Captain's Log 4

Kay came back to me.

The Group is meeting in a coffee shop in Western Road tomorrow.

It's rather a busy coffee shop - I hope we get enough peace to discuss what we're up to.

I also have a workshop for The South to run tmw night - Poetic Forms.

It's going well - 10 weeks of workshops in which we pick apart the intricacies of a wide range of poetic forms and write our own version of that week's form - so far we've attempted the sonnet and the villanelle and they've gone very well.

There is still time to get on board!

E-mail if you'd like further info.

I did a little more research this evening - read Lamb's Tale of The Tempest by Shakespeare.

Reading the story of The Tempest has given me a few clues about characters.

I have the main character worked out, and where he's from, and why he ends up on Inishraam.

I also have a secret I've given him.

A great tip I was given in a workshop at The New Venture Theatre by Anita Sullivan - give yr character a secret which is revealed in the course of the story.

My character's secret will lead to a crisis...

I also need to think about my other characters a little more and to work out their relationships.

Some intertextaulity with The Tempest would be good.

The island is such a strong archetype in the English psyche - Shakespeare influenced Defoe, who influenced Swift... right down to Ballantyne and Golding and Alex Garland - and I see that James Hawes has a book out covering similar territory.

Of course, the island has a different resonance in Irish literature, which perhaps influenced Swift also.

I won't say too much abt this, because I want to make Gulliver's Travels the focus of a play I'm also writing.

I know how my story starts - with a storm and a shipwreck.

And I know how I'm going to write this - I'm going to find a description of a Victorian shipwreck, and 'overwrite' it.

This is the technique I want to use with my 'Base Text', J M Synge's Aran Islands.

More tomorrow.

That first chapter goes up on Tuesday.

Not long now...