Canyon Found Under Greenland Ice Sheet - and thoughts of Robert Peary by Pippa Roberts

Hi everyone,

I have just seen this news from NASA:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/index.html#.UiEJNhukqop

It's interesting that we are still mapping the surface of our planet. I have a particular interest in Greenland and the Polar regions, as I am working on plays set in them, and I have just - virtually - finished the OU course, 'The Frozen Planet', as background for these. (just my TMA - (final paper) - still to go). I've read a huge number of books about Robert Peary's journeys in Greenland, and the exploration of this ice sheet. I wonder what he would have thought of this news? He hoped that Greenland would turn out to be a larger landmass which would allow him to trek straight to the Pole, and he even convinced himself that he could see hills in the distance.

There is so much more to this story that I am dying to tell. Look out for the play, which should be finished some time this year.

My writing workshops at the National Star College, Ullenwood Manor, Cheltenham

Hello again,

I've actually had a wonderful week, in spite of the sleep deprivation on - um - Monday? I led some writing workshops at the National Star College, at Ullenwood, Cheltenham. I'd been there before, so I was beginning to know the staff and to have an idea what to expect. The first time I went was back in December, when I was asked to do workshops around the theme of winter. I uploaded some videos of ice hotels and freezing weather onto their interactive whiteboard (which was a new skill for me), and then I guided the students through the process of writing stories, using all their senses to make the descriptions more vivid. They produced some lovely work, and I think we all enjoyed it. I didn't want to stop at the end because one student was dictating such a moving story.

The workshops this week were equally lovely. I find the whole atmosphere there very conducive to creativity. Staff have a relaxed and gentle approach. No one is ever rushed (even me :D) and the students also seem exceptional and very open to new ideas. We began with a music video on a summer theme (Bryan Adams), then went out into the beautiful gardens. I read some summer poetry to them, including one by Spike Milligan, and then they had a go at writing their own. I always feel slightly awed by this process. Every student writes something so different, and yet every one is good. I wish I'd asked for photocopies of the poems to take away, so I could have put them here. Next time I will.

Yesterday I took some time out to go shopping, but today I have been working steadily on my robot play, which I want to finish and send out. (I'm just making minor amendments after the staged reading last year, but I have a long version and a short version and am trying to untangle the bits I want to keep. Quite a task.) Tonight I finished reading the scripts of Roald Dahl's 'The Witches'. I've had this horrible fear that it might be a bit like my Hag of Horra and her cat, Humphrey, but, to my relief it's about mice and witches, not cats and witches. A boy cowers under the table at one point, and in mine the cat cowers under a table, but all similarities stop there, and all of the rest is totally different. Phew. Of course I knew this would be the case, but I was almost afraid to read it in case Roald Dahl had had the same idea. :D

I've finished a lot of books lately, but I've already written a lot about them on goodreads. I loved Oliver Sacks's 'Hallucinations' - and was fascinated to learn that hallucinations can be associated with all sorts of things, including visual problems. I remember seeing little people rather like the seven dwarfs when I'd been hitchhiking with my boyfriend in hot weather, and never knew it was a typical hallucination (though I knew it was one).

I've also read a couple of very good books on forensic techniques and anthropology. (Dead Men Do Tell Tales and Forensic Clues to Murder). Have a look at my reviews if any of this interests you, and do get in touch.

love to all,

Pippa x

PS. A gorgeous golden moth has just settled beside me. Never seen anything like it! :)

Watcha folks,

I'm back. Still a bit unsure about my posts and whether they're going to disappear again, but there's now a copy of my blog on the Fractal website, and I'm aiming to keep duplicates there. I've been having a lazy day today - catching up on reading, and sleeping a fair bit. I went to Oxford, to give a workshop on Thursday and I've been working long hours on the Fractal website, which I've moved to wordpress, as it kept disappearing - usually when I'd just applied for a job and really wanted to impress someone. :D

I've been having a bit of an administrative week altogether actually. I've acquired an author page on goodreads, and have been trying to work out how to add books to my author page (turns out I can't because I've used different names. :() They say they'll be addressing this problem soon, so I hope they do.

I've started a new children's story, about Kitch and Kitcholla, who are rather special characters. I'll post some here when I start typing it. I'm actually getting a very strong urge to try to do illustrations as well. That would be fun... (I just might, if I can work out how. Watch this space. :))

Apart from that I've just been doing restaurant reviews. I went to the Courtfield Arms on the Ross Rd a few days ago. It has a new manager, and she is doing it up, with a lovely sense of style. It's a wonderful spot, looking out over the Wye, so worth a visit.

I must go now. I want to finish a book on forensic techniques before I go to bed. :D

Good night,

Pippa :)

Theatre Centre, Skylines Showcase and Conference on Writing for Young Audiences

Theatre Centre, Skylines Showcase and Conference on Writing for Young Audiences

Ha, my blog posts have been restored! I'm so pleased about it that I'll write another one.

I want to write about the Theatre Centre London conference on new writing for young adults, which I went to last week. It started at 10 in the morning, so I had to stay in London the night before. I decided to try St Paul's Youth Hostel, which is just opposite St Paul's Cathedral. It sounded lovely, and I was quite excited, and looking forward to popping into St Paul's cathedral. Well... things didn't work out quite as planned. The day before I left I was expecting my removal men to bring me three or four boxes out of storage, and they turned up with about fifteen (all to be fitted in one room, which was pretty full already). I unpacked what I could, and shifted boxes around, and, of course, this meant that I was thoroughly exhausted when I started out for London on Wednesday. By the time I arrived at St Paul's I felt quite ill with exhaustion, and decided to skip the visit to the cathedral, and go to bed straight after dinner. There was a really lovely woman who was a teacher sharing my dorm, and she felt the same, so we settled down, hoping no one else would come in.

Hmmm. There were people coming and going all night, and the huge fire doors made a lot of noise. Not only that, but there was the sound of glass being smashed outside through most of the night. The only thing I could think it might be was a collection for recycling, but I could swear it went on for hours. Then, just to cap it all it was suffocatingly hot. I think I slept perhaps half an hour all night.

Thursday started at 6.30. I'd booked breakfast, so I had that, but I still felt unbearably hot, and uncomfortable. I'd forgotten to take soap, so I had a soapless shower, and had to manage without cleaning my teeth because I'd have woken people up. I collected all my stuff in the dark, as the curtains were still drawn for sleepers, put on my clothes from the day before because that was all I'd taken - never dreaming it would be so hot. I have rarely felt such a complete sight. Then I made my way to the Canada Water Library, where Theatre Centre had organised the conference on writing TYA. After cleaning my teeth in the ladies I felt slightly better, but not much. I went to pick up a coffee, and to my relief, was greeted by Jude, who is a member of Cheltenham Everyman Actors' Lab, and is also a gifted writer. Of course... many of you will know... I have prosopagnosia, as a result of head injuries many years ago. I had no idea who she was, but when I admitted it she was most understanding, and she helped me by spotting people I should know, and pointing them out. This was a huge relief. She kept finding me too, which I really appreciated. Although my visual recognition is improved, according to cognitive tests done at the hospital, I can only recognise people now if they look straight at me. If they turn their heads to the side I am lost. Also, I do find that, with exhaustion, I can't recognise anyone at all. Anyway... the day began with a brief address from Natalie Wilson, artistic director at Theatre Centre, followed by a speech from playwright, Bryony Laverty. This was warm, humorous, and interesting, and it was inspiring to me to see a woman who had successfully built a career for herself in writing for theatre.

After this we had a couple of workshops - both with well known playwrights: the first with Rob Evans, who got us building models of places we'd been happy in childhood, and the second with Philip Osment, who worked with us to identify the problems of creating verbatim theatre from interviews with young people. This last was very interesting, and useful, and many people liked the first, though I don't find that sort of thing very helpful (probably because I'm not much good at it. :D). I tried to create a scene from holidays in Llanstephan, when I used to try and hide in the reed beds to do my writing. The only thing vaguely resembling reeds were bamboo sticks, so I took a piece of yellow card and sat on it, holding up a few sticks and peeping through them. Rob told me I should create something to represent what was happening nearby, so I made a very messy thing, with ripped up bin bags, held together with pegs. (Don't ask. It was meant to represent my family's difficulties, with my sister in hospital in Carmarthen!) It was so horrible it spoilt my lovely, happy scene. Rob thought that was good because it had made me more conscious, but I feel I'm conscious enough, and... um... I need my springs of joy to be unsullied. Usually I make things up when asked to produce memories to work with, because I've had bad experiences like this before, but in this case I forgot. I was the only one not to like it, as far as I know. Some people built wigwams with the bamboo sticks, and the person I was paired with tried to make a path, which I thought was a boat, when asked to guess. Ah well... He thought I was in a cage! :D

In the afternoon we watched the winning entries from the Skylines competition. Skylines writers were asked to put in a 15 minute script... in two parts. For the first part writers had to put in just the first ten minutes, and the second part - the last five minutes, was to be written after receiving feedback from the judges. I have to admit that I entered this, and wasn't even highly commended. The judges praised it very highly, and said they loved my humour and wit in the first ten minutes, but I must have let myself down in the last five minutes. Mind you, I was in the middle of moving house,for the second time this year, and fighting floods of tears, when I wrote that last five minutes, so I'm not really surprised.

I really enjoyed the plays, and they were excellent. Suhayla El Bushra wrote a very moving piece, (Sehr Cool),about two teenagers, who both had huge emotional defences, being lost in a wood at night, and slowly discovering who each other really were. The teenage boy reminded me totally of my second boyfriend, who never stopped talking in funny accents, or scraps of different languages. I thought it was very authentic and really loved it.

Kellie Smith's play was about a gremlin who kept stealing a child's toys. The actress who played the gremlin (Naomi Ackie) was absolutely superb, and the whole piece was fun.

Jane Wainwright wrote 'Life Mould' about a girl running a 24 hour web stream from her bedroom.

All three plays were well worth seeing, and I was relieved to discover that I'd been beaten by such good writers. I have the scripts of the highly commended ones to read, and am looking forward to reading them in bed when I've finished this. :)

This is turning into an incredibly long blog, so I'm going to hurry a bit. The plays were followed by a debate between several eminent people in theatre... Anthony Banks, Associate Director of National Theatre Learning; Jonathan Lloyd, Artistic Director of Polka Theatre; Purni Morrell, AD of Unicorn Theatre, and Natalie Wilson, AD of Theatre Centre. After this we all, supposedly chilled over a glass of wine, and chatted to each other. My visual sense had 100% gone. Jude had to leave early for a bus, and I spent most of my time standing on the edge, staring into the crowd and trying desperately to pick out people I knew. Once I went up to someone and then thought I'd got the wrong person, and turned my back on them, just as, I think, they started to speak to me. I then went into intense worry mode, and started thinking I was offending someone I really like and admire. I left, as I left the hostel, feeling like a seed spat out by a fruit that couldn't hold me, caught a bus to Victoria, and then walked about for a while before getting the megabus home. I'm glad I went, even though it was difficult. I'm absolutely determined to learn anything I can that will make my work suitable, not just for school halls, but for big theatres. From the point of view of networking I probably offended people, and created a bad impression, but I hope that what I learned will outweigh that.

Better go,

Pippa x

Hi everyone,

I'm slowly beginning to recover from the shock of losing all the posts I wrote over a few years, and I've decided to start writing it again, but to also copy posts onto a wordpress blog, so there are two copies. There are serious problems with the Fractal Publishing website, which seems to come and go, and, as most of the information about what I do, (along with my references), are on there, it is more than a little disheartening. This is the link to my amazon author page, with books still in print. (Most things are out of print now, and many have only been published in magazines.)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philippa-Roberts/e/B0034NLYW8

The word 'Stargleam' is a good one to put in in a Google search for me. 'Pippa (or Philippa) Roberts Stargleam' brings up quite a few relevant links, and distinguishes me from the jeweller, Philippa Roberts, and all the other people who share my name. (How dare they?! :D) I used to have to keep a low profile online, and so have always had to use pseudonyms. Eleanor Theyer was the name I used for my journalism.

So... that's the dull bit of the post done. I need to tell you all that I am doing now. :) The play and novel for the Hull University project are done, and I'm in an interim period before writing the next play for them. I'm using the time to work on things that I did years ago. I'm still finding that I'm on a steep learning curve, which is frustrating it some ways, as I look at things I wrote, even a few months ago and realise I can improve them. I have always been a terrible perfectionist, and all through my teens I compulsively rewrote a novel. It was quite sad as an adult to look back and see that the first draft was far and away the best. The only sort of rewrite that works for me now is a) to move information around and incorporate more detail. b) to rewrite the entire book or play, changing the structure (and I've had to do that a few times!)

I'm slowly revising Things You Can Do With Chips, and I've decided to write Miz Margenon's Jungle for adult actors. I'm sad about it in a way, because I think it would be really valuable for a YA audience, with the help of a teacher, or other adult to discuss it. I've talked to director, Paul Milton at the Cheltenham Everyman, and to other writers, and the general consensus seems to be that I should write it for adults. It's a very powerful, and also a visually striking story, so I hope this is the right solution at last.

On the novel front I'm writing two things. The first is a ghost story for a YA audience. I wrote the first draft a few years ago, and now I'm revising it. The second is an adult mystery. I'm still plotting out the background at present. You can see my hero and heroine on my boards on Pinterest. Or, at least, people who look very like them. :) (Adrien Brody and Michelle Pfeiffer. :)) I love Adrien Brody's face -sensual, intelligent and beautiful. I fear my heroine will go crazy about him. :D I've tried to upload an image from pinterest, but this software won't let me do it. Grrrr.

So, that's where I am now. I do work too many hours, and I do go to a lot of workshops around the country, but I'm doing the work I absolutely love.

See you all again soon,

Pippa x

Tips for Writers: How to Cope with Rewriting

Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I've spent a lot of it on my own, as there are no buses, and I didn't want to stay away. I've been studying writing style (no, you're never too old to learn!) I have Tom Bailey's book, 'On Writing Short Stories'. It is published by OUP, and it is most definitely NOT one of your write-to-formula books.

I have learnt useful things from it. Perhaps the most useful thing of all was a chapter by Robert Boswell, about how he got over a block on rewriting. He describes how he used to do anything to avoid it, and I could clearly recognise myself in his avoidance tactics. It's just too daunting, especially if you are a perfectionist and see the faults clearly. I also find it quite painful to realise that I can be so clumsy and inept. (Moi?) Much of my work that hasn't come out right first time is still sitting on the computer.

Robert Boswell writes the chapter on transitional drafts, and explains how he finds it best to tackle one issue at a time. He starts by correcting any minor grammatical, or punctuation changes, then moves on to another particular issue. If he feels that one character has come out with dialogue that's a bit flat, for instance, he will move on to that next. When he's done his best with that he will work at something else - perhaps making another character stronger. Each issue will be tackled in a new draft (with the first drafts - of course - carefully saved on the computer.)

I found this very useful. I do do it in practise, but I had never broken it up in my head, if you see what I mean. It makes it far less terrifying. I used to always feel I was writing one new draft instead of several (or many). This is why I have never understood how some writers claimed to have written 50 or more drafts. In fact, I now know, I've been doing it myself, and not giving myself enough credit for it.I wrote 522 drafts of my last play. (Only joking. :D)

The way you think about things is everything! I'll never be terrified of rewrites again, which is just as well because I have a load of them waiting for me at present.

See you all again soon,

Pippa x

Poetry Readings Pippa Roberts, Cheltenham

MY POETRY READINGS Pippa Roberts, Cheltenham


Hi everyone,

My last post was so sad I thought I'd better follow it up with something more upbeat, now I'm feeling slightly better. I still wake up crying in the mornings, but I do firmly believe that, if your love is not wanted in one place you should give it in another.

I have had a wonderful idea for another children's play - but more of that another day. Suffice it to say that it concerns some wicked witches and a cat called Humphrey. :)

I thought I'd tell you about the poetry readings I do in residential homes, and for senior groups, today. These give so much pleasure to me, and (I'm told) to the people I read to. Sometimes I'm asked to read my own poems, but I usually do a selection from a variety of poets, with poems from different periods, linked by a common theme.

Today I read poems that were about winter and Christmas. We went from Thomas Hardy to Robert Frost, to Louis MacNeice, to Ted Hughes, to Maya Angelou, and, (of course!), to my dear Effie M R. This is one of her poems about Christmas:


Do you realise Christmas is near?
I'm afraid there'll be but little of cheer;
It just seems a farce when hearts are sore
And war's destruction lies right at our door;
Still I suppose we must see it through
And say yet again, "A merry Christmas to you."

I guess you are hoping that I will make
A nice rich spicy and iced Christmas cake,
Well, there will be a cake of some sort, it's true
Of currants and raisins, I have just a few;
But icing! - dear me, you may look aghast, -
But icing sugar's a thing of the past!

A Christmas pudding, with brandy sauce! -
Really good people, - I'd love to, of course, -
But that's disappeared, along with the whisky,
There's nothing this year to make you feel frisky;
But we'll be thankful for what we can get,
Even though the fare's plain, we haven't starved yet.


Thank goodness we don't have to worry about a lack of brandy sauce or whisky. :D

I came out and met a man who offered to give me my own baby. Hadeha. I suspect he'd have enjoyed the making more than the childcare.

I just want to play with my sweet Isaac again. All blessings on his dear dear head.

Pippa :)x