Ian
Richardson
“I am a South London based writer who, after a near death incident, started acting around four years ago and resumed writing about a year later. It seemed like a good idea.
My work, including short stories, poetry and short plays has received professional rehearsed readings in local literary festivals and events.
Two full length pantos have been performed in Community Theatre
runs. http://thcentre.com/tag/panto/
GENRE
I
don’t write in any particular genre. Lots
of it is mining incidents from my own life particularly childhood. What I’ve been writing is somewhere between short
story and Gonzo journalism. I’ve
recently reread some short stories by Heinrich Boll. Some of them are only five pages long and
nothing happens in them really. But they’re
absolutely intense. They pull you
in. If I had a choice I’d be doing that.
Quite
a lot of my work was originally short comedic plays. I’ve written two big pantos for the Telegraph
Hill Centre. But I write whatever’s in
front of me at any given time. The
pantos came to be through the writers group you and I attend on Telegraph Hill.
I
was diffidently bringing along a dead novel called Aunty’s Inferno. The main character’s aunty has a little séance
and he finds himself in hell.
But
everyone at the group said they thought I should have a crack at theTelegraph Hill Panto. I dreamt most of it, got up,
wrote this whole hour and a half. It
just poured out. It was just there and
ready. Most of my good stuff is like
that. I’m very productive when I’m
unconscious.
SELF
When
I’m active the more stimulated I am and likely to write. My health has been so
off since the heart attack. I think one
of the reasons I find it difficult to write is because the heart attack screwed
up my aspirations. When I knew I wasn’t
going to be working I had this vision of my keyboard ticking away like a grand
piano. Because I’ve been tired that’s
not happened.
Then
I beat myself up about that. I
constantly beat myself up about the maxim – Writers Write. It’s one of the worst things to beat yourself
up about. If you don’t have this massive
output you feel like you’re a failure. You’re
not really a writer. You’re just
pretending.
AUDIENCE
REACTION
As
a writer, it’s mostly theatrical stuff that makes me think of myself as a
writer. I’ve had readings at Actors Reading Writers and two other community events which went over
wonderfully. I’ve also had a monologue
in the Brockley Max Festival. The great
thing you have with these is the audience feedback. If people start falling about laughing then
you’ve cracked it. I stood behind the
audience every night; start to finish, watching the audience to see what was
working and what wasn’t. The two best
bits I was chuffed for weeks about: one
night I saw somebody literarily double over with tears of laughter and another
night I saw a girl slide off her chair and under the seat in front of her. You’re never gonna get that kind of feedback
from a short story or even a radio play.
Ian has a YA short story due to be published in an anthology 'Hex Support' late in 2015 and a modern fairy tale in the August 2015 issue of the online literary magazine, Bartleby Snopes. Please read his story and vote for it. I certainly will.
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