Hello friends! I had a most pleasant visit out to Virginia Water over the weekend, where I spent a glorious day holed up in Adam’s brand new writing cabin1. It’s a sight to behold - all honeyed timbers and big windows, perfect for letting in the sunshine and inspiring great thoughts. There’s a whole shelf full of books, another full of tea, and in the middle of the room, a gorgeous wood-burning stove, which we had no need for on this very warm and lovely day. We’d planned this OneTrackMinds away-day for a while, recognising the need for a full day to focus on our goals and ambitions for the show, and the shed cabin more than delivered on its inspirational promise. We hashed out some plans, decided against some others, and got the ball rolling on some very very exciting news OneTrackMinds-related developments which I’d love to tell you all about, but won’t just yet, as to do so would be a little premature. Needless to say though, they are very exciting, and we’re sure you’re going to be pumped when we do eventually decide to spill the beans…
One thing we can share with you is our full line-up for our next show at Wilton’s Music Hall on May 31st. It’s not really news, I suppose, as we’ve had our lineup confirmed for a while now, and I’ve been telling you about it on and off for the last few newsletters. But, what is new, is this very fancy Facebook Event Cover image, which I knocked up on Canva yesterday evening…
How’s that, hey? All five of our beautiful guests, presented in name and image, as well as the date on which it’s happening. Simple, but effective. At least I hope so.
To elaborate a little further, on Friday May 31st we’re going to be joined by the fabulous Gethin Anthony from Game Of Thrones, rising comedy star Elf Lyons, film director Karan Kandhari, composer and creative director Stephanie Singer and actress and founder of Friends With Shakespeare, Claire Cartwright. It’s a huge lineup, and our only show at Wilton’s until July. As always, you can pretty much be guaranteed a good time - but only if you buy a ticket. So don’t delay…
Some things to share with you this week:
Our new cohort of Hidden Tracks storytellers joined us last Tuesday evening for our first workshops of the year. If you’re a long time OneTrackMinds newsletter-reader, you’ll know that we run workshops to help people who’ve never told a story in public before, and to give them the skills and confidence to get up on stage and deliver their very own story about a song that changed their life. This month’s cohort were terrific (hey there Erin, Jo, Jonathan and Clemence!), and we’re very excited to see how their stories develop over the coming weeks. If you’re interested in joining a future workshop, drop us a line.
To get us in the mood for workshopping again and to rub off some of the rust, I spent a bit of time over the past few weeks dipping in to some of my favourite books about writing. Pick among them is Steven Pressfield’s peerless The War of Art, which does a better job of describing the battle of sitting down to write (or to tackle any creative endeavour). Frustratingly, it seems to be out of print - or at least, unavailable on Bookshop.org.uk, which is annoying. But, as Austin Kleon says, Every Writing Book Is Good if it gets you to write…
In the same spirit, here’s an entertaining rundown of legendary writers and their preferred tools.
Last week’s Bookshop Bonanza was a lot of fun. An update - I am 200 pages in to Andrew O’Hagan’s Caledonian Road, and so far, it doesn’t disappoint. If you’ll permit me to quote from it:
He was all of a sudden beside him, the Duke, dressed in a ridiculous Nehru jacket and white linen trousers above a pair of slippers. ‘I have to confess,’ he said, ‘I still haven’t read this book of yours. Too much work if you ask me.’
‘That’s idiotic, Tony. I speak as a writer.’
‘Of course you do!’
He touched Campbell’s arm as they turned towards the others. ‘I’m afraid I’m rather depending on you tonight,’ the Duke said. ‘We’ve got one or two absolute crashers.’
It wasn’t really possible to be with Tony without wanting to alter the world.
Marvellous stuff! It’s a riot, and I can’t wait to get stuck into it again tonight. A reminder - which I neglected to make much fuss of last time out - but if you buy any books through our Bookshop affiliate page, we get about 10% of the cover price as a commission, which all goes towards supporting our show, and is highly appreciated…
The only thing stopping me from getting into bed immediately after dinner in order to spend more time in the company of Mr. O’Hagan’s fabulous monsters is the fact that my wife and I are 7 episodes in to Netflix’s absolutely stupendous new show Ripley. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, let me urge you most passionately to check it out. It’s excellent. Apart from the fantastic cast (Andrew Scott, Johnny Flynn, Dakota Fanning and Eliot Sumner lead the line, but huge plaudits must go to the scene-stealing Maurizio Lombardi as the no-bullshit Italian inspector on Ripley’s case), and the stately pacing (the show takes eight hours to tell the same story that Anthony Minghella told in two, which is absolutely not a criticism - it fills the time with an almost unbearable sense of tension), the most striking thing about the show is its incredible cinematography. It’s genuinely one of the most beautiful TV shows I’ve ever seen. This piece in Vanity Fair delves more into the creative partnership between director Steven Zaillian and his cinematographer Robert Elswit.
Talking Heads are one of the bands who have been selected most often by our OneTrackMinds storytellers over the years, so it was with much interest that I read The Guardian’s rundown of Talking Heads’ greatest songs over the weekend…
Lastly, here’s a list of 30 Ways To Fill Your Life With Joy.
Right, that’ll do! We’ll be back again next week. Until then, stay happy and healthy.
KB.
Next Show - Friday May 31st | Tickets Here
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I made the terrible faux pas of referring to Adam’s new cabin as a ‘shed’, which he didn’t take kindly to at all. There’s nothing wrong with a writing shed - as Roald Dahl, Virginia Woolf, George Bernard Shaw, and no doubt many, many other terrific writers will attest to. Nevertheless, I won’t refer to it as a shed ever again. Apart from in the subject line of this email.