Distractions, distractions!

Hmmm, I’ve not had a good week really. Well, it’s probably been better than a lot of people’s - at least I'm not living under a dictatorship like the poor people of Belarus, and I'm still alive unlike dear sweet Heath Ledger - but the week hasn't been as good as I would have liked. I was meant to be very productive this week but I’ve been hampered by domestic irritants and other bureaucratic bits that, quite frankly, have blocked me.

However, I am making some (small) headway on the play that I’m working on, but it’s slow, slow work. You see, whenever domestic mayhem isn’t snarling like a dog at the gates of creativity, chasms of distraction open up before me - all filled with red wine, whisky and beer. What’s a man to do, eh?

Anyway, I have arranged with a very experienced playwright & theatre director to give my play the once-over before I push it out fully, so hopefully I might get the structure right before it’s too late. However, I’m still a little unsure how to set the tone. Do I go for a Noël Coward style and fill the stage with people in silk dressing gowns, cigarette holders in hand, all speaking in clipped English about tennis and the weather; or do I go for a more Brechtian tone – a bare, open stage and even barer dialogue? Maybe I should make it into a musical (my subject matter would work very well in that genre, actually, and it would be fun to write the lyrics); or perhaps I should make it more Pinter-esque and produce a tableau of dark shadows and elliptical menace?

Whatever I decide, I need to get on with it because it won’t write itself, that's for sure. So, what would you do if you were in my shoes? Would you stay at the word processor all afternoon and make some serious headway with the writing, or would you knock off early, go for a swim and then meet Dr Jim in the bar? Methinks that the latter arrangement might lead to me being distracted again, so I know what I should do.....

Oh dear, do I hear the wheels of the wagon falling off? Save me!