This month, I’ll have a play performed at London’s Tower Theatre for the second time. It’s been a massively collaborative process to get it there!
Last year, my short play The Pictures of Dora Gray was one of five chosen for the Writers’ Room showcase, featuring new writing from the Tower Theatre’s playwriting group. I’ve been a part of that group for two years now, meeting monthly. I’ve learned an immense amount from the experience, and it’s been great fun!
My fellow playwrights have gone on to produce, to direct, and to have full-length productions put on. Dora Gray was performed twice – at the showcase, and at the Barons Court Theatre’s scratch night. It was wonderful to see two different casts’ and directors’ takes on it. And the Writers’ Room showcase was the Tower Theatre’s most successful show of the year.
So, last year was great. Onward to this one! The creative team added new elements to the process this year, extending the development and rehearsal time.
The showcase includes four plays, and we all had dramaturgical input. We got to see earlier drafts of the plays at a preview night, limited to the creative teams working on them. Then I worked with the director and assistant director to further develop my script.
My short play An IQ Test for my Birthday went through several rounds of edits as we honed in on story arcs and worked to make the dialogue reflect, as clearly as possible, the unusual scenario of strangers meeting to take a group exam.
One directorial suggestion was to use improv to flesh out some of the scenes. So, I shuttled back and forth to London for rehearsals. The cast members, each of whom brought a new dimension to their character, acted out their own versions of my scenes. The director recorded their improvised lines, and we drew on them while editing the script.
It was a lot of work, and a lot of working together. Last year, I handed in a script, went to one rehearsal, and then saw the final play onstage. This time, I felt almost like part of the cast. I went to a dress rehearsal of the four plays last weekend, and it was magical to watch them all come to life together.
The play is stronger for all that collaboration. It will be performed from December 12-16, along with the other plays in the Home-themed showcase. You can get your tickets here. I can’t wait to see it shine!
One of my writers’ groups had a recent discussion about how easy it is to make a novel too complicated. This is a challenge I encounter a lot.
I love worldbuilding and complex ideas. When I attended Julie Cohen’s writing retreat in France, she called me out for it: “Keep it simple, stupid!” I need to be able to describe what I’m writing in a straightforward way. Once I’ve gotten to the essence of it, I can complexify from there!
I’m doing NaNoWriMo again this year, and I’m starting something new. My first idea was one I’ve dreamed about since the pandemic, set in a beautiful, complicated world. I’ve tried to begin it a few times, but I haven’t been able to make a plot work with these characters and setting.
I hope to write that story someday. It might be one of those ideas that isn’t quite ready yet, one that I will someday gain the skills to bring to life.
But I had a second idea while brainstorming. This one’s simpler and more straightforward. I know how to describe it and make it sound interesting to listeners. I know how to structure it.
That’s the one I’m writing.
Do you tend to overcomplicate your writing, too? What do you do to keep things clear?
Here are a few principles that have helped me take my narratives back to basics.
Know what the point of your story is.
Be able to describe it in a sentence.
Know what the stakes are – and feel emotionally invested, not confused.
Pitch your story to others. See if it a) makes sense to them and b) sounds interesting.
Make sure you want to write this story. A novel is a commitment!
Lots of good writing news lately. September was my book tour to celebrate Chasing Harmony’s one-year anniversary, following shortly after its ebook release. What a whirlwind!
From August 28 to September 22, a variety of book blogs hosted guest posts, excerpts, gift card giveaways, and reviews for my YA novel. You can catch up with the tour stops here! I had fun writing about everything from the cover design process to my research and forthcoming books.
Last year, I had a short play performed in the Tower Theatre Writers’ Room showcase. I’ve stayed involved with the Writers’ Room this year, and am delighted to have a play chosen for performance in the showcase again!
It couldn’t be more different. Last year’s play was a dark, feminist Dorian Gray-meets-Faust story about art and death. This one is a comedy called An IQ Test for My Birthday, directed by Ragan Keefer:
Callie gets a surprising birthday present from her father. An appointment to take an IQ test. Upon her arrival she meets a straightlaced journalist, a hard working mum and her energetic daughter. All are here for the same thing, to pass the test for their own personal agendas. Will they pass? Will their nerves get the best of them? A play that deals with themes of family, acceptance, and pride.
The Writers’ Room Showcase this year has the theme of “Home” and features four brand-new short plays that explore the theme from different angles. They’ll be onstage from December 12-16 in London.
“Home: A place? An ideal? An emotion? Tower Theatre writers explore a range of ideas suggested by this richly evocative little word in an exciting programme of short plays. Come along and see some ground-breaking new writing!”
There’s more information on the showcase here. I hope to see some of you in the audience this winter!
My first novel, Chasing Harmony, has been out for a year now! It’s now available in ebook format as well as in paperback, which I’m excited about because it means more people can read it. It took 10 years for this strange, literary, bisexual YA coming-of-age story to find a publisher, and I’m grateful it has a good home.
My publisher, Read Furiously, has been wonderful to work with. One reason I chose them is that they donate a portion of royalties to charity, primarily literacy charities. Some of you might remember that my first foray into publication was self-publishing two poetry books as a teenager to raise money for charities… back in the pre-digital era of the early 2000s, when self-publishing meant applying for a grant, giving your files to the printer, and having them print the books out! I got extra “imperfect” copies of my first book, Tears for the World, to sell, because a hair got stuck in the printing press.
Tears for the World raised money for Farmers Helping Farmers, a Prince Edward Island-based organization which helps farmers in Kenya, while Fire in the Sky raised money for a local literacy organization. With Chasing Harmony helping a similar cause, I feel like things have come full circle.
It always makes me happy when I hear from someone who’s read Chasing Harmony, especially if they connected with the characters. I poured my heart into this story.
Read Furiously has scheduled a virtual book tour to celebrate Chasing Harmony’s anniversary, and if you’d like a review copy to feature a review, guest post, or interview on your blog, you can request one from Goddess Fish Promotions here. There will also be gift card giveaways! Stay tuned for more on the tour which is happening from August 28 – September 22!
Here are Read Furiously’s kind words on my book’s anniversary:
“Last July we introduced a wonderful young adult novel filled with music, vulnerability, and lost love. One year later, we are still haunted and inspired by Anna Stern’s search for her authentic self.
Happy one year anniversary to CHASING HARMONY by Melanie Bell. If you haven’t experienced the magic of Anna’s musical talent, or haven’t fallen in love with Liss, or danced with Ay-a in a forest kingdom, we recommend making CHASING HARMONY a must read this summer.
We have big plans to celebrate one year – stay tuned!
CHASING HARMONY is available wherever books are sold.”
What do you Google at 3 am? What’s that one odd thing you can’t stop thinking about, perhaps to the point where you have a hard time explaining to other people why it captivates you?
If you’ve ever dreamed of writing a book, one starting point is personal interest. Scratch that: personal passion, obsession, or even unhealthy devotion.
If you’re this fascinated by a topic or idea, you probably won’t get bored engaging with it for thousands of words!
And if you’re looking to build a career as a writer, you can mine your obsessions again and again. How often do you turn to a favorite author because you love the themes they delve into and the approaches they take? If you feel like you’re writing about the same things over and over again, that’s not a bug; that’s a feature!
Alternatively, it doesn’t have to be the same thing each time. It can be an obsession of the moment. Going through an insect phase? (See what I did there with the “bug” thing?) Maybe there’s a book in that. Researching cybersecurity? Ditto.
As I mentioned above, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a healthy obsession. One of the factors that inspired my novel Chasing Harmony was losing a lot of music competitions in my youth. Sometimes I’d wonder: What did the talented winners have that I didn’t? What was it like to be them?
This was one of many factors that got me interested in researching the stories and lives of musical prodigies, and eventually crafting a fictional character who shows early and astonishing musical aptitude.
So, what piques your interest? What can’t you stop thinking about? Could there be a book in that?
2022 was an intense year. I’m not sure what to expect from 2023 yet. So far, I’ve found joy in learning Spanish on Duolingo, which feels more like a game than an education, and in exploring the pebble beaches of my new home.
I’m revising my NaNoWriMo novel, working on another novel, and continuing to engage with interesting peer groups, including the NaNo group and the Tower Theatre Writers’ Room.
I set a one-word intention for myself last year: “outward.” It’s easy, as a writer and introvert, to spend my time “inward,” but I can only accomplish things in the world if I venture out into it! I didn’t do too bad a job of it, either, if I dare say so.
My mostly-speculative short story collection Dream Signs came out at the end of 2021, and I’ve heard from readers who continue to enjoy the stories. Sadly, it went out of print when the publisher went under, so I’m looking into options for re-release. A few print copies are still available online as of now.
This National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November, I finished a draft of a manuscript I’d been working on and started another. The power of this event lay with the peer group I found. The local WriMos did writing sprints in person and online and urged each other forward. I didn’t think I could write 50,000 words in a month – but, reader, I did it!
To cap off the year, I saw my short play The Pictures of Dora Gray performed twice! First, it was included in a scratch night at the Barons Court Theatre. Then, it was included in the Tower Theatre Writers’ Room’s December showcase, along with four other fantastic plays by members of the group. It was an emotional experience to see two casts perform something I’d written in my living room, and to witness the wonderful direction, music score, and acting that brought my play to life over the holidays.
This year, I’ll continue to put myself out there – while respecting my inward nature, too. Onward, 2023!
I started NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this November as an incentive to finish my fantasy novel, the one I’d been working on for a year and a half. At 55,000 words in, it was rolling along toward a conclusion, but it hadn’t gotten there yet. When I applied last year for a grant I didn’t receive, I listed November as a planned deadline for completing my novel draft. Without funding, I shelved some of my other project ideas, but I thought – hoped – the novel would prove doable, at least.
I’d found renewed energy for the project on my writing retreat in France this September. Our facilitator, best-selling novelist Julie Cohen, had told me the structure wasn’t working and encouraged me to restructure the whole thing. Which I did, one memorable day, with three colors of post-it notes sprawled across a bed. Those post-its now live in a notebook of mine, but it was an interesting experience to have them all over the furniture, and to think deeply about how my story needed to move forward.
Then, in October, I moved home, so not a lot of writing happened for a month. A lot of furniture shopping and adjustment happened instead. By the time November rolled around, my flat was furnished and felt more like an abode than an empty space. I was ready to come back to the novel.
Much like the writing retreat, so vivid in recent memory, I wasn’t sure how much I’d get done during NaNoWriMo. I’d done a version of it once, finishing a novella during lockdown in 2020. As proud as I felt of the novella at the time, that was 25,000 words, not 50,000 (as per the NaNo goal), and not all of them were written in November. (Although given the challenges of lockdown, I would give myself an A+ that year!) I even blogged about different ways of getting inspired for the monthly challenge, before attempting to tackle it myself.
But 50,000 words is a lot. I’d always side-eyed the challenge or thought it best suited to speedier writers than myself. I like to line edit as I go. Some writers speak of silencing the inner editor and writing a messy first draft. After doing multiple editing jobs, my “inner editor” is a professional with 10+ years of experience, so I usually find that her input makes my drafts better. Thus, I let her do her thing. But I came into this challenge believing that I wasn’t fast.
Here’s the great thing about self-awareness: it helps you navigate the world and find the right contexts. The downside is that the self you’ve invested in being aware of can change, and your understanding has to alter accordingly to keep up. Sometimes knowing your limits is a form of self-care, and sometimes it’s simply fear.
I had a relatively quiet schedule in November, allowing me to try the challenge. “I’ll finish my novel by the end of the month,” I thought, somewhat apprehensively. I suspected it would take less than the 50K to get to the end of my allotted plot.
In fact, it did. It only took 32K. I finished it on the 15th of the month.
My past self would probably read that line with goggle-eyes and ask, “How?!” The first thing I did was join the regional NaNo group. They had an online community where participants chatted and held events regularly. People seemed friendly, and it was exciting to be involved in something so intense with a whole bunch of other people, cheering each other on. There were two in-person events as well. I couldn’t make the first one, but the second, at the end of the month, was packed full of people typing furiously. The Municipal Liaisons brought stickers, an analog spreadsheet, a jar full of writing prompts, and a plastic dragon to place atop the laptop of whoever won the latest word war.
Most of our events centered around “word wars,” virtual sprints (using a tool called Sprinto on a Discord forum) where people join and compete to write the most words. I often enjoy writing in longer periods where I can focus and lose track of time, but the sprints proved useful and motivating. They provided accountability and a social aspect to the often solitary activity of writing.
Taking part in a few long writing days with the NaNo group resulted in a lot of writing. Once I finished my novel, I still had words – and half a month of time – to spare. Before NaNo, I’d planned a short story set in the same fantasy world as my novel but hadn’t had time to write it. I drafted that story – another 7,000 words. I still had more words left. I’d had a few ideas in mind for what to work on next, but I ended up starting something different and am now drafting a science fiction novel.
My highlights of the NaNo experience were meeting a group of supportive and fascinating people on the Discord (and in person), finishing my novel draft (!), hitting 50K words on the 21st, and the intrinsic reward of devoting more time and energy to writing. It’s so easy to sideline personal projects. NaNoWriMo affords recognition to the act of committing to one. It felt really nice to “win” something, even if in practice, it means that I got… a virtual badge. It’s not every day that adults have a chance to get a prize, let alone one that validates doing something you want to do.
For November Me, writing facilitated mental health. I write a little most days, and of course I write for my job, but November operated on another level. There was one day this month when I didn’t write, and it felt like a slump. I noticed that and wrote all the other days, even if the time was short and the word count was low. I also appreciated allowing myself long focus days when I didn’t push myself to get anything “more important” done. The bills and cleaning could wait until the next day.
Maybe I don’t always work as slowly as I’d believed. Maybe I really can be as productive as I imagined being… at least sometimes. My inner editor slowed down, but remained in place. I made more typos as I sped up, and then fixed them, for instance. And my hyper-focused month felt great!
I had a freelance project in late November, which pushed me to meet the word count goal more quickly once I realized it was feasible for me to meet it. I also attended opening night for my short play, which was part of a December showcase at the Tower Theatre. I kept writing small amounts of words and adding to the science fiction story as well as writing other things. I got feedback on the short story and was pleasantly surprised by how well others thought it worked despite the speed of its drafting. I also enjoyed meeting new people and hope to stay involved with the online community throughout the year.
So, I’d say NaNoWriMo was a success. I hope to do it again next year, and to maintain some of the writing habits I acquired in my daily life. I guess this old dog could learn new tricks after all!
These last couple months have been exciting ones for my short play, The Pictures of Dora Gray. I’ve seen it read by two different casts. And at the end of the month, I’ll see it performed at the Tower Theatre’s Writers’ Room showcase.
In Oscar Wilde’s classic novel, The Pictures of Dorian Gray, a young man makes a supernatural bargain to preserve his beauty. My play features a woman who decides to use her beauty as a bargaining chip. It’s about gender, art, death, and the costs of greatness.
It was a heady week in October when I met the cast of Dora Gray for the showcase and heard their first read through of the play. I’d met the director and assistant director earlier, and was confident the play was in good hands. Colin Guthrie gave a lot of thought to characters and relationships, and we collaborated on a few revisions. Then came the read-through. It was surreal to watch other people perform the words and story I wrote. I admit I cried a bit.
That same week, Dora Gray was one of three short plays performed at Barons Court Theatre’s scratch night, The Sunday Fix. I watched in real time as a director directed it and a group of actors rehearsed and acted it out. At the end of the night, the plays were performed and the audience gave feedback to the writers.
It was a fascinating process to see the play evolve, and to watch two different directors’ takes on it. Not to mention meeting some great theatre people! I can’t wait to see a fully staged production after this.
The Tower Theatre has become one of my favorite places in London. It’s that rare thing, an amateur theatre company with its own performance space. The plays are diverse and high quality, ranging from Shakespearean comedies to contemporary theatre about the Black British experience, from intimate monologue series to expansive productions like Coram Boy. I’ve been volunteering there for a year now as a front of house steward, and by now, it feels like home. This month I’m moving to Brighton, but I’ll be coming back now and again for events at the theatre.
The Tower has also gotten me back into playwriting, which I haven’t done since high school, when I wrote and acted in a Christmas play about angels because I remembered an old play about elves and thought, “I can do better!”
The theatre’s Writers’ Room, previously closed, opened up to new members recently, so I joined it. It’s a lively group of theatre nerds. Most of them are involved in multiple aspects of productions, such as directing, acting, or stage management.
The Writers’ Room put out a call for scripts for a December-themed showcase of their members’ short plays, which will take place from 29 November – 3 December. I was excited to have my short play The Pictures of Dora Gray chosen as one of five featured scripts!
The audition notice for the showcase summarized my play much more effectively than I could have, so I’ve included it here below. I enjoyed meeting the talented directorial team and look forward to meeting the actors who will bring my words to life!
Thank you to Colin Guthrie for the summary of The Pictures of Dora Gray:
“Dora Gray is a successful artist’s model, but has been less successful in getting her own art to be appreciated. Following a heart attack she makes a deal with Death – Death can take her beauty, as long as she is given mastery over painting. If it shortens her life, it is a price she is prepared to pay.
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray showed a man who was desperate to retain his beauty and cheat the ravages of life and time. The Pictures of Dora Gray shows a woman who is prepared to forgo her beauty if it allows her to become an exceptional artist. The play explores questions about the nature of art, beauty, fame and the way women are viewed in the male-dominated art world.”
So, if you’re in London in late November or early December, come check out the Writers’ Room showcase and find out what it’s like to make a deal with Death. I’m not going to spoil everyone else’s plays, but other highlights will include a guy in a polar bear suit, and revenge on a Prime Minister. It’s sure to be a good time!
I’m delighted to have an author interview on Autostraddle this month! Darcy read my YA novel, Chasing Harmony, and asked thoughtful questions about it. I got to talk about music, the messiness of growing up queer, where I got my ideas, and what songs might be on Anna’s playlist right now if she were a real person.
“When I was younger, successes and failures felt huge, and this is the case for Anna.”
-Author Melanie Bell on her YA Novel “Chasing Harmony” and the Messy Process of Growing Up Queer
I’m writing this from an old house in Castillon, in the South of France. I’ve been saying for ages that I’d go on a writing retreat someday, and I’ve finally made it out to one. I first learned about Chez Castillon at a conference five years ago. It’s an 18th century house that hosts creative retreats.
For a week, I’ve been learning from bestselling author Julie Cohen and working with a great group of fellow writers. We’ve had one-on-one sessions, a tutorial about plotting with post-it notes, and lots of time to work on whatever we’re working on. That, or lounge by the pool and iron out the kinks in our stories by getting input from brilliant peers.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, though I figured that time in France would be brilliant even if I got no writing done! And it is. Great food, great wine, a gorgeous setting, summer-like weather, lovely people, charming animals, and a market this morning. I’ve been running by the river, strolling around the shops, and swimming in the pool. The house is full of books, and it’s nice to have a context where I’m speaking and reading in French, even as I’m writing in English. The hosts, Mickey and Janie Millman, are generous, and Janie’s a wonderful author in her own right.
But I’ve also gotten things done. I’ve restructured the manuscript I’m working on and added some chapters. I’ve refined summaries and queries in an effort to get to the point. “Keep it simple, stupid!” says Julie. (I blushed a little, as I used to teach my university students this. Guilty as charged!) So, would I recommend trying out a writing retreat if you have the time and resources? I’d certainly recommend this one!
Many thanks to Julie, Mickey, Janie, and my cohort of writers! I’ve learned something from everyone here. And now I’m off to soak in more sun before my plane takes off tomorrow!
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