Setting up my spoken word entertainment website listenupnorth.com should be a creative process but it’s so easy to get dragged down in all the admin – I still haven’t got to grips with that blessed bookkeeping and cash flow forecast. My friend Stencil Helen says just make sure there’s more coming in than going out – but it’s going to be a long time before I’m in such fortunate position! So I’ve still got a file full of receipts waiting for Teen 1 to return from uni and earn some extra pocket money sorting them out.
Then there’s deciding whether I should be classed as an e-commerce business because I’m allowing local businesses to advertise for free during the pilot of my website. I am still awaiting an answer form the ico on that one.
Yesterday I had a lengthy meeting with my web designer and we are getting there with the spoken word website – for an embarrassing length of time I have been saying listenupnorth.com will be launched in a few weeks and hopefully now with Dean of Zimt on board I can really mean it.
On top of that, there’s the frustration of buying a portable recorder to make sound effects and finding that it doesn’t actually have an instruction booklet with it. I have tried to download one from the internet but it keeps bringing up instructions for the wrong model. Every day just seems to drift on and by the end there’s barely a thing ticked off my growing list of ‘to do’ items.
At least this week I managed to get actors together and start rehearsals for my latest drama, a supernatural thriller written specially for the web in 6 episodes. I had nearly abandoned this project and everything else, after Dolly’s House was unceremoniously ousted from a group of interested actors by someone over-zealous to get his own work performed (2 March 2010).
I have just got together new group of actors from 3 local drama groups and their so far favourable comments has helped to restore my confidence. One of the actors said it was really freaked her out and I am still look for someone to play the 7 year old son, Tom, as the mother of my original choice thought it was too frightening and would give him nightmares. Hopefully that’s a good sign that it is actually scary – something which is very difficult to judge as a writer. I am about to hear a really talented actor read the part of Tom for me. Although he is 15, I am hoping that he will be able to use his experience and act so that he sounds like someone younger. I am going to see him tomorrow so fingers crossed. Finding a mutually available date that everyone can meet for a rehearsal is probably the most difficult thing but hopefully between us we’ll be ready for recording in July. So far we’ve had one read-through - just familiarisation and I am quietly hopefully that it’s going to sound good, just hoping that Jack, the Northumberland odd-job man can lose his Devon accent!
After such a busy time, it was good to take a day off for Wonderhubby’s birthday and on a scorching morning we arrive in The Northern Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty just outside Hexham. Walking across meadows of buttercups and wild grass, we listen to skylarks and curlews, pass industrial remains of previous centuries and enter the top of Staward Gorge, National Trust woodland . Finding relief from the heat, we walk along a high ridge looking down on both sides into precipitous drops and came to Staward Peel, the remains of a mediaeval fortification and in a prime position to spot any marauding Scots (as I like to remind Wonderhubby who was born North of the Border).
We work our way down the forest to the banks of the River Allen, out of the shade of the conifers to where sunlight streams through the oak and beech trees and makes beautiful dappled paths. Wonderhubby is in his element with his latest present: a new programme to go in his GPS thingy for when you are out walking ( Tuesday 14th July). What is it with men and maps? Especially men with beards who like real ale and wearing bush hats . Still I must say that in the depths of the gorge, it is reassuring to know our exact co-ordinates even thought the paths were clearly waymarked – but it’s best to make sure in case we wander off into the dense vegetation never to be seen again. Then from the depths of gorge, we must make our way back to the top, a steep climb and return through the meadow, the sun now at its highest. Soon we are glad to be within the cool stone walls of the The Carts Bog Inn with a pint of your finest landlord and a large steak for Wonderhubby’s birthday treat.
