Where am I going with this story?

The more I try to think about generating a story the more difficult and frustrating this whole process is becoming for me.  It makes me crazy that I can’t yet think of a story to write about. I’ve done quite a bit of research, taken the photographs, immersed myself in the stadium atmosphere yet I feel so empty and devoid of a story to tell that it’s quite upsetting and depressing. In some ways I feel like a complete failure and maybe I’ve set the bar too high and that actually, maybe I am a writer who has run dry of ideas of his own.

There I’ve said it. I’ve done what I hoped I would never do. And that is tell the world I’m crap. Writing is always such a frustrating process for me because unlike other people, writing comes to me in drips and drabs. It’s never ever flowing. It’s always really really hard work.

Looking back over my notes I wrote that Emirates stadium was like a gladitorial environment. Week in and week out the stadium would swell to capacity with its hordes of supporting Arsenal and the minority away team. The songs that the Arsenal supporters sing en-masse are akin to a National Anthem which energises the supporters in a mad frenzy. Weekend games are so important. It’s that time when all the supporters have been waiting all week for their dose of intravenous football. The blood pumping, the snarls made when the opposite team foul one of our players, the lift-off the seats as Arsenal score a goal. This is football like you never see on television. This is the hardcore version with the supporters letting rip how they really feel.

I’m always asking myself who are the characters that will be borne from this reasearch? I know that I have a father and son and this is some form of passing the mantle (or rites of passage) between father and son. But who else? Of course there are the fans,. These are the people that come in week and week out, and they are willing to spend between £40-£110 per ticket, or if their a season ticket holder they could be spending between £1k – £2k per year, or premier seating between £2k-3k, or for those that have bottomless pockets they would pay £100k in which they get their own private area, access to the private members bar, an underground car parking space and 3 years season ticket use. Can we say that clubs like Arsenal are actually manufacturing or exacerbating the great divide between those that can afford, against those that cannot? Football clubs are not built and maintained by executives – who are only the few. They are buit by the supporters who have for generations supported the club. What happens to those that for generations love this club, but have a hard time paying money to see their team? What does that say about the stadium that on one hand needs to swell itself each week, but for some the price of being part of that swell is beyond their means?. Is this what football is all about? Not just about the game but the division between those that can attend, and those that cannot?

As the characters are to be borne from the stadium, the characters will need to personify the stadium. Is the stadium a means of how we blood our young – especially in the context of passing the mantle? There is something very profound about this as it links it very nicely to what I observed during the Members’ Day, and obviously the matches themselves. The Dandelions also hold an important motiff to me but I can’t seem to figure that out – at the moment. Still not sure what the story is about…

The key to my story must be rooted in impressionism. If you think about it, Impressionism is rendering of natural life as it happens around you. For the great Impressionistic painters of our time like Renoir, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh etc to really look around them and capture the world as they saw in all its raw natural beauty. I think about directors like Ken Roach who embraced impressionism in films like ‘Kes’. And, maybe instead of feeling scared that I don’t have an idea for a film I need to relax a little bit and think about what I have occrued to date from my oberservations and perhaps think a little more deeply about what I’ve actually observed and processed.  When I think of the great painters, or directors did they simply sit down and think what they’re doing is a masterpiece, or was it simply about doing it and doing it well because they had an infinity to their subject? Maybe that’s my problem. I’m trying to create an award winning masterpiece, and I’m not giving myself space or time to breathe and think about what I’ve observed and processed and use that information to base my story idea upon.

I’m very weary about the story that I select doesn’t just come from the mind, but is directly drawn from my observations. I recently read an interview with Syd Field on the publication of a new edition of  his screenwriter books. He mentioned his collaboration with Jean Renoir (son of Pierre August Renoir). He stated if you try to draw a leaf from imagination,  you will only ever draw a particular type of leaf. But, if you draw a leaf from looking at it in its natural environment you will have hundreds of leaves to chose from. Now, looking at this assignment it does become a scary assignment because I am really afraid of selecting the wrong story. I love the process of writing, but the actual lift-off into writing is fraught with despair. I worry about the authenticity of what I intend to write as I want to make sure that my characters are derived from the stadium and not simply from my mind.

When I question myself about my feelings of authenticity I do feel very unsettled, anxious and despair. On one hand, I’m trying to fit in everything that is academically required from me (from reading the Unit materials) and then trying to think how I can fit this into a very artistic piece simply worries me. I worry about authenticity, because I’m scared of chosing a story that people will read and not believe it came from my observations. For me, this would be heart breaking as I would have spent effort and time in the writing only to be told that what I’ve written is too much from the mind and not from direct obsevervations. I suppose the closest this is to the real world is gaining a commission, then writing something that was totally outside of the requirement scope.

I want to be authentic. I don’t want to shoe-horn a story into my observations. I don’t want to write about football itself. I want to write about those that frequent the games to watch football. It’s the people that I want to care about. Its those their lives, their time, their money, their sacrifices they make seeing the games week in, week out. People who goto football matches make great personal sacrifices to do so, especially if they see home and away matches. That is sacrifice from a timing perspective and a monetary perspective – I remember at the members’ day I met a man with his two young boys who had spent over £100 to buy the latest away kit. He wasn’t too happy about the money but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make for his children. It’s really interesting about the sacrifices people make to go and watch the games. I personally could not go and see every game because of the expense and the timing of the games. A boundary would have to be set, as seeing all the games would disrupt my weekends with my family. But I wonder if those people that come to the games, if any of those didn’t have any boundaries? If coming to the games was the ultimate sacrifice they were making, at what expense to their lives was this costing? Is the money people are spending to goto the games being used from a pot of money reserved for other things, like a food on the table, travel money, paying the rent, paying a loan shark, paying debts off, paying for medication? If money is being used elsewhere to fund the football games, how is the quality of life being decreased? And as it decreases, does it enrage the spectator when they witness their team doing badly? How does it affect them? This is quite important from an observational reasearch basis, because there are times when the crowd are hurling such vitriolic abuse that it does make you turn around and want to face and name the shamed.

I need a cup of tea…..