I
have let my blogging slip, that much is certain. It has been weeks
since I have found the time to share my incredible opinions with the
world and I’m sure that the world has suffered. The thing is,
there’s someone else. Well, something else. Well, multiple other
things. Simply put there simply isn’t enough time for me to write
all the blogs I want, to work on the scripts I’m working on, to put
together new stand up material, and to keep myself and my offspring
from starving to death. Something had to give, and on this occasion I
decided it was the blog. This thing. The thing you’re reading now.
I’m not apologising because I’m not sorry, I’ve got quite a lot
done in these recent weeks, and regret is pointless unless something
can be done to change things in the future. Short of cloning me, a
future break in blogging is likely, and cloning me is a terrible
idea.
My
plan, code named ‘Not Doing A Job You Don’t Really Like Or Have
Any Interest In For The Rest Of Your Life’, involves quite a lot of
writing. It’s something I feel I’m actually good at, as well as
enjoying the process immensely, so it seems logical that my ideal
occupation would involve doing it, with the end result being getting
money for doing it. Haven’t got there yet, the plan has a few
stages built around sitting in the dark on my own in front of a
keyboard and receiving mass rejection, before any number of pence are
acquired. The project taking up the bulk of my time and brain power
is a comedy script that I started writing with a friend a couple of
years ago, at the time it was best described as a sitcom. We wrote an
episode, entered it in a competition, didn’t win, and put it in a
drawer marked ‘Not Good Enough’. Because it wasn’t, otherwise
we would have won. It could be excellent though, and thusly I have
opened the drawer (it’s not a real drawer, but a metaphorical one
created in order to avoid having to describe my eccentric filing
system, which is essentially a huge pile of paper and an overfull
email folder) and started another rewrite.
I
love a rewrite, having trained myself a long time ago to not get over
attached to my work, so it’s something I’ve sunk my teeth into.
Unfortunately my teeth haven’t been anywhere near a script for a
long time, so I keep biting my tongue and that fleshy bit on the
inside of your cheek. That’s a metaphor again. So far I’ve
changed it into a comedy drama, switched around most of the
locations, and written off all the old dialogue, as well as
redesigning a couple of characters and fleshing out motivations and
story arcs. It’s been brilliant and at the moment I can see it
working, and working well. Kinda missed it, actually. It is going to
take bloody ages though, something I’d sort of chosen to forget, so
I’m going to have to watch it, lest it becomes a horrible, horrible
time sink.
The
stand up is different. That sort of writes itself, or rather other
people say it out loud and I write it down, change it a bit, and
pretend I’m hilarious and layered. When I’ve compiled enough of
other peoples sentences and the ideas they produce in my mind, I
start to sew it all together, hoping that there’s a sort of thread
or narrative that will propel everything along. Currently there
isn’t, which is troublesome, and it’s a trouble that has just,
over the last few days, really started to piss me off. I’m new to
this organised amusement for strangers thing, so I’m still very
much finding my feet when it comes to constructing the funnies. I
can’t write a ‘traditional’ joke, one with a concise set up and
snappy punchline, favouring instead a rambling tale style of delivery
in which it appears (or is) that all of it is related somehow. I
dread standing there puking up stand alone, truncated anecdotes, or
simply rattling off a list of titter inducing phrases that I’ve
clearly heard from other people. Dread it. So now I’m going to
focus on making the pages and pages of potential humour I have
amassed, actually be good. It’s going to take longer than I had
hoped. It is of course possible that I’m not very amusing.
As
well as all this I am still expected to go to work, which is a bit of
a bore. Not very understanding nor supportive of them really, I’d
be much better off at home, churning out sheets of my words, deleting
and retyping until I have something I’m pleased with, than sat in
an office, half administrating, half dreaming up plot points and
character traits. Usefully though, I should soon be able to use some
of the money I get from being half employed, to move house, which
will provide a healthier writing environment, and in turn, my fame
and fortune. I intend to create my perfect Creation Station, a name I
shall absolutely, never ever refer to it as, and make a kind of word
work rota. I will be organised, productive, and to most observers,
crushingly dull. I will use so many words that I’ll be forced to
create new ones, such as occutired and dialost, respectively, the
feeling of continual monotony in the workplace and the inability to
find acceptable dialogue for a character.
So
if you wonder where I am at any point, you now know. I’m hunched
over a keyboard, and it’s not even to look at boobies. I will be
back, weekly at the very least, if just to go on about how very good
I am at all the stuff you don’t get to see. If the blogs suffer,
it’s not because I suck, it’s because I’ve used up all my hand
speaking on other stuff. There’ll be a video blog soon too. Maybe
about moving house, maybe about how furious I am that I couldn’t
move house.
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