after 2 and a half years of research and writing the first performance of my play 'before i leave' is edging closer- it has been a while since i've got new work out- i forgot what it is like to have people on your side- collaborators theatre creatives designers producers and friends- i feel real again- it is a strange thing to create a play in isolation- typing away staring at that flickering screen dreading switching it on in case the ideas refuse to flow- i would call it pain filled- but yet somehow beautiful- to tap away at the keys making choices that can affect the whole structure- nearly 30 years ago i came across a quote that would change my life- arthur miller said he wrote his plays to make 'people feel less alone'- outwardly simple yet probably the most profound statement on art i have ever read- because yes isn't that why we gravitate towards a certain band a painter that obscure poet or that long forgotten novelist? to. feel . less . alone - to try to connect with something tangible in a world that strips away feeling? i know i did and still do. i know that in 1988 i threw myself into tennessee williams allen ginsberg jack kerouac albert camus sylvia plath and arthur miller - i gorged on their words their ideas their dreams- i had always thought writing was for the rich the ultra educated those having a career break- i did not know if it was legitimate for me to write let alone be heard- their words unleashed my own and for that i am eternally grateful- formal education was a waste of time- no sparks just blankets smothering creativity- my peers bored me - rugby fighting and piss ups- never really floated my boat and it was a lonely battle to raise myself up from their musclebound grip and walk the cleaner air of poetry and nature- so why am i regressing this isn't a history lesson?- it is sometimes helpful to retrace those furious steps of youth to find out why you picked up that pen WHY you would take a notebook up a mountain why you would listen to conversations on the last bus from cardiff to the valleys- i certainly didn't want to make money i definitely didn't know how to be famous- i just knew that words were my way out and my way in that i could truly be myself on that blank notebook page i knew there were stories to tell i knew my place my postcode my accent my world was not being represented in the media and i knew what it was like to 'be alone'- so here i am having written a play inspired by cwm taf choir in merthyr tydfil a town full of protest of struggle and of song- i also knew that the members of this choir were fading that their stories needed to be told- i knew, that it was time to make 'people feel less alone'- - the journey continues.............