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It's the end of 2020, and even though it's been a really strange one, I can't complain about how it has gone for me professionally. A lot got cancelled, but many other jobs appeared to take their place. I learned a lot of skills way too fast, but they're useful. So here goes...
JANUARY. Canto X work in progress at Manipulate, with @fronteirastl, @mdbolsover, @Dave_Robb_Dave, @jamesslimings and Adam Tompa. Pic by @chrisdonia.
FEBRUARY. Screech work in progress for @Stellarquines Make Do & Mend, with @fronteirastl, @anknaarockiam and @TheatreSAccents. Technically March when we presented, but we put it together in February. Pic by @chrisdonia
APRIL. The Zooming times began, and I ran a series of skillshares for @DirectorsScot. Pic by me at the end of a very, very long day on headphones.
MAY. The Den for @OperaHarmony, released on @OperaVision_eu in July. My second opera, with @justwilliamspr @CSchlechteBond @JenAliceClark @britthew
JUNE. Black Comedy and The Real Inspector Hound for @EdinActingSch, coaching and zoom wrangling while @EmilyCIngram directed (and re-directed, and re-directed, all at the whims of Madame 'Rona.)
JULY. A sneaky readthrough of a covid-proof geocaching ghost story that I'm hoping to find a home for this year...
AUGUST. Instead of the three Fringe shows I had lined up, I taught a series of summer bootcamps. My neighbours love me and my vocal warmups.
SEPTEMBER. A brief hiatus from Zoom, and a little development on @DebsCa's The Remarkable Deliverances of Alice Thornton, with @fronteirastl.
OCTOBER. The work in progress of Fragmental, supported by @Pwrightsstudio & @CreativeScots, with @msjlindsay, @fronteirastl and @mdbolsover.
NOVEMBER. Development on @HanLavery's The Unseen Child for @HopscotchTC, with @Adamkashmiry and @JackBishopActor. I do not know what I'm doing with my face.
DECEMBER. My first experiments with making stop motion puppets, ready to convert Star Cuddie to digital in the New Year. Plus writing a ton of lyrics and preliminary work on a couple of 2021 projects, but shots at keyboard in jammies are less interesting.
I'm very grateful that in this weird and difficult year I've had enough work that it was difficult to narrow each month down to just one project and image. It's been a massive learning curve made up of a million smaller learning curves, but I'm masochist enough to enjoy that.
I'm also grateful, in a weird way, for the years of relentless trauma in my late teens/early 20s and the therapy that followed, equipping me to handle life interruptions, cancelled plans and involuntary changes of direction. Not fun skills to acquire, but useful ones.
I don't know what 2021 will bring, whether the work I currently have lined up will happen, what form any of it will be in if it does. But I'm hopeful that most if not all of it will, and curious to see what other things will come my way.
And at the last count, assuming neither acceptances nor rejections arrive today (and if you're planning to send out either, DON'T, you weird sadist, leave it until the 3rd at the soonest), my submissions hit rate for this year was 24%.
There endeth the obnoxious end of year roundup. Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone I've worked with whether in the Before Times or the Zooming Times. You've been a delight, and I hope we get to do it again in 2021. Or '22. Or '23... or...
