Writing is an odd job. I know I've said this a thousand times, but sometimes I look at myself and wonder, "Did you really think this through?"

The factor I didn't entirely think through is a factor known to science as "my entire personality".

I'm quite a social person. I love being around people. Talking, getting the giggles, even arguing with people is fun if everybody knows not to thump their fists on the table and scream "oh shut UP Darren you neofascist" and so forth. Being a writer involves extricating oneself from society. It means sitting alone and writing for long periods of time about people, none of whom you come into contact with, due to the fact that you're too busy writing about them to talk to any of them.

This is fine, I knew this would happen. I knew I would need the self-discipline to say, "Actually I can't do that fantastically interesting thing over there because I have to be utterly boring". It's like my old maths teacher Mr Raff used to say, "If you don't want to learn, that's fine by me". Because the person who's going to lose is always you.

As a result of this, I have become antisocial. This is in direct contravention of (see above) "my entire personality".

And even that's fine. I mean, it's awful, but it's a trade-off. I don't see my friends as much as I used to, but I've done the projects I set out to do and I've enjoyed them and I've quit my day-job and I'm feeling less like a caged bird than I used to when I was trying to juggle all these things at once and surely my friends understand, provided they remember who I am, and I love them, and they know that. 

What does bother me is what's happening now. Think of it, if you will, as a war. On one side there's my writing, and on the other side there's my personality. Sometimes my personality wants to kill my work because it causes my personality pain. Sometimes my work subdues my personality. Occasionally, they go into diplomatic talks and they organise a compromise whereby I can have a nice time with friends and also get some work done. 

What's happening now is: there's been a coup. My work is taking over. It's infiltrating my personality. Just like those diagrams of World War II with the pincer movements of troops across maps of Eastern Europe, my personality is under attack. 

Working by yourself is lonely. You don't talk to people in the office kitchen, or pick up the phone and call the department of whatsisface to talk to that lady with the scratchy voice about that invoice they should have sent. You don't have to deal with anybody at all if you don't want to. And in fact, it becomes more and more difficult the less you do it. As a result of this mental coup, I am becoming, I suspect, a true writer. I misjudge the moment at the dinner table and come off as obnoxious. I talk too loudly and too enthusiastically. I over-think. Afterwards, I wish I had said nothing at all.

 So if you know a writer, or someone who works freelance and gets to have coffee in the sun whenever they like and answers to nobody and refuses to get out of bed early unless there's a deadline: be nice to them. It's not always as fun as it looks. 

Standing There Productions had a big weekend this weekend. Rita came down from Sydney and we saw The Hayloft Project's fringe show, Yuri Wells. It were lovely. One man show. North Melbourne Town Hall. This week only.

We also saw our very own Paris Hilton, Miriam Glaser, in A Black Joy - another fringe festival show although one I should have seen earlier, given it has now finished and me telling you to go and see it would be somewhat pointless/cruel/unfair.

Anyway. One of the more important developments Standing There Productions made this week was the establishment of a new tradition: Fortune Cookie Monday.

The results of the inaugural Fortune Cookie Monday were as follows:

Bodes well. Don't you think?

Things Unhelpful in the Writing Process, part a bijjillion in a series:

1. The passing of time.

Although conversely this could be said to work, sometimes, in one's favour. EG when a piece of writing feels like it is perhaps the greatest thing ever written by man, woman, beast or Shakespeare and only the passing of time will reveal to you that in fact it is not the Bayeux tapestry, rather it is one of those children's drawings in crayon of giant heads on sticks with arms emerging from their foreheads.

2. Other imaginings.

Be it the imagining of a new idea, another existence ("Maybe I could be a CARPENTER!" etc), a fabulous line for an as yet unwritten piece of writing or the acceptance speech at an awards night celebrating said piece of writing, or even a sweet, brief, devastating but classy revenge speech delivered to a long-lost high school bully or similar. WHATEVER. I'm making these up. Mostly. The point is: shut up, brain. Concentrate on the creativity at hand. Do NOT attempt flower arranging/pottery/cooking classes/taking up a language and/or instrument.

3. People in libraries who may as well be spending their day at a bar and/or roller rink and/or rock concert for all the work they are doing oh please please stop talking with the vapid gossip and the loudy loudy oh please my ears are bleeding ogod what did I ever do to you boo hoo I'm going to get a coffee.

And yes, sure, writing by yourself can lead to insanity.

You have been warned.

A version of the following originally appeared in The Big Issue, which is an excellent magazine that you should go out and buy immediately for a range of reasons only some of which are to do with the fact that I am in the upcoming edition as well.

At my work we have a weekly tradition: Friday morning tea. Coffee, cake and the quiz from the newspaper. It's a great tradition. Except for the bit with the quiz. And sometimes the coffee. And one time the cake. But that's another story.

I have two problems with group quizzes. Firstly, they tend to involve a fair bit of “Hang on! I know this!” followed by the revelation of the actual answer, followed by cries of, “Iceland! Of course! I was just about to say Iceland”. Hence a friendly morning tea degenerates into a fight-to-the-death battle of wills with Lleyton-style appeals to third parties and heartfelt cries of “Come ON!”

Also, clinical tests prove that quizzes melt my brain. I either sit mute and stupid in the corner, or find myself shouting “Iceland! I knew it!” with my colleagues. I feel like I should be good at quizzes. I should know things. “Do not go gentle into that good night” was written by one of my heroes. I just can't think who, although I'm fairly sure it's not Rufus Wainwright or a Marx brother.

Well, it turns out (and I know this because I googled it) I can blame technology. According to Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics, people who grew up using the internet don't prioritise remembering facts and don't respond to rote learning. A recent British study (googled it) found that tertiary educators are scrambling to adapt so they can teach students native to Google and Twitter and whose appreciation of, say, a Milton poem will come not from memorising the poem but from various sources including that Nick Cave song and maybe a hipster T-shirt with a Milton quote on it.

Who understands the poem better? Who knows? One university has made its position fairly clear by banning research using the internet entirely, favouring the learning of authoritative facts rather than a mess of information provided by faceless individuals with unknown agendas.

But in defence of internet natives: we do know how to use the internet. Generally speaking, we know what information to distrust. Most of it, usually. We're not the people emailing our account details to fake banks. We're not the ones giving money to the nice Nigerian man who needs help with his sick child. We don't trust every piece of information and we sure as hell don't remember it for next time because, by then, it might have changed.

So this is why I do not recall a single useful thread of information while doing a quiz. I'm not dumb, my brain is just more modern than yours. I'm totally getting a T shirt.

Sometimes, when it comes to writing deadlines, time disappears. Half an hour, two days, a month. This last time, I had a deadline during which one of my oldest friends gave birth to an actual human being. That really does tend to put things into perspective. 

Anyway.

Thing is, when you write a big bunch of stuff every day and your entire brain is consumed with this one, lonely idea you're working on, you know what? You don't write much else. You don't have much else to say. You don't, for instance, write an awful lot on your website. Or, you know, anything at all. But the two deadlines I've been working towards have now come to their crushing, painful conclusions and here I am, faced anew with fresh deadlines and a sense of hope. THIS TIME I'm going to be organised, clever, hilarious and the queen of the multitask.

I'll let you know how that goes for me.

Meanwhile, check out the next issue of the Big Issue. There's a slight possibility I am right up the back of it. Where all the cool kids hang out.

I do love the concept of a writer flourishing with merely a modest wage and a Room of Her Own. It's a lovely idea, and it's true, of course. 

However, I believe it could be more true.

5 Proposed Requirements to be added to the List of Things Writers Need In Order To Write Without Hinderance:

1. Interesting stationery. Whether it's a pen, a new computer program, a spunky little notebook, or even a pencil sharpener that renders a pencil more pleasing to use: as a writer, I am much more productive when I am interested in the media/process. If this implies that I am not interested, while writing, in the outcome, and that in fact the outcome (my own writing) bores me almost beyond comprehension, then I can only apologise for this appalling misrepresentation.

2. Copious amounts of food. Again, the more novelty value the food has ("Ooooh! Cheese wheels with pictures of cartoon animals on them that are obviously designed for children's lunchboxes!") the more one can be convinced that a cheese-wheel is as good as a holiday and one doesn't need to go outside and rediscover the real world. 

3. A butler. Preferably one who doesn't think "I know! I'll make a cup of tea!" and then promptly forget this original intention and emerge, two hours later, having de-iced the freezer with a butter knife and cleaned the floor with the aid of a toothbrush.

4. Access to all media - internet, television, radio, books - but only (and perhaps this is a bit Harry Potter, but surely someone can have it arranged) after a series of tests verifying a real and urgent need to be informed, as opposed to a perceived real and urgent need, these things not necessarily being distinguishable during the process of writing.

5. A trampoline. I am of the opinion that brief periods of trampolining during one's writing day would solve many of the problems associated with sitting still in the one place, thinking about the one thing, and going completely mental due to lack of stimulus.

The sooner these proposals are introduced into some kind of legislation, the better for the state of the nation.