“Often, the idea that there can be a wide range of translations of one text doesn’t occur to people—or that a translation could be bad, very bad, and unfaithful to the original. Instead, a translation is a translation—you write the book again in English, on the basis of the French, a fairly standard procedure, and there it is, it’s been done and doesn’t have to be done again. [However, ...]“

— Lydia Davis.

Not the biggest Davis fan, but she does make some excellent points in The Paris Review.

Take note, Hollywood; this is how you do trailers. I don’t need to see the plot compacted in two minutes, I want to be teased, drawn in. (And it looks like a great stop-motion film, as well.)

My search for literary representation mostly involves a lot of waiting, and waiting, and rejections on geographical or organisational basis, and more of the waiting kind, etc. etc. But last week, I—or, I guess, my new play The Sentiments got the best compliment yet from a literary agent:

“[I] found [the play] a heartfelt, carefully wrought, tender story of three friends’ trials and tribulations through time. I especially found the overlapping glances from the past to the present affecting. [...]“

On my way there!

• Harold Pinter, Betrayal
• Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love
• Anton Chekhov, A Marriage Proposal
• Samuel Beckett, En attendant Godot
• Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Huis clos
• Gustave Flaubert, Bouvard et Pécuchet
• James Turner, Beaver and Steve

• uneven numbers, except five, with special attention to three;
• pottery;
• people who do not appreciate dark humour;
• concrete cities;
• being given gifts;
• throwing myself into projects based on false information;
• contest shows on television, especially when it concerns singing;
• (literary) critics who don’t understand the fundamental difference between “realist” and “realistic;”

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So I don’t actually have a new play, or musical. Sue me. Though I guess that wouldn’t work because I do somewhat have two new plays I could present in my defence, but, still. Where was I?

Right. This is not a post about anything new (I’m still keeping the previously mentioned two somewhat under wraps for certain reasons), more that I would really like to start writing again. Since completing my last play—not the production of Heaven forfend!, but one of the aforementioned—in June, I haven’t really written anything theatrical, to be honest. And yet, I feel like I want to. I have always said that I cannot write a musical book, nor will ever attempt to do so, but why not? Furthermore, why not give writing a sequel play a try? The hell with it, why not.

I’m going to regret this post in the morning, because even I don’t understand it. Chaos. Which is a nice reflection of the parts in my mind reserved for creative thought, so. There. I made a point. Now let’s all move on, and forget this ever happened.