It's pasties and a G-string, beer and a shot. Portland through a shot glass and a Buffalo squeeze. Popcorn, front row, higher than a kite, and I'll be back tomorrow night.' Tom Waits

Waits assumes the role of a punter at a seedy, burlesque club for 'Pasties and a G String,' it's a lewd and filthy song, though written from the point of view of an observer, an outsider. What would the same song sound like from an insider? It is possible to use the same style as a framework, and change the point of view? This is my current writing project, and it's suprised me in my initial gathering of ideas, how scathing I am about a community and artform that I have a lot of love for. Waits doesn't paint a glamorous picture of burlesque or himself as an observer in his song, although the last line is 'And I'll be back tomorrow night.'

I took a leap into the unknown this week in taking part in Peta Lily's Take Your Act Further two day workshop. I presented some ideas I had been working on to Peta and the five other participants, and by the second day the basis of my whole piece had changed quite significantly, and I really had to be brave and unapologetic. I ended up writing my own version of 'Emotional Weather Report' and workshopping that, and improvising a very bizarre dance, where I was brandishing an ice-pick! I asked the group what they saw emerging in terms of themes, and if they had questions at the end of my individual session, and here is a list....

Where are in you in this world?
Appearing and disappearing
The power and meaninglessness of words
A sense of being underwater and breaking the surface
Grasping at meaning
Clutching at something tangible
Seduction, Desire and Revulsion, luring an audience in
Beauty and Horror
Masculinity and Femininity
A non-linear structure, mini-burlesque interludes, exploring the themes presented in the writing - my own writing. Can you be the female, London version of Tom Waits in an authentic way?
Living with pain
Quote Waits like people quote Shakespeare to illustrate their point
Speaking with the quality of a rotting liver
Vulnerability and Strength
The subconscious speaking in rhyme
Consumer war and Black Friday

I'm doing plenty of research into trauma and the brain, and I've been reading Peter A Levine's book 'In An Unspoken Voice.' There is section on war veterans, where he lists the different names given to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, from the American Civil War to the present day - it's interesting to note how the labelling of it has changed with perceptions over time:

Susto
Soldier's heart
Nostalgia
Shell shock
Battle fatigue
War neurosis
Operational exhaustion
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Posttraumatic Stress Injury

The last 'label' was offered by an Iraq veteran, indicting that the condition isn't permanent, and can therefore be healed.