The Merry Merry Month of May

Wow. Sometimes - especially after filling in lengthy forms to uncertain ends, overworked festival organizers deciding that instead of this or that which you actually offered, they'd rather you built them a willow cave instead, and you nearly agreeing to it, until you work out the time involved for the money you're likely to make there and pulling out, sending off work to magazines that may reply sometime near Doomsday, etc., etc., - sometimes something happens that makes you remember why you became an artist (storyteller/writer/poet/whatever) in the first place. Such a thing was this Beltane weekend. We were off in the newly converted storytelling van (thanks Wayne of Van-tastic! fellow member of the Collective) to perform at the Outlore Festival - a private event and one of the most sought-after on the Live Action Role Play or LARP circuit. The site was amazing as always (it was our fourth time there, and our third Outlore) - a beautifully atmospheric Dark Age settlement set in an idyllic stretch of countryside near Okehampton. To add to the river, bluebells, and all the rest, in a clearing in the forest over a causeway on a hill is a small village of roundhouse, Viking longhouse and many other huts and structures and a wonderful attention to detail. There's always something going on and something to look at! And this time was no exception. It may not be straight re-enactment, for instance the 'baddies' are monsters not people, and the paying player-characters ultimately win, but it has a fine feel of authenticity nonetheless. Highlights were the invasion of the settlement by the (very tall!) wolf warrior, the coming into being of the bull god, and the entrance of Hel complete with a raven. There was a new fort built to house the enemy, and a skeleton hanging from a gibbet one could see for miles. Unlike some other places, it looked scarier the closer one got! and the constant sound of war drums added massively to the sense of impending storm. The weather (as at the other two Festivals) was perfect, and in the evening, few places are as lovely seen lit up. Our stories of fools, daydreamers and wisecracks made folk laugh out loud, while they waited for the siege, our riddles perplexed, and our epic battle poetry from Egil's Saga pleased the warriors. And we got more 'gold' and 'treasure' than ever before! as well as a fair share of mead. Music was by the excellent Goliards, in the evening and the lanterns and torches amongst all the film-like setting, with the spring leaves and the latticework of the branches on a clear darkening blue sky with a bright half moon above was simply magical. But the biggest thrill for me during Sunday was when the falconer let me hold the large raven on my wrist - it stood there majestically, and then tore a mouse to shreds that someone had bought it. It felt a strange privilege to have this large flying creature so close. The evening and sunset were about as heavenly as May offers, and in doing the last verse of the 7th century (possibly) poem 'Widsith' as Widsith, as the poet explains and justifies his position in Dark Age society, it made me feel connected - as ever - with the long line of 'Widsiths'...and all in all, I was reminded - yes, that's why I became a performer...! 

   Huge thanks to Dave and Jon of Tyburn Jig and the Dumnonni Chronicles for inviting us again, and to Dave for his immense feats of organization for the whole Outlore adventure, also to all the warriors, damsels and healers who liked our tales and gave us things, the Goliards of course, and especially to the falconer!

Form Filling & Gut Busting

What a relief - finally the form to the Arts Council, along with all accompanying material has at long last been sent off. The form to try and secure another year's grace for Spoken/Written in the form of support for a big new back issues website and an information stall to tour events to tell more people about Spoken/Written Bulletin S.W., and gain not just more readers, but crucially advertisers, contributors, sponsors, donors and all interested in partnerships of all kinds. It can be an isolated job being an editor of an e-newsletter - so much work done via e-mail and on the net. So it's time to get some printed editions out there and a stall in the 3D world! 

   It was an epic task, what with all the usual admin for the Collective, rehearsing, recording new audio for the website, preparing for workshops, chasing up shops about books, and always the newsletter itself with its suddenly looming deadlines (not to mention all the stuff going off with the Collective and related matters - probably worth starting a separate blog for!), it's been tough fighting for the space to get together the new application. A 30 page form, a 7 page proposal, 4 pages of supporting testimonials, 2 page resume and 15 pages of a recent edition...making for a 57 page application...No wonder I've been so wired the last couple of weeks. I just hope it'll be worth all the work...Awful thing is, after all that, you end up feeling like you've done the work for the money asked for, already...!

   Thinking of grants and funding, one of the artists in the Collective came up and took us storytelling faction out to lunch recently and she asked me about funding applications. I told her more than she could possibly have wanted to know, and she suggested I host grants consultations, saying there was a real need for people unaccustomed to these huge forms, and missing or not hearing about things like the Arts Council's advice days, to get advice from another source. Then it occurred to me that a London based friend's partner and media producer/video artist had also asked my opinion on funding, and had even asked for a copy of a previous application proposal! So, if anyone needs advice on filling in one of these things...

   Did I mention it's a relief to have got the form off? Now just a six week wait.........

   

Wonderful World of Colour

Just come back from another set of writing and acetate workshops including my own special one on the Wonderful World of Colour, in Appledore - it was great, with more lateral suggestions from particpants than I would have thought probable! Came away with lots of new words not least thanks to Yolande who'd caught the bug and been looking for new colours too. All the workshoppers seemed to have a ball and learn something new, and everyone wanted a colour gel at the end, the only trouble being that we ran out of red and pink toward the end! as well as time, as we could have gone on for another half an hour at least! Huge thanks again to Yolande and to the Northcott Theatre who generously donated another box of gels earlier in the month. Strangely inspired, I made yet more lists when I got home, and couldn't help going off on new tangents about quality of light terms, and then for different sorts of light itself... It was good to be thinking creatively again amidst all the forms attendant on festivals wanting tech specs, funding stuff and gathering together stuff for Spoken/Written. Not to mention trying to chase up a few other opportunities for a change, especially the ones with near deadlines!

   Last night I spent the evening re-ordering the remaining colours into heaps before putting them all away. Also inspiring, as I can't wait to get back to making some visual textworks, it's just a matter of free time...

Money and Principles...

On putting out a call for feedback in order to strengthen the case to be made for further funding for Spoken/Written, one particular e-mail brought up the theme of 'integrity', urging that Spoken/Written remain free to champion this very quality. 

   Due to the fact that people are used to getting information for free from the internet, like Wikipedia, and also the fact that an e-mail can be forwarded countless times, a subscription fee has always looked a difficult beast (despite that at six pounds for all living on less than £6,000 a year not including accommodation, and £8 for others, the fee had it gone ahead was less than a pound an edition). Each twelve page Bulletin takes a good week's work to put together, once all the seemingly countless websites which have opportunities in them have been trawled - by no means limited to literature, poetry and storytelling sites! but covering performance sites, visual arts sites, museums, council newsletters and all manner of 'misc.'. One of my favourite more unusual sites to check for opportunities was the classified ads page of the well known dance website 'The Place' - sadly no more! Why they did away with the interesting ad page I don't know. But opportunities for written and verbal arts are everywhere, confirming my own feeling that words always are at the heart of things, and cross seamlessly into every other artform, whether performance, visual, sound or movement... But back to the point of this blog. Dozens of newsletters come in to the Spoken/Written desk, and countless single information posts or requests for entries from all kinds of sources and individuals. This dense block of information and research then has to be selected from, edited down, and made into a newsletter each month. I try to keep at 12 pages simply because otherwise it can get bounced as having filled inboxes! So I thought the proposed sub fee was by no means extortionate. Not least, as long ago, even when stony broke, I used to cough up six pounds for the old printed Poetry Can Bulletin - which only covered Bath and Bristol technically! and I didn't live in either. 

   The web however means that the distinctions between primary and secondary information sources has blurred and become porous, and in this 'space between the gaps' exists Spoken/Written. Unfortunately this doesn't however mean that Spoken/Written can exist without finance! So, in order to keep it going, the choice was plain - subscription fees, or advertising? Obviously, having run it for some time as if it was 'public service broadcasting' (a mistake, but it smelt good!), my own initial preference was to steer clear of ads and have it funded like a print mag, by subscription. But for reasons above, it looks as though advertising is the way, and the Bulletin will have to go down the 'private finance initiative' route. This means that some of the space in every edition will carry advertisements, and also that the proposed new website devoted to back issues, will do too. Revenue from these sources is vital to Spoken/Written Bulletin's future. 

   So, when the word 'integrity' was mentioned with regard to staying free (and if the Arts Council funds projects that must be different each time, and not the ongoing running costs of an entity, so that one can rule out indefinite state funding) - which has more integrity - a newsletter paid for by its readers with no advertising, with a supporting website likewise ad free? Or a newsletter free but with plenty of advertising and with at least one large website also full of it?

  BIG thanks to all who have e-mailed with support and feedback so far! It really is appreciated and of real help. And if you haven't already, please do send in some words of positive stuff if you value or enjoy the service. It will help to keep it free.  

The Show Must Go On!

What a week. As the education arm of the Collective, we were going up to North Devon to deliver some workshops in a school as part of a Science of Colour Week of events. Along the way, we passed all kinds of places where we'd previously broken down on a nightmare journey along the same route to perform at a festival late last August. In an electric van. Since it broke down such a lot it had been got rid of, (though the nightmare journey itself is a worth a tale!) and changed for an LPG van. As soon as we arrived on the road outside the venue, we realized that this vehicle too, was going nowhere fast, as a pool of liquid promptly fell out from underneath and covered the pavement, and the steering went. Great. As if this wasn't all, there was parent-in-hospital drama going on, and General Mayhem (that unwelcome guest whenever one's trying to get things done under stress) had definitely invited himself to the fray. 

   Despite this (and endless calls to the breakdown company, etc.) we went in, explained what was up, and then got on with delivering the workshops. The first was a 'Name the Colour Game', and all about words, colours and communication. The Northcott Theatre had kindly let me have a box of their used theatre light gels for the purpose, and I was right that having seen the beautiful colours of the gels, everyone would want one, and so it proved - as a crowd of fifty surged forward to choose the colour they wanted, for a moment I wondered if it had been wise! But the teachers made sure they formed an orderly-ish queue, and so all participants went away with a prize. My own workshop was my 'Wonderful World of Colour' workshop, which I love (being a visual artist on the inside, as it were). As ever, there were words for shades of colour hitherto unsuspected by everyone and participants came up with some new ones. So I went in with 130 odd words for colour and came out with even more. Again, everybody wanted a piece of gel. Contrary to what we'd been told, actually the younger participants wanted every colour pretty much, with only a very slight preference among boys for blue. And the older ones had a bit more of a bias towards the girls wanting pink, but the most marked trend was that we had hardly any left of any colour except orange! (But then we did have an awful lot of that...). We felt that pretty much everyone had learned something new, written a couple of poems, had some fun and that everyone had got a piece of gel with which they could make a window decal or anything else they liked. 

   We made it back to base with the help of a recovery vehicle, and Yolande who'd booked us was very kind about the hassle, and we had many cups of coffee, before leaving. Many thanks to her, Elaine, all the helpers and the Northcott Theatre.  

Pitfalls and Plaudits

Who'd publish a novel eh? I went to a great seminar at the Society for Storytelling conference last Spring, and a terrifying and admirable storyteller told us that she had suffered learning the hard way how to promote your work by working as a direct door-to-door seller. Her line was that she 'had suffered so we didn't have to!' In this spirit, is this post.

  Shops have been saying yes, and stocking the book. It's so nice, when as an administrator and artist, you have to spam so many places, whether it's a magazine, festival, other promoter or even a school or playranger. A yes amongst all the ones that don't get back to you, say they'll keep your details on file, or that they have enough 'storytellers/poets/surreal fiction/willow workshops/insert own item!' or even the 'no' - is irresistible. So you pack them off in little boxes of six to allsorts of places, and then of course, after all this work (and it feels like hard work - stamping the books, putting together a sheet of terms, printing out posters or flyers, whichever has been asked for, and then delivering or posting them), you have no guarantee that the said shop will a) sell any b) let you how its going c) put them on display without being chased up... Meanwhile you've got workshops and performances coming up, with barely any books left! Doh. Not something I was giving any thought to, seduced by the heady 'that sounds interesting - yes, we'll take half a dozen'. 

    Golden rule; remember that the most profit is made the lower the overheads. That means you're much better off selling books at events and workshops, NOT (despite it looking cool) bookshops or any type of shops. A friend of mine who has loads of books out, always curses bookshops - he says they never shift books unless you're there arranging a signing or other event and breathing down their necks. Something I evidently should have borne in mind before running out of stock! 

   If you think it was really obvious and I've been dumb, I can only say that having three jobs with a dozen different tasks at any one time limits how much prediction power I can give to any one thing. I know, because I listed the roles (more like 4), and after I'd listed all the tasks that went with them, I needed a lie down....

The New Season

Well this blog is (as stated on the intro blog on the Collective site), going to be more of a Collective blog than a strictly editor's blog, which is inevitable given that the Editor of Spoken/Written Bulletin S.W. is also a performance poet, writer, one half of storytelling company Widsith & Deor, and administrator and co-webmaster for the Cartwheels Collective group of artists. 

   Things are in preparation for the new season, the Diary pages for Widsith and Deor and Whistling Willow have been changed and new stuff listed. A big shout must go out to the Centre for Contemporary Art in the Natural World and Exeter's Quay House Visitor Centre for stocking Porlock the Warlock! the first novel issued by Cartwheels Collective Publishing, the press arm of the Collective. (Written by yours truly.) They join Exeter Cathedral Shop as stockists of Porlock - quality shops and attractions all. But it can of course, still be ordered from the Collective Web Shop. 

    More thanks must go to the Northcott Theatre, for donating their used theatre gels for our forthcoming workshops on the Wonderful World of Colour mixing words and recycled gels - a fantastic venue with a great season coming! 

   Spoken/Written is currently trying to gain further funding for its continuance, and welcomes all offers of sponsorship and words of support. There is also a Donate button on the front page of its microsite now, too.

   With my writer's hat on, work has begun on Porlock and the Monad Machine, the sequel to Porlock the Warlock. We're stepping back into the seventeenth century for the next one, and I have been doing some historical research for it - including some eye-popping stuff about obscure branches of garden history. I love it, but it is hard making time between the hundred and one things there always are to do. As usual with historical research, all the best and latest books on the subjects are wildly expensive and only available on inter-library loan from university libraries to which I no longer have access... but I have some hopes of an academic friend. But it feels good to have started, and to begin to build on having gone to visit a 1659 first edition in Exeter Cathedral Library a while back. Not least to see if I can solve the mystery of the missing page...! I'm saying no more at this stage. 

   In other news, the Collective now has a comprehensive Workshops section and index, so that it's easier to find the many workshops which we all - and our associate artists - offer. And we have at last published some guideline priced packages to further user-friendliness. Actually I'm shattered after spending this week getting details from our visual artists about what they want to offer to various festivals and/or schools, delivering books to shops, getting the next edition together, etc., etc., so will sign off there. Here's to the 44th President of the United States,

& a Happy New Year to all subscribers, readers, interested parties and fellow arts workers! 

S.V.

S.V.Wolfland

Editor - Spoken/Written Bulletin S.W.

Poet/Writer/Storyteller/Performance Poet

Administrator for the Cartwheels Collective