday morning sessions to go before the end of term. I cheated a bit on the last feature because I used my piece on Ang Lee, which I wrote for the Film Journalism course. Now I just have to concentrate on the last unit of the BFI Film Journalism, which is about pitching and then writing a feature. Today was the deadline for the pitching - emails to three different target publications related to a topic of our choice that has to be relevant to some current or future release. I have chosen to write about Jane Austen on film after I read an article in The Stage. It said Channel 4 is about to do remakes of the Jane Austen novels. A few months back I did some research on the topic as I was intending to teach a combined text and film course with my daughter but it never got off the ground. There was some mix-up over the proposal deadline. Anyway, I've still got the notes as a starting point. The deadline isn't until the 27th so there's plenty of time.

I don't want to restart on my other projects, the China book and the novel until next month, after I come back from the coach trip to Scotland on June 7th. In the meantime I think I can usefully practise writing film reviews. I've just posted a review of 16 Blocks to the WriteWords site, and I went to see Mission Impossible III with Roy yesterday. I really enjoy all the gadgets in the film, so I'll make that the focus of my review, I think.

I've also found a couple of short story competitions I can enter, one of them run by a new magazine called Senior Moments. That sounds promising. You have to be aged over 50 to enter, so that should cut down on the competition.

I've also been looking at the Goldsmiths Prospectus for next year and am tempted by an 'Advanced Fiction' course. It will be good to get back to writing fiction after all this journalistic stuff, although I think I've learned a lot. I've enjoyed the writing about film more than the news stories and other features, 'though, so that's where I'll continue. I'm thinking of embarking on a Woody Allen retrospective to tie in with the release of his next London-located film, or the one after.

The BFI Library

I have been spending quite a lot of time at the BFI Film library lately, researching for a piece on Ang Lee. It's a quiet place to work in the morning (although it gets a bit busy later on) and I can plug in my laptop so type notes directly. There's a back room with windows overlooking Stephen Street, just off the bottom of Tottenham Court Road. The best thing about it is they have a vast archives of film magazines.
When I was putting my bag in one of the lockers I encountered a famous film actor whose name I couldn't remember - it wasn't anyone obvious, like Tony Curtis, whom I once met when I was stewarding a Film Societies' event at the NFT. I looked him up and name is John Lithgow. He's tall with white hair and had to move because the space between the two banks of lockers is so small. I'm always surprised by how tall some actors are when you see them in the flesh. I once saw that chap in Men Behaving Badly once - not the once called Neil, but the one who played the doctor in Cornwall on Sunday nights - Martin Clunes. It was on Waterloo Station and he seemed to tower above the crowd, which must be a great disadvantage when you probably don't want to be recognised.

It's a wonder I get into the reading room, really. They always have some DVD showing on a small screen in the foyer, opposite a bank of seating. One day earlier in the week I got there before the reading room was open and watched part of a film called 'Journey to Italy' starring Ingrid Bergman, with George Raft as her husband. They seemed to be staying in Sorrento but weren't getting on very well, in fact she was reading a note on the hotel balcony which said he'd gone over to join some freinds in Capri. It was a beautiful black and white print.

Today I noticed they had a tinted Jacques Tati film called 'Jour de Fete' but as well as colour it had dialogue which made it less funny than I remember. The French are keen on mime, which just goes to show their language is not as good as English for comedy.

The only thing wrong with the library as far as I'm concerned is its location. It's OK to get there on the bus from Charing Cross but as the buses only go one way up Tottenham Court Road I had to go on a bus to Victoria, which took an age to crawl down Oxford Street and then I had to wait 40 minutes for a train to Lewisham. Next time I'll just grit my teeth and take the tube, which I find very depressing.

Last Day in Salamanca

This place certainly makes a change from chilly London. I will miss the sunshine when I go back, but a week of wandering around looking at churches and facades is enough for me.

I´ve managed to do quite a bit of reading, I´m glad to say, and we joined a local video club as our house exchanger had only two DVDs on the premises. I meant to do more work for my Film Journalism course but forgot to bring the right papers. Never mind, it will all add to the excitement if I have to make a deadline of 5pm on Monday and don´t get back to London until late on Saturday.

Sam Mendes Profile

The next assignment on my Film Journalism course is to write profile of director Sam Mendes, director of Jarhead, which I saw fairly recently, about some recruits who go out to fight in the gulf - all men's stuff, really violent but quite picturesque with shots of oil wells on fire in the desert. I have an interview on disc for the main material, but want to watch as much of his other films as I can. I also saw American Beauty when it came out, but couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Roy said we'd seen Road to Perdition but it must have been one he saw on his own. Luckily, it was among the DVDs we brought back from China so I had the pleasure of watching it with Chinese subtitles. It was about set in 1931, mainly in Chicago, about a gangster on the run with his son. Again, a film with lots of moody shots with some stars in it - Tom Hanks, Jude Law, Craig Doulglas and no women except toen wife Jennifer Jason Leigh who gets bumed off quite soon on. The rest is all peripatetic motoring punctuated by shoot-outs and sentimental bonding scenes. Oh, Paul Newman was the head gangster.

Fortunately the director hasn't made many films - just the ones I mentioned plus one called Loser about an American college boy.

Sam Mendes went from public school and Oxford into theatre directing. Like his wife Kate Winslett he was born in Reading. She has an Independent School background. Loads of loot on both sides.

I was pleased I figured out how to download a photo from the Internet.

BFI Seminar

The seminar for the Film Journalism course was held over Thursday and Friday this week in Stephen Street at the BFI. It was a bit nerve-wracking as all the other students - there were 40 of us - were aged around 25-30. I was surprised to learn some people had come from the US and Canada just to attend the seminar, which is a compulsory part of the five month distance-learning course. On Thursday we had talks from the Sight & Sound editor Nick James and some of the people who write for the magazine who described how they got into fim journalism. The only woman on the panel of four writers said he had spent three years working for nothing in the offices of places like Time Out, and the others all said not to expect to earn much.

On Friday we assembled for a screening, of which we'd had advance warning about writing a synopsis, review and commentary. We had to take notes in pitch darkness and despite bearing in mind what one speaker advised about using my thumb as a guide I still had to decipher some writing which had overlapped.

Anyway, I made a start when I got home and did some more yesterday, so I've finished the synopsis and made a good start on the review. I am glad to say I have decided on the 'argument' I will take. It was quite a difficult film but after 24 hours of mulling it over I realised what the main theme was and from there it has fallen into place. It's not due in until Wednesday but I hope to finish before then.

Hold-ups


Although I have at least learned how to upload a photo from my own files, I can't understand why it has duplicated itself ,so it needs sorting out at some time. Perhaps I'll learn to upload other pictures from the web and even build in some links - who knows.

This week I'm likely to be held up as far as progress with my book is concerned. I have a two day seminar for my BFI Film Journalism course on Thurs/Fri and I have to prepare for that. We are going to view a film called 'Time to Leave' directed by Francois Ozon and write a 700 word review, 300 word synopsis and 300 word commentary with a deadline of March 22nd. I can make a start on the synopsis and commentary in advance of the screening and I've already done some research and hired a DVD called 'Under the Sand' (2001) It starred Charlotte Rampling as a Parisian in denial when her husband goes missing, almost certainly drowned, from a beach in Les Landes. I recognised the Atlantic breakers from when we used to take the children camping there in the early seventies. I liked the film very much, and what a change from all these 'state of the nation' films I've been seeing lately, but Roy said it was depressing.

In fact, he insisted on watching an episode of Rowan Atkinson in 'The Thin Blue Line' before we went to bed, and we were late up next day. I really had to hustle him to get him out on Sunday in time to arrive at David's place in Wimbledon and go out to lunch. David drove us to a pub in Cobham which had low ceilings and beams, called The Running Mare. I ate scallops, which were very good.

I've only seen one of this director's films before, something called '8 Women'(2003) which had these eight ageing French stars holed up in a big country house. I couldn't see the point, really. I think I have time to see another of his films before Thursday. I'm going to play bridge as usual at Blackheath tonight, then drive over to pick up Roy from a game in Beckenham which starts much later. Tomorrow I will go to my Chinese class in town and then swim in the afternoon, so I can watch the DVD in the evening. On Wednesday I have agreed to go to play bridge with Yvonne at Blackheath and in the evening I will be attending a talk about China at the British Library.

Relief at Last!

By dint of staying in all day and working at it on and off I've managed to finish the piece on unemployment in China. I was intending to go to the cinema, but was put off by the relentless rain and the need to get this issue settled. I feel now that I can start the 'backpacking teachers' chapter, to be written in tandem with the almost-completed 'language issues' one. I think I can use the 'backpacking teachers' to turn into a feature for my Goldsmiths Course, a kind of 'What to Expect and Precautions to Take if you go to teach in China' article.

I finally got my unemployment piece off to a good start after a brainwave about including a suitable quotation from Mao about what he intended to do for the peasants in 1949. I'd given the biography I had away, but I found a whole lot of Mao quotations divided into categorises on the Internet. It is really useful to be able to check things on the Internet as I'm writing, too.

I received an email from Ed, a colleague who worked with me as a 'foreign editor' in China. I was really pleased to hear he is writing a play, based on an idea which I'm sure will be popular.

I feel I deserve a good tuck in at Roy's birthday celebration dinner at the Curry Club tonight, although I haven't had any exercise today. Maybe I'll pass on the poppadums !

Tricky Chapters.

I'm troubled by the slow progress of my China book, having hit a couple of really difficult chapters. The themes seem promising: a) comparing poverty and prosperity in Tonghua, sparked by a Chinese teacher's writing on unemployment, and b)language mistakes thrown up during my work as an editor. The latter should be funny as well as informative but isn't, and the former has a lot of evidence resistant to my best wrangling efforts. Maybe the problem is that I'm trying to tackle two difficult pieces at once or maybe I'm just not getting enough time, what with my Chinese and film studies. No, it's not that. Other chapters have been relatively easy, although the 'monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare theory' is something I believe in. If I just stick at them they'll come right in the end.

I think I'll make a start on my piece on backpacking teachers. It's so much easier to write a descriptive piece than one where I have to marshall arguments, and I can do it alongside each of the problem ones in turn. At least then I will have the satisfaction of another piece completed!

I finished my review of ‘Capote’, which I saw on Saturday with Roy and enjoyed very much, and spent quite a bit of time today answering a Writewords rebuttal of my review of ‘Good Night and Good Luck’, which really stopped me making headway with my China book ‘Silkworms and Snow’ . Monday, after all, is a day which I have clear for writing, so I intended to make up for last week's setbacks.

Tonight I went to a really useful talk about publicising oneself as writer online. Delivered by a man who described himself as a computer geek, one Sean McManus, to an audience of about 200 Society of Authors members, it was really useful. I had half thought he would be representing some company charging a fortune to set up websites, but it seems that my blog is good enough, at least to start with. I must make an effort to use links and photos to brighten things up a bit.

Tomorrow, too, I’ll register for a domain name. That’s the first step. The second , getting a blog, I’ve already done- in fact I’ve got two, counting my photojournal – www.greatestcities.com/users/ecpsheila.com

The talk was at a posh venue – the Overseas Club in St James’s Street, and although I could have hung about and ‘networked’ with other belabelled authors whilst drinking white wine I wasn’t in the mood. - I wanted to get home. Another thing I must do is order some cards - they are free from a company called vistaprint, at an address on the back of Sean's card.

I had a very pleasant, slightly spooky walk along Pall Mall towards Trafalgar Square. There weren’t many people around until I was passing the ICA and approaching Admiralty Arch, although there were plenty of taxis swishing past. I was looking at the imposing buildings on my left, with high sash windows and cream-painted pillars and a huge pediment with a Prince of Wales feather in bas relief. It would be handy to have a flat there. To my right, the dark recesses of St James’s Park, the outlines of trees and illuminated roofs and domes beyond, and a circle of lights that was the London Eye.

I looked in Smiths when I got to Charing Cross, hoping to get a TLS, but they didn't have any- the Waterloo branch is much bigger. Instead I bought The New Yorker Magazine and read a very well-written piece on the train by John Updike. Well, it would be well-written, wouldn't it, like all his stuff. It was called My Father's Tears and I thought it was going to be all sentimental patriarchy stuff, but I read it anyway. It reminded me that I must finish a memoir piece of my own that I'm in the middle of - about when my grammar school headmistress called me into her study and told me to take off my skirt.

Reviews Finished!

I was quite pleased today because I mangaged to write a review of 'Good Night and Good Luck', directed by George Clooney, which I saw last night,and posted it to the Writwords website, and I also managed the opening paragraphs, in three different styles, for the Film Journalism course. Oh, and not to mention a proposal letter to take to my Goldsmith class tomorrow. No Chinese, and no book-writing, but I can't have everything. Maybe swimming will help my knees, which I notice are a bit creaky from non-stop sitting in front of the computer.

Films Unlimited

After spending only an hour or so on my film reviews I went off to my Chinese class, which I enjoyed as much as ever but renewed my vow to study between classes- in theory I'm committed to an hour a day but in practice I seldom manage much more than half an hour, so I try to make up for it by listening to tapes on my Walkman when I go to sleep or when I wake up in the night. My Sinophile chum Canadian Barbara thinks this practice is shocking for someone who is married, but Roy doesn't mind, except when he can hear the whirring of the spools. I stifle the sound with a pillow if he complains.

On the way there I took my books back to Charing Cross Library and was pleasantly surprised at being able to renew Paul Auster's 'New York Trilogy', which I've renewed twice already. 'You can renew up to six times' said the kindly girl at the desk. I didn't know that, but it is just as well because by the time I've read the newspapers, 'Sight and Sound' and 'Time Out' that's it- there's hardly any time for reading books. Oh, 'The Oldie' arrived today, too.

It was a really miserable grey wet day but I was cheered up when I went to get an Unlimited Cinema ticket from the Haymarket Cineworld cinema on the way back. It was the notice in the Time Out this morning about an upcoming French film festival that finally decided me. It costs £13.99 to go as often as I like to all the Cineworld cinemas in England, and they seem to get all the decent mainstream films as well as some foreign ones. I had to have my photo taken against a pull-down screen in a corner of the foyer and the elderly gent wielding the camera took the photo from a low angle, so it looks as if I'm an extra for 'The Night of the Lving Dead'. 'You can keep these', he said, as he clipped two off the nine or so copies he made.

I would have had to hang about until 4pm to see the only film on offer that I hadn't seen already - 'Good Night and Good Luck.' As tonight is one of Roy's Bridge evenings and I'm not playing myself, I think I'll make an inaugural trip to West India Quay, despite the weather.Otherwise I'll be slumped in front of the TV drinking wine.

I had another go at the film research when I got home, and there's not much more to do now so I am more hopeful of getting the reviews finished. I even made a start on the paragraphs in different styles this morning.

Making a plan

Because I was feeling anxious about my film reviews - whether or not I had enough time to do the research and the writing and meet the deadline - I drew up an action plan in the poolside cafe. It's full of chatty little kids and the kind of mums who take the trouble to talk to them; a six year old girl at the next table was asking loud questions about my vaccuum flask, as if she's never seen one before.It had tea left over from the morning, because the Chinese class was even livelier than usual, so there was no chance to drink it.

I thought I'd go to the film library tomorrow because my first Google trawl hadn't thrown up much info on the film I've decided to write about, 'Hidden' (Cache) directed by Michel Haneke. I decided it was best to do one I'd already written a review for, but the more scholarly of the three reviews will need some background. There's supposed to be one in tabloid style, one for a specialist mag or broadsheet and one for a trade mag. Anyway, this afternoon I found a website which was much better, including some in-depth analysis from worthy journals, so I took notes and am feeling more cheerful. I'll also find more info about the lead stars, Denis Auteuil and Juliet Binoche, but that'll be easier. I always read the trade mag 'Variety' anyway, in an online format, and I don't think the lowbrow one will be a problem.

In fact, there was an email from the BBC Collective site today to say I'd won a free DVD for the review. It's better than the two previous prizes which were both pop music CDs, one by a black rapper called Kano and a band called Babyshambles with Kate Moss's druggy boyfriend as a leader. The DVD is called 'The Mysterians', not one I've heard of. I think they just send out as prizes the free copies they are sent to review. Quite a good idea!

Struggling

I have too many things needing attention this week, including my first real deadline for the Film Journalism course and the need to write a feature proposal for my Goldsmiths Journalism class. I resume my twice-weekly trips to Soho after a welcome half-term break, and I am really struggling with my piece on unemployment for 'Silkworms and Snow' The language issues which bedevilled my days in the office and which should make for a funny piece seems not only ponderous and flat but really difficult to organise. In fact, I'm going to print it off so I can see it more clearly in print than just scrolling down the screen.

The Film Journalism task is quite difficult - to write three opening paragraphs of a review on the same film but in different styles, depending on which publication it is meant for. The materials pack provides some examples which don't really seem varied enough, although two are quite distinctive - a rambling account full of personal anecdote, for a website, and a piece of short headings and one-sentence paragraphs for the Daily Mirror. The others seem very similar.

I got up early this morning and started on a new review, of 'Lady Vengeance', but I think it will save time to use a film for which I have already written a review - 'Hidden' (Cache) directed by Michel Haneke. I've already posted this to the Writewords Review Page and to the BBC Collective. The deadline is next Monday but I can see it is going to take a lot of thought to define characteristics of style and then write the pieces. That's what makes me think I'd better choose a film I'm familiar with already - then I can go sraight into the writing, with a little extra research on the director for the more scholarly piece. I'll take another look at the examples first, I think.

I'm tempted to say I won't go swimming with Roy this afternoon - I usually drive over to the baths at Beckenham and by the time we get back we've only just got time for dinner before catching up on two episodes of Coronation Street,recorded whilst we were out playing Bridge last night. I will go swimming, becase I feel so sluggish. It's odd - I was optimistic about the book only a week ago and now I'm dragging it along like a big iron ball on a chain, trying to kick it into something more attractive and thinking it's hardly worth it. Still, this is the time for resolution and gritted teeth.

I also sent off a query to Central Lancashire University in my home town because my next project will be based on researching life in cotton factories from c.1938- 1978. That about covers the span my mother worked in the mills. I was thinking of moving to Southport for a year, despite Roy's protsts, because as well as being near the research area I can also see more of my sister, who is now retired in Preston, but maybe just a few weeks at a time will be enough. It could be costly to rent a place, although relatively cheap compared with the summer.

Researching

I have these days when the muse deserts me, or when it is particularly hard to write, in the sense of composing sentences and paragraphs. I usually revert to doing research for a future episode of my China book, and after a while I’m OK.

One of the planned chapters will be about Chinese DVDs, the mainstay of our evening entertainment in Tonghua during my recent spell in a remote part of China, and almost an item of currency, like cigarettes in prison, except, unlike cigarettes, they could be swapped around for re-use.

They were very cheap - about 60p in English money , but also very unreliable. The failure rate was about one in every six or seven, with the frame freezing at one of the most suspenseful parts of the plot. I was probably the only one who also appreciated the opportunity to obtain a collection of Chinese DVDs, which I also brought back, although not in such great numbers. Mostly they were in slip covers but before we came back I remember we spent a whole morning taking the some jewel-box DVDs from their cases and repackaging them inside the inserts using rubber bands to hold together the double disks and cover.


This morning I went through the collection in search of those with badly-translated covers for inclusion in the articles. Just occasionally the title on the cover was misleading, and instead of the expected film it would be a totally different one.

Unsurprisingly, given the quiet tenor of our days amongst the foothills of the Changbaishan, our tastes tended to the more sensational thrillers – ‘Kill Bill’, ‘Blackhawk Down’ and ‘Gangs of New York’ and other lesser-known movies of the straight-to-DVD kind. Romantic comedies like ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ were popular with Katharine, my only female UK colleague, and me, and musicals, like ‘Chicago’

Most episodes I can write using the source material I already have; I’ve been reorganising a chapter on the sometimes hilarious sometimes vexing problems I had with subediting language for the magazines, for instance and for which I kept lots of examples, but some pieces need beefing up with statistics. I saw a useful article in the Guardian this morning about the difficulty the Chinese government have in controlling piracy, not just with DVDs but with books and music. I can use of the info in my articles, which will probably one of the more journalistic chapters, like the one on laid-off workers I’m preparing. I already found a very useful academic essay on the Internet about that.

I wonder what novelists do when they get struck by an uncreative phase?