4-dimensions 8-stations 12-words

Last week I realise my book is more than 12-words. HarperNorth has a tiny submission window. I work night and day. Here is the introduction.

Working Title:

4-dimensions. 8-stations. 12-words.  

A pilgrimage to the oracle of you. 

 

Sample Blurb:

I love that the universe follows irrefutable laws. Made of maths. Sterile. And we are flesh. That sunflower heads and snail shells, spirals, obey the Fibonacci sequence. The wonderful thing about maths is there is no guess work. A spiral is the combination of the new and previous number. 0+1= 1, 1+1=2, 2+1=3, 3+2=5, 5+3=8, 8+5=13, 13+8=21, 21+13= 34.

 I love that the universe began in all directions. No plan. Only laws. And maths. Maybe the laws came out of the maths. God, or the designer, does not give a fuck about the hero’s journey. The universe does not have to do certain things at certain times. Or maybe it does? It has taken billions of years to make us. Microbe; dividing cell; fish; mud flapper; mammal; primate; missing link; and me, who visited her in her vault in South Africa.

 Inspired by the universe, I’ve built a creativity blueprint. 3 laws: 4-dimensions; 8-stations; 12-words. Maths. That also acts as a checklist. Replacing worry with certainty. Evolving a complex world. In which we stare into our pond at our ghosts.  Pull our sword from the stone. Walk forward armed.

 

Biography

Since 1989, every morning, I meditate for one hour. Planning a different future than selling weed and being part of the mixed-race Moss Side Manchester gang.

Since 2002. 5 plays produced by big theatres. 3 published. All prize-winning. 3 consecutive Arts Council England grants: I collect the memoirs of my teen, Moss Side, cellar club, the Reno. Excavate it. Exhibit our finds in the Whitworth Art Gallery. Manchester City Council Outstanding Contribution to Culture Award. Sculpt TWELVE WORDS, the intertwined memoir of 3 Reno ladies who have never written before, Published by Bluemoose.

2024. My why is realised as I descend Factory International’s Bette Davis stairs in a £2000 bespoke denim ball gown using my white mum’s status to declare myself the mistress of the Jamaican plantation my dad descends from. 

A 35-year pilgrimage to the oracle of me. Each project developed by and developing 4-dimensions; 8-stations; 12-words.

 

A Developed Chapter Structure with Brief Synopses

Content

  • Ø  Introduction

  • Ø  My First Ever Mind-map

  • Ø  What’s in the Cat

  • Ø  Basil and Beattie

  • Ø  Black Crows

  • Ø  Speechless

  • Ø  The Reno

  • Ø  In the Ruins of the Big House

  • Ø  My Mum is White

Introduction

My younger years feel like the dark ages. A Hieronymus Bosch painting. All over the place. Deep, deep, shit. Ugly things. More ugly things waiting to get you. Demons. More demons. Eating people. Unhealthy. Black Death. Missing pieces. No God. No help. No sunlight. Dark. The Dark Ages. I am astounded I came out of it. I live in light now. I love my new life. I made this journey through art. I made this journey because of art. I have always been interested in art.

 Aged 4 I have a blue piano. I kneel at our 3-legged coffee table and colour in Jesus. The lambs are yellow because white doesn’t show up on the page. There is an old quaker type church on the ginnel street around the corner. This house is where Angle finds my mum. The daughter my mum left to run off with a black man My dad. And where one day not too long in the future Angie will run off with a black man too. A fat poppy eyed fucker who molests us all. I think I’m the only one he fucks. But I am 13 by then. Already not a virgin. A bit of a mess. So, it doesn’t count. I don’t tell anyone.

Well, I do a few years ago when I excavate my teenage cellar club, the Reno, then exhibit our finds in the Whitworth Art Gallery. When I am talking on the stage of the Royal Academy, one of the Reno 12 (those who help me devise our exhibition) text me. ‘Mandy Hughes is saying all the Reno half-caste were rapists.’ It is the first time ever I tell anyone about Delbert fucking me when Angie is in the bed pretending to be asleep. I suppose it is the best payback to the cunt who robs her mum. I blog about it to divert attention away from the damage Mandy is trying to do to the Reno project. My quest then is a bed for the night. My quest now is to teach you to conceive, generate, evolve, steer whole projects. To entertain you. Keep you company in a safe way like Julia Cameron: The Artist’s way; Natalie Goldberg: Writing Down the Bones; and Anne Lamott: Bird by Bird. Keeping myself in the realm of spiritual. Easy. No negatives. Everything is possible. It is really possible. Just follow the simple path of 4-dimensions, 8-stations, and 12-words.

Citation

4-Dimensions

A Square.

The dictionary meaning. "Dimensions" refers to the measurements of something, like length, width, and height, or the scope or extent of something. I associate:

  1. Ethereal.

  2. Outer space.

  3. Cornerstones.

  4. A box.

  5. Somewhere to trap your thoughts.

  6. Contain them.

  7. So, you have a yardstick.

  8. Length/width/breadth.

  9. Volume.

  10. A frame.

  11. A square.

  12. A diamond.

There are 4 dimensions framing my book.

  1. It’s a how-to book.

  2. It’s my memoir.

  3. In the arts.

  4. How I learned to say fuck you and mean it not cos I want to be a fake revolutionary but because I’ve finally realised your shit stinks too even though you and your ancestors could afford better perfume. 

A Diamond

The quest. Aged 9. Primary school. I want to be good at rounders but I’m not. I am 3rd base. A shit spot. The only things worth being is the bowler; the person behind the batsman; or 1st base. From afar the fielder throws the ball. I raise my hand. Let go. It hits my hand dead centre. I hit 3rd base dead centre. I am exalted to first base. Matrix every ball every thrown at me from that day. No one ever takes my place.

  1. 1976. Aged 16. I bring my insurance accounts ledger down from £200, 000 to £673. 3 months. Using the rows of little address boxes, a Rolodex, and a pool of typists.

  2. 1999. Aged 40. I tell everyone my first play will go on in the Royal Court. Most laugh in my face. What’s in the Cat is the Royal Court’s Xmas play 2005.

  3. 2010. Aged 50. Exiled for talking back to a high-born white woman. I raise my sails. Open seas. No land in sight. I write — no structure. I mind-map — no purpose. I land on the island of 8-stations February 2012.

  4. 2024. Aged 65. Factory International. I descend Bette Davis stairs in a bespoke £2000 denim ballgown, I use my white mum’s status, to declare myself the mistress of the Jamaican plantation my enslaved dad descends from. Before this moment I have never performed on stage.

8-stations

Draw a square. Overlay it with a diamond. In each intersection draw a symbol. With values like tarot cards.

  1. Fallen angel protagonists.

  2. Shading canvas wash.

  3. Mask hidden.

  4. Recurring like the moon’s cycle.

  5. Change is forced.

  6. Creating a world supporting climate.

  7. Ghosts emerge.

  8. The action, hammered, forges a sword.

My portfolio exhibits 8 major projects in my career.

  1. My first Mind-Map

  2. My first play What’s in the Cat

  3. Basil and Beattie

  4. Black Crows

  5. Speechless

  6. The Reno memoirs, excavation, exhibition

  7. In the Ruins of the Big House

  8. My Mum is White: Exorcising Half-Caste Ghosts

At each station I draw the first image each project evokes. Then mind-map. Pictorial brainstorm the images.  Let them talk to each other. Diagonally. Across time. In ways I have forgotten. In ways I’ve never known. I am inhabiting my subconscious. It evolves complex worlds. I can analyse with my conscious mind. This reveals the subtext. The ghosts. It feels right. This is a major part of everything. It feels right. Writing, projects, books, essays. They are not about words. They are about thoughts. Thoughts are about feelings. Have you ever walked into a room and feel I can’t fucking stand him. But then there is someone else and you can’t stop talking to them. Why? Chemistry. Serendipity. Like noticing there are 8 projects in my portfolio. Here is the 8-station mind-map of the structure of this book.

8-stations mind-map

8-station mind-map of 4-dimensions 8-stations 12-words structure.

12-words

2006.  In a dream I see 12 different coloured jars. My subconscious tells me: If the whole universe is made of only 92 elements, these 12 jars can generate every chemical reaction you need. Peterborough Maximum Security Prison. I make a circle. 2 middle class Clean Break facilitators. 1 middle class director. 4 professional actors. 40 inmates who have just watched my play Black Crows.’ ‘Tell me an object you can’t live without.’  ‘I can’t miss.’ ‘Yes, you can. Tell me an object you can’t live without. Mine is tweezers. That says I am vain.’ They tell me. ‘On your paper, list 12 things you associate with your object.’ All 47 participate. Your title is What Makes Me Angry. You have 20 minutes to write. You must include your objects and your 12 associations under your title. I have been told in the glass secure door bit on entry not to mention anger, their kids, or the outside. Turns out what makes them angry is not talking about their kids and the outside. Everyone is hugging when I leave, like Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter.

Me and You

Frame.

We are going to work weekly.

  1. First, I want you to declare 2 hours you can guarantee every week.

  2. Then a place where you feel relaxed, for these 2 hours.

  3. In your 2 hours each week you will read the chapter and do your exercise.

  4. Do your exercise. There’s 168 hours in a week. These 2 are yours.

You and Me

Quest.

Each of the 8 chapters has 4-dimensions.

  1. A chapter of my memoir: framed by one of my 8 projects. Each chapter generated by 12-words. We can use as a case study. And to help you generate your work. 

  2. The maths, mechanics and philosophy of the 3 techniques.

  3. I’ll talk about what the week’s 8-station symbol represents and how to use it.

  4. You will write a chapter of your memoir generated by 12-words, governed by the 8-stations.

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