Mo Fanning - British writer and comic

Axiety

Gloom: hope died, but it’s Christmas …

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Five gold rings

First up, forgive the gloom and somewhat downbeat nature of my news this month. I’ve not been well. If you need better news, skip to the end. I’m going to do the misery first. The idea being my three ghosts of Christmas are all Christmas present and at the end I’ll skip through the front door with cries of ‘God bless us everyone one’.

The first winter chill descended on the Fanning household last weekend. After days of complaining of backache and a bit of a cold, I found myself wrapped in a blanket with chattering teeth and a bucket. I want to call it flu, but these days people say this about the slightest sniffle. Over the course of a week, I threw up daily and had to be helped to a chair in Lidl. Lidl, I tell you, not even Waitrose. It didn’t help that Mr Fanning ran in my shadow, falling sick just 24 hours behind me. We sat in a grumpy bed, resenting each other and snapping at the slightest provocation. Having a dog to walk didn’t help. I woke near a bus stop with him licking my chin as concerned faces loomed to ask if they should call an ambulance. Dignity be gone.

I’m better now, thanks for asking.

And this came after a week of feeling like the world was playing a cruel trick. For almost a year, Mother Fanning has suffered with AMD and needs injections in one eye. Being a typical Fanning, she hates the idea and needs a general anaesthetic to cope. At her advanced age, this knocks her around so the doctors ration what should be a monthly treatment. Guess what. She’s gone blind, and not just in the eye that they now tell us is ulcerated beyond repair. The hurt of seeing someone you once thought of as a fighter struggle to even find her way from one room to another is enormous. Worse yet is the bond of hope she makes with me it will get better. Finding the right time to break away and head back to Brighton after putting in place care was close on impossible and I’m still not sure we did the right thing.

And finally, the triple gloom whammy. In 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union. A decision I was sure we would overturn. Last week, all hope died. The election result forced me to accept that the vote wasn’t a one-off choice made on the back of misinformation. Britain wants to Brexit. For three and a half years, there’s been a small sign in the window of my neighbour, an elderly French woman who long since scored a British passport. A laminated sheet of A4 paper on which she printed ‘I demand a second vote on the terms of Brexit’. Nothing more. It never moved from the window through all the turmoil and government paralysis. She added no other poster, badge or proclamation, just this simple demand. On Friday morning, it vanished, and that caught in my throat more than any other image from that dreadful dark morning.

Right, I’m done with the gloom

Christmas lurks around the corner, and much as I’ve sulked in bed, insisting I’m cancelling the turkey, not getting a tree and looking into the return policy for a range of online stores, I’ve loosened the Scrooge switch today and we’re heading for a garden centre to buy a tree. Gloom be gone!

Look out for my many postings where I moan about needle drop, and remember, this is a sign of healing. If that’s all I can find to moan about, the Fanning life is getting better.

My short story collection, ‘Five Gold Rings‘ is the perfect companion for this time of the year – and it’s remarkably cheerful and upbeat in parts (there are dead bodies, but only what you might expect). It’s FREE for Kindle for the next week (starting late on the 15th and running for five days).

If you’re alone this Christmas

Sarah Millican does something wonderful at this time of year. The #joinin campaign is for anyone who needs to chat. Sarah encourages people to use the hashtag and link with one another so as not to feel lonely. People from around the world have already tweeted with their experiences.

“The main rule is to be kind. We’re all here for each other.”

 

Learning to write again – the world of standup comedy

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It took years to reach a point where I believe my writing reflects ‘my voice’. There is a rhythm, and the words flow in a certain way. An attitude lives on the page.

It wasn’t always so. I’ve made all the rookie mistakes … joined peer groups and reacted to each and every suggestion (writing by committee), punkishly failed to break convention, edited as I write, failed to plan. I’ve done them all, and more.

Learning to work with a structural editor is tough. The bad ones rewrite. The good ones dig into pace and structure, and make scant reference to actual words. The end result must still sound like me. People buy my books. Not stories written by an editor.

This isn’t how things work in standup.

Stop telling stories

Being told to lose the self from my words is anathema to me. I’ve spent more than ten years finding ways to tell stories with the fewest words possible. Often, by the time I get up on stage in comedy class, what’s in my hands has been through hours of honing.

When my teacher crosses out words because I’m ‘telling a story’, I want to argue that this is what I do. I make money by telling stories.

Every comedy class handout stresses how standup needs to be about the person on stage. It has to stay true to the performer. Otherwise, the comic becomes a hack … what my teacher calls – with a roll of the eyes and ample derision – ‘another new act’.

As a group of students we are told to be themselves, not someone else. But the handful of words that survive a classroom edit no longer sound like me. I’m not allowed to tell stories.

It leaves me asking if standup is something I can do … at its very basic level.

Choppy

The point my teacher labours is that standup relies on a choppy rhythm. The audience needs to read an act as comedy. My lines must form themselves into (short) setup and punch.

Nobody talks like that in real life, but authenticity is not the objective. Standup works like poetry. It has meter and rhyme. It’s choppy, choppy, choppy.

In TV and film, (first world) horror stories abound of scriptwriters who turn in work, only to have teams tear apart and reassemble perfect prose into lines they no longer recognise. The writer’s contribution amounts to little more than an occasional turn of phrase. A persistent idea now voiced by others. That’s what happens in comedy class. I become my own creative consultant.

Everything that passes muster – the dozen or so gags permitted airtime in my three-minute set – will have been through many iterations. I’ll have read the wordy mess out loud, cut each line that didn’t land with a laugh. I’ll have been told which words to lose and had my beautiful authentic-sounding sentences shredded. I’ll have read it again, and tried to get behind something that I no longer find funny. I nod again as more invited edits contradict previous cuts. My teacher reduces carefully crafted pictures into lifeless iambic pentameter.

Clone zone

I detest what remains, but at the same time find the process fascinating. There are times when I feel like giving up in frustration … and that reminds me of when I first learned how to write stories. The challenge this time is not to write for readers. It’s to get up on stage and breathe life into dead words. A different skill set.

What I fear most is sounding like a clone. Having thrown myself into things and hung around new comedy nights throughout this three-month process, I’ve developed an ear for performers who come from the same factory. Would I want to market the end result under my name when I don’t feel connected to what remains?

As a novelist, such an approach would get me nowhere. But in this new world of standup, it seems to be expected. A fellow student noted our education is like learning to drive. The rituals and rules exist to make us safe and competent drivers. It’s only after passing that we get to cross over our hands and develop our style.

I’m left having to ask if this is for me. I’ve enjoyed doing something different, and pushing myself to face a fear. The company along the way has been most agreeable, but it’s played havoc with my writing.

There remains one last hurdle. An audition to perform live at the course showcase. Right up until I added my name to the list, I was sure I wasn’t going to bother, but now …

It won’t sound like me. The words are not truly mine, but I might as well see this through.

High anxiety

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This has been a difficult week. Is something hanging in the air? Out of the otherwise blue came a crippling anxiety attack as Friday progressed, spurred on by the slow shift to the dead-leaf mellow mists of autumn. All at once I found myself unable for things, gripped by ‘the fear’ and desperate to hide away.

I’d tickets to a comedy club, and that ruled out lurking behind closed doors … after all, this is my ‘year of saying yes‘. By design, there will be days like this.

And so, I spent Friday evening with my feet stuck to a carpet in a room that resembled the scene of a violent crime with sixteen other people, most of whom had shown up to perform. One of the guys terrified me, one of the women is clearly destined for ‘Live at the Apollo’.

Saturday dawned, I opened one eye, breathed deep and hoped for the best. Was it over? No. Still the fear held me in its grip. Less able than ever, I forced myself to get dressed and show up at comedy class. The misery-soaked three hours felt like the seventh circle of hell as every sinew strained to keep me from bolting for the door. I stumbled through – unharmed, albeit with self-confidence gutted.

Drop out

I came home dejected, sure that week four of twelve would be my last. Determined to see a half-full glass, I told myself I should be proud to have managed a quarter of the course. I signed up knowing it would terrify me, and yet I love the people, the supportive atmosphere and how my wonderful tutor tries so hard to make me trust her process. I fear she’s fighting a losing battle. Someone who writes like I write – someone addicted to story telling – will always struggle to jump tracks.

And while I‘ve your attention, here’s a tip. If your head hammers with anxiety, avoid any on-line interviews with ‘heartbroken vets explaining the need to be with your dying dog at the end’. I spent two solid hours sobbing in the dark.

Recovery

For today, I’m playing things safe, and refusing to leave my bed.

Fellow cancer sufferers warned me these crashes land in waves. The roller-coaster of ‘remission and recovery’ is as devastating as diagnosis and treatment. Until I got close to this vile and cruel disease, I’d assumed when the doctor announced you were getting better, your spirits would soar. And now, I accept the need to permit despair. But also, that despair isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Writing

I’ve a book to finish writing. A romantic comedy – and being so unable for the world is poor form. Sure enough, the editorial feedback left me daunted, but I’ve sifted through what I want to take on board. I’m halfway through what reads like a solid draft … and with three more months to the deadline, I’ll make it. I’m sure.

No matter how crap the last few days, I don’t want to stop myself saying yes.