Mark Stringer

I’m a writer, performer and project manager.

Mark Stringer Author Performer Project manager

This is a single-page site. Blog posts, show reports. Performance dates. Everything goes in this page.

If you want to contact me, my email address is mark.stringer@gmail.com - phone (+44) 07803257982.

Wednesday 4th February 2026

What’s the simplest way of explaning my book?

Delivering The Impossible

There’s a temptation to think that project management is simple.

Despite all the evidence.

What evidence?

Projects run “late”.

Projects end up being “over budget”.

Sometimes projects aren’t delivered at all.

Why does this keep happening again and again?

Because projects are far more complex than we imagine.

Because projects are far more uncertain than we imagine.

Because we instinctively see projects in ways that are unhelpful.

My book tries to help us see projects in more helpful ways.

Projects aren’t just, or even mostly about delivering on initial promises.

Projects aren’t really about delivering “exactly what it says on the tin.”

Projects are about discovering value.

Projects are about putting users in touch with that value.

If we think about projects in this way, we can deliver something useful and valuable.

Even in situations where delivering what was initially promised would be impossible.

Tuesday 3rd February 2026

Joke writing exercises from yesterday.

Word definitions

Define the following words:

Pentastich

Brucine

Panocha

Chiasma

Macrura

Fitché

Heythrop

Labanotation

Explain to a Martian

  1. Write down three people you really don’t like.

  2. Explain to a martian why you love them.

Sayings

Rewrite these well-known sayings:

Devil take the hindmost

Old soldiers never die, they just fade away

Manners maketh man

All’s well that ends well

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks

The more the merrier

You can’t take it with you

Sunday January 25th 2026

I sat in an art gallery cafe this morning and wrote and wrote longhand. This is what Natalie Golberg recommends in “Writing down the bones”.

My experience is that it needs coupling with some good strategies for editing. Anyway long story short, I fleshed out the plot of an opera about project management.