A Conversation About Writing
Meet Anita John, Scottish-based poet & playwright, whose 10-minute script about the Beatles was staged at the Borders Pub Theatre just a few days ago.
This week, I’d like to introduce you all to my friend and fellow writer, Anita John. I met Anita during a nature writing essay class we both participated in through Moniack Mhor. Since then, Sheffield-born Anita has joined my Accountability Cohort and she is participating in The Writers Community 2024, another program I administer.
Recently, Anita shared that she was writing a script about The Beatles for a local playwrights cohort near where she lives in the Scottish Borders. That play was staged this past Friday night! Here’s my conversation with Anita, a fascinating and talented writer and lovely person.
A Conversation About Writing
Anita: I've always been interested in writing. I didn't write anything for many, many years. And then in 2000, I started just exploring. Poetry is my first love, so I joined a writers group and then I took an MSC at Edinburgh University in creative writing. (Equivalent to an MFA.)
I was also interested in theater, ever since I saw Roman Polanski's Macbeth. I've written poetry and short stories, and I had a book published in 2013.
Then, an opportunity came up with Playwrights Studio, an organization that supports and mentors playwrights in Scotland. I applied for their mentoring program, got onto their Scottish Borders regional program, and did two years of mentoring. We started producing scripts and having them performed by professional actors.
(Anita is now involved with the Borders Pub Theatre. She writes 10-minute scripts on a particular theme, and those scripts are performed by professional actors and directors live on stage.)
Anita: It's very raw writing. Literally off the page, which makes it exciting, and it's a format that the audience seems to love. So usually 6 writers write a 10-minute script on a particular theme, and then we have one day where the actors see the script, sometimes for the very first time in the morning, and work with the director during the day on the six different plays. And that evening, they’re performed.
It's a learning ground really. You write the script and when you see it performed, you can see what works and what doesn't work and that's really useful for your craft.
(Originally, the scripts were performed in pubs, but since lockdown, they’ve moved to theater stages. After the raw performances, some theaters request the scripts to be performed again, and some people are inspired to write a longer script, inspired by audience reactions and feedback.)
Lynne: What do you like about writing scripts vs. writing poetry?
Anita: I like writing dialogue. I like exploring relationships through dialogue. The interesting thing about theater writing is often it's what's left unsaid.
It's been quite interesting allowing the actor to embody the words. A lot of the internal monologue that you would describe on a page is acted out physically, in the body. So you have to be quite sparse with your language, and allow the actors to inhabit the words.
Lynne: Tell me why you write. I often say, I write to make sense of how I think about things or make sense of events, but also for me, it's to have a conversation with people, to have that connection. What motivates you?
Anita: I write because I feel compelled to write. There's a wonderful poem by Charles Bukowski, which says don't write unless unless the pen is burning. I think I write to make sense of the world. To work out my feelings about the world and my place in it. Quite a lot of my work tries to look at resolution or coming to terms with things and trying to be appreciative of what you have and make the most of things, especially nature. I'm also really interested in relationships, pressures on relationships and how people cope with those pressures.
I think love and loss are the two great themes. (Anita John)
(To write the Beatles script, Anita started researching her fascination with John Lennon. Here’s how the script came to be.)
Anita: I thought I might write something around the death of John Lennon. I have a desire to write about loss and the dark things in life. I started researching The Beatles, read lots of books, which I really enjoyed. (Especially a book by Craig Brown called One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time.)
I became interested in the relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They had a very strong bond but also a rivalry. I was interested in that, that conflict. Conflict is the essence of all great storytelling. I discovered that they responded to each other in songs, after they'd separated. Paul wrote a song in which he had a few jibes at John Lennon and Yoko Ono, called “Too Many People.” Apparently John was absolutely furious. So he then wrote his own song to Paul McCartney, called “How Do You Sleep?” So they had this rivalry in their songs, which was really interesting. I thought I'd explore that conflict and it would be really good to get them to meet, in person, so they are talking to each other, in a dream or John Lennon's ghost coming to see Paul McCartney. That's the setting. They're side by side talking to each other. And then I tell a bit of The Beatles story through the two of them meeting, the conflict between them and resolution.
I discovered that years after John Lennon died, Paul McCartney wrote a song to him called “Here Today,” which was about imagining him meeting up with John Lennon one last time. I discovered that retrospectively, so a few lines from that song came into the play.
(Anita’s play is called Here Today. Another coincidence is the emergence of a new Beatles song right around the time of this playwrights challenge!)
Anita: The play ends with some of John Lennon's words from his song “Imagine,” because whilst I was writing the play also you know the terrible events of the 7th of October happened and so I wanted to end on a note of hope. It was interesting how all these strands fed into the play.
These 10-minute scripts are contemporary, so they reflect society and what is happening at the time. That’s the great thing about doing them so quickly and being quite raw. It’s a record of what is happening in the world.
(I asked Anita how it feels to have something so new and raw being performed on stage so soon after it’s written – no time to tweak and revise and perfect.)
Anita: I think there comes a point when you have to let your work go. There is a fine line because you can sometimes let your work go before it's ready, you know?
I have heard lots of poets, for example, say that their first book of poetry, they wish they'd never had published because they're embarrassed when they go back and read it.
I work well to deadline. That motivates me. And it has to come externally. I can't put a deadline on myself because I'll just go ‘ohh, I don't need to do that.’
The actors will read the scripts and within the group, we will read the scripts to each other, so I'll listen to my script being read and see where things don't work and get feedback. By the time I send it off, it's usually had at least two inputs from external sources.
(Being in community with writers is so important!)
Anita: Yeah, it is. And it's very brave to share your work.
Sometimes you can't see something unless it's pointed out to you. With my poetry, when I write a draft that I think I'm happy with, I put it to one side and leave it for a good few weeks until I've sort of forgotten about it. And then when I bring it out and read it with completely fresh eyes, it's sort of like, no, that doesn't work.
A collection of plays from the Borders Pub Theatre
An anthology that includes Anita’s writing
Another collection of plays that includes one of Anita’s works
Thanks for joining me this week for this conversation! It helps to learn how other writers go about their creative work. I hope Anita’s journey and process have inspired you.
And, shout-out to Maya Golden on the launch of her memoir, The Return Trip. Here she’s pictured with Natalie Posgate, at her launch signing this month. Both Maya and Natalie were participants in my 2022 Mackinac Island Writers Retreat, where we workshopped some of her chapters!!
Love, Lynne