Well hullo, Handsome,
Huge apologies, to begin with, for being so slack in correspondence. I've been pretty busy in work and life recently, as will become apparent, but a few well chosen lines on Smythson's will always remind me of my truest priorities.
Work, if my lips dare frame the word in the purview of such a concerted flaneur, goes well. In recent weeks I have had requirement to travel no further than a string of hotels around the outer rim of the metropolis. These places fascinate me... the 'Burford Bridge' at the foot of Box Hill, the 'Swan' at Streatley. (In this latter I managed to set up the laptop and pound out a few lines in the Jerome K Jerome suite. Indeed, where '3 men in a boat' was actually penned).
Though they're old, their Pseud Tude splendour is redolent of a sort of late forties Upper Middle car culture that conjures 'Hangover Square' and 'Dance with a Stranger'. I feel like parking the Jag drophead, striding into the Lounge Bar with Ruth Ellis on my arm, folding my stringback driving gloves into my flat cap, ordering a pint of Best Bitter and a Gin and It for the lady before whisking her up to a four poster for an illicit afternoon of brutal sodomy.
Alternative version: Park the Morgan threewheeler, wander in wearing a beautiful, Gieves tailored Flight Lieutenant's uniform under a sheepskin jacket with a Winchester cravat. Order a pot of tea and some scones at a table by the inglenook and whip out a slim privately printed volume of poetry in a mauve otterskin cover by a sensitive roommate at All Souls. Fall hopelessly in love with the waitress (Moira Shearer, Natch) before being scrambled, shot down by a chap I once buggered during the '38 varsity skiing weekend in Mittenwald and ending up as a four mile long charred smear in the Sussex Weald - my black lab still waiting faithfully by the hanger.
So work is still fun...
Slightly more interesting though, is that, after approximately a decade of displacement activity ranging from desk tidying to marriage, I'm finally writing properly. I've been a victim of that very English problem of believing that writing is a matter of nature rather than nurture. I realised that I've been expecting something to spring fully formed into my head without having the faintest idea of technique or the most rudimentary of skills.
Writing groups here tend to be few and of varying levels of utility. Islington, of course, is chock full of courses wherein menopausal harpies undertake to purge your manuscript of anything politically unwholesome by the sole means of weapons grade tutting whereas the residential jobs in North Wales tend to be run by some aging Iron John type who's only interested in poetry and the penetrative awakening of the talents of skittish postgraduate girls of impeccable breeding.
I've always felt I could write well and could handle dialogue but had absolutely no idea about story, structure or, indeed anything else.
What kicked me off was a short screenwriting course. These guys set me going on some American software called 'Dramatica Pro' which uses its own combination of archetype, McKee and other story theories to ask the sort of questions a good editor would ask if you could ever find one to talk to you.
It was a bit of a breakthrough for me because it's an immensely complicated programme that builds with you over weeks of work. This enabled me to treat it initially like the first 20 layers of 'Tomb Raider'. I found that the questions helped me to understand huge areas of plot dynamics and character development that I didn't even have a vocabulary for. It was like working closely with a professional writer who was constantly, objectively questioning my work. Utterly brilliant.
Anyroad, my laptop now goes with me everywhere and all the free time this job gives me suddenly becomes extremely useful. I've been at it for a month and now have the beginnings of a competent romantic comedy featuring London and food. It ain't going to be Annie Hall but, in another month or so it will be a final draft that I can show to people, talk about, get feedback on and prove something to myself with.
I hope you'll do me the honour of reading it.
Regarding food, I've just had the most remarkable culinary weekend. Friday night saw us motoring down to Hampshire and 'Ivy House' the weekend cottage of Antonio Carluccio and Priscilla Conran. We got the invite through a contact of A's.
The place is gorgeous with pictures of the young Terence lying interspersed with the discarded Wellingtons of Jasper. Most gorgeous of all was the garden, designed by Dan Pearson and featured in magazines and TV programmes everywhere and stocked with every kind of gorgeous fresh vegetable know to man. We spent the entire weekend bottling chutneys, picking courgettes and eating like bastards. I can also recommend typing by candlelight with a glass of Antonio's 100yr old scotch.
Were that not enough, a (staggeringly rich) friend had invited us to the Kitchen Table at Gordon Ramsay in Claridges on Monday night. This is a fantastic arrangement were a booth has been set up right in the centre of the kitchen and a nine course meal is prepared around you to your own specification. Waiting list is about a year, wine list is about unbelievable. I'm typing this in something of a haze.
But enough... I must get back to work. Trying to chisel a 'Controlling Idea' out of a 'Premise' is bringing me out in a muck sweat.
Yours as always
T
BTW. Do you fancy treating ourselves to a long weekend writing somewhere? I've a fancy to set up the laptops and cocktail shakers and spend a week away from worldly distractions.