How long does it take you to write a play?

How long does it take...? It's the most frequently asked question, particularly from novelist friends who all secretly harbour a bitter resentment that we lucky playwrights only have to write a handful of words and our work's done while they are still struggling with chapter four. And when I'm asked about a particular play I can never remember and mutter something about it not taking very long once you've got it all sorted in your head. And I think that's because once I've really got into the piece and produced a first draft - after which the writing starts to become fun - I wipe away all memories of how desperate it was trying to find my way into what I wanted to write. Yesterday afternoon I sensed that I might have found a way into the play I'm writing for Hannover and this morning I think I have.
I have thought this several times before in the last few weeks only to discover that all my great ideas folded under pressure. But this time... This time I feel all I have to do is write it. And when I get to that moment it usually means the first draft is on the way. So how long? From the first thoughts, through the first meeting in Hannover, to now, today, has been eleven months. And I really thing that at last it's there, and now I'm scared that if I rush into the next section I might mess it all up so I'm going to do the only thing possible and leave it until tomorrow afternoon when I get back from the RSC Tempest Playback session with the kids from the Rotherham schools at the Lyceum in Sheffield and go and cut the hedge.
I saw The Tempest again last week because I wanted to see it with a full audience, not in a rehearsal, and it was as brilliant as I thought it was going to be. I also went to the young peoples' version that Kate Hall was running on the Thursday afternoon and that was really good too. I've been avoiding reading the adaptation as I'm doing one for a Nottingham Playhouse co-pro but as I'd finished it and sent it off I felt it was safe to go. I find myself missing loads of stuff, films, novels, plays, if I think there might be some thing in there close to the work I'm doing - terrified of copying someone else without realising it. And that's what I did all the time, for years, when I was trying to write, let myself be influenced by someone else - trouble was I didn't know I was doing it until too late and I'd written a second rate version of someone else's play.
Had a good day on Sunday too down at the Trent Navigation. Matt Marks, who I've worked with a lot, was playing there late afternoon and Andre the percussionist from the Tempest company came down to sit in on drums. I watched the three of them Matt, on keyboards, Steve on bass, and Andre negotiate their way through the first set. The grins became wider and the music more adventurous as they started to play off each other you could feel their pleasure in what they were creating. I wish I could manage more that C F and G.