Peering through the mist

I don't know what's wrong with me at the moment - maybe I'm in a bit of a trough on the oul' biorhythm cycle.

I keep finding it very hard to concentrate, like there's a fog in my brain where it used to all be very sharp and clear. And today I feel really lethargic - almost jet-lagged. I didn't have any "work" so I thought I'd manage to get a bit of writing done, but I've just been slumped in front of the laptop (literally), struggling to keep awake.

I added about four pages to Foot Soldiers, but it's pretty much just placeholder stuff that didn't really move the story along. Despite having a decent framework for it, it's now getting a bit out of hand; I'm on page 57 and still quite a way short of what I'd earmarked in my outline as the midway point. I'll just plough on with it for now, taking the "don't get it right, get it written" approach. I'm quite good at hacking and slashing later on.

More positively, my co-writer on Care and Control came round for a bit of a catch-up this afternoon. She's currently having a course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, so the script has been on hold for a while. However, she's feeling well and wants to get stuck into it again, so I'm going to try and edit down our first episode over the next couple of weeks (currently 69 pages), while she comes up with a few more A-story possibilities.

I also revisited Last of the Reality Police last week, before sending it to an agent. It just shows how a bit of time and distance can help you to get a handle on something. I felt a bit burnt out on the script last year after working on it so intensely, but I managed to find a few new angles when coming back to it after a few months. The third act mostly takes place in a 'dreamscape', so I found ways of making the characters' experiences more relevant and personal, and then went back and layered in the set-ups.

I've been seeing a few things at the BFI over the past couple of weeks - mostly from the femme fatale thread of the Birds Eye View festival - as well as some noteworthy stuff at the theatre, so I'll try and cobble together a few thoughts on those - if my terrible psychic deterioration permits...