Gittin' ideas on a Croatian isle...
I’m finally a rooster,I’m a rooster – and no, that is not Chinese astrology (where I’m dog, woof woof), it’s getting up at the crack of dawn type rooster person.
This morning, I got up at 6pm and I sat down and wrote uninterrupted for an hour before heading to work. You may now applaud.
I am not a morning person. Like Bart Simpson, I was blissfully unaware that there was a six o’clock in the morning too, at least the only times I’d ever stumbled upon it were at the end of long stumbling nights… And when people spoke of ‘morning pages’ I scoffed – not for me, I said, I’m rather more the Keith Richards close to the witching hour kind of artist, innit.
There was the occasional,well intentioned morning when I set my alarm clock – but nothing came of it. And all the better, I mused, as I’m awful before the first caffine injection of the day and still carry a warning sign up to two hours afterwards…
So.. what happened? Age, a job, life I guess – and mostly because these evenings I’ve been promising myself that I’d spend writing, I’ve been too tired post work to do anything more than answer a few emails and edit a few stories (if I’m lucky). The result is that the first half of this year has been remarkably unproductive. And there i was, on my Croatian isle, kicking back on Krk for a few days with my Croatian buddy Marina when I started to think aobut how I was going to get the writing done… and it came to me in one fell divine flash swoop ‘Get thee up early” …
And so, a week on, I set my alarm for six this morning. Woke and sat at my laptop and wrote 1,000 words of a story – sketched out the plot of an idea that had been buzzing around my head for a couple of weeks. Now its on paper and I’ll visit it again tomorrow morning at 6pm and expand. And I’ll have it in some sort of shape so I can edit it at the weekend and then start on another idea I have next week.
Moreover, I was so pleased with my little achievement – I was buzzing for the rest of the day.
Lets hope I can keep this up!
About suehealy
From Ireland, Sue Healy is Literary Manager at the Finborough Theatre, London, a full-time Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader in Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln. "70 Years At The Court" is her upcoming book, due to be published in 2026 by Methuen Drama, which she is co-writing with Prof. Harriet Devine. Her previous book "The Literary Manager's Toolkit" is on theatre literary management is published by Routledge (2023).
Sue is an award-winning writer for stage, TV, and prose writer.
TV
Her current project, a 6x60minute TV series, is under option. She is under commission with Lone Wolf Media, producers behind PBS’ “Mercy Street”, to co-write the pilot and treatment for a six-part TV series.
Stage
Her most recent stage-play, Imaginationship (2018), enjoyed a sold out, extended run at the Finborough and later showed at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Her previous stage productions include Cow (Etcetera Theatre, 2017) and Brazen (King’s Head Theatre, 2016), funded by Arts Council England. Sue’s short plays have been performed at the Criterion (Criterion New Writing Showcase), Arcola (The Miniaturists) and Hackney Attic (Fizzy Sherbet Shorts).
Radio
Her radio work includes nine plays broadcast on BBC Radio 4 (Opening Lines winner), WLRfm and KCLR96fm.
Prose
Sue has won The Molly Keane Award, HISSAC Prize, Escalator Award, Meridian Prize and has been published in nine literary journals and anthologies including: The Moth, Flight, Tainted Innocence, New Writer, Duality, HISSAC, New European Writers. She has been writer-in-residence on Inis Oírr, Aran Islands, and at the Heinrich Boll Cottage on Achill Island. She has also benefitted from annual artist residencies at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, and at Ginestrelle, Assisi in Italy.
An academic with a PhD in modern theatre history, specifically the Royal Court Theatre, Sue has presented her research internationally. She spent eleven years in Budapest, editing Hungary A.M. She has a PhD in modern theatre history (Royal Court Theatre) and is a UEA Creative Writing MA alumna.
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