Dodecanese, March 7th
Monday morning, up for an early walk despite the clouds and cold wind, and back again by half seven ready for the day ahead. The March 7th Parade is set to happen down in Yialos, celebrating the day the Dodecanese were handed back to the Greek state. This actually happened on the first of April 1947 after a few years of British Military Administration, but the day is celebrated on March 7th as this was when King Pavlos sailed in to Rhodes. There you go.
Looking out of my window now I can see a sailing yacht heading out towards Nimos and the channel between it and Symi, its main sail up and the boat tipping to port. You can always remember which side is port from the phrase: ‘There is no red port left in the bottle,’ a phrase my father taught me. Red, Port, Left are the three words to remember there, the fact that starboard is green and right is left ‘implied’, though you do have to know that starboard is green (when talking about lights on a ship). Where the bottle comes in is anyone’s guess, but that’s about as far as my nautical expertise stretches.
Anyway, I was just looking for some new ‘Books set in Greece’ titles that might be of interest to readers and found this site: http://www.greekislandbooks.com/ It’s good to see Anne Zouroudi with an author interview there, and her novel ‘The Feast of Artemis’ listed. This is one of the seven Greek Detective Mysteries, the first, ‘The Messenger of Athens’ being partly inspired by Anne’s time spent on Symi, the landscape and the people inhabiting the island. As you may know, Anne kindly wrote an introduction to my second collection of tales from Symi, ‘Carry on up the Kali Strata.’
Which kind of leads me on to Donkey news. I was able to get my head down over the keyboard and carry on with the first draft of this unusual ‘novel’ based on my screenplay. I say unusual as it’s not taking a standard novel format, not that there is one. There are no chapters, simply scene headings as there are in the script. For example: EXT: Village Square – DAY. There then follows the description of the scene that takes place in the village square at that time in the script, with dialogue added in as you would expect to see in a novel, rather than formatted as a screenplay. The dialogue is being expanded, as are the descriptions from the ‘black stuff’ as the stage directions are called in a screenplay, and I also have the luxury of adding in some background and other elements which you wouldn’t normally have in a film script. The first draft is chugging along nicely and well on its way to be ready for my second draft in June; or before, if I can get it done.
I have also just booked myself onto a writing course with the South African Writer’s College, as I mentioned the other day, as I thought it about time I did some learning in scriptwriting. I mean, after four musicals, several revues, a couple of plays (all performed) and two films (both filmed, one nearing post production, the other one… well, who knows?) I thought it was about time. So, that will hopefully keep me busy in the in-between times when I am not working up ‘Shocking the Donkeys’ or finishing off ‘Remotely’ (just seen the cover design, latest draft, very nice), thinking about a screenplay version of ‘Lonely House’ and also working on many other ideas, including another set of tales from Symi with other short articles and stories included. Plenty of work to do to keep me off the streets and steps for a while, I hope.
