No Pasaran

Several people have told me I should be proud of writing a novel. And they're not talking about quality, they're talking about quantity. They mean I should be proud of sitting down and writing a story 75000 words long.

Let's ignore for the moment that this isn't even true. (It was Karin that put in the hard narrative yardage, churning out the chapters, whilst I dicked about on a couple of pages of dialogue.) In reality it's no great accomplishment in itself. It isn't that hard, is it? Write 1000 words a day, and you could have weekends off and still have finished a novel in three months. No bother. You only have to look online to see how many people have managed it.

I say this because a friend accomplished something last week that I really do think is noteworthy, in the field of artistic endeavour.

He staged an operetta about the Spanish Civil War called No Pasaran. To achieve this, he wrote all the music and lyrics (35 songs), auditioned and managed a a cast of 20, plus a group of flamenco dancers, choreographed the whole show, organised the live band, shot some “war footage” to project across the action, was the stage-manager, and even popped up to sing a lament at the end. Oh and he was on the door selling tickets.

Think of that next time you're looking at a blank page.