Thursday 9 July 2009

Getting back on the bike

Phew! I bet you were getting worried I was never going to blog again. Weren't you? Not even a little bit? Anyway, I hope that something like normal service will be resumed soon.

I haven't been blogging for a couple of weeks because we took on an onerous editing job which - combined with other freelance bookings - meant I had to cram in the hours and work seven days a week.

That also meant I couldn't do any writing for about three weeks - the longest gap that I can remember since we went to Oz and NZ in 2003. I knew it'd be irritating, but I had no idea just how frustrating and depressing it would feel. As I rumble into middle age, I'm becoming acutely aware of the value of time.

It didn't help that I also finally joined Twitter around this time (@TomeenMurphy). While it was great to hook up with other screenwriters, it seemed that every five minutes someone was heralding great progress with a project or hinting at a fantastic opportunity round the corner - all of which made me more even more acutely aware of how much momentum I was losing.

Anyway, over the weekend we took my improbably hip 78-year-old father-in-law to Bristol for the Banksy exhibition. On the train and while hanging around at the hotel, I managed to start work on outlining the second draft of our pilot episode for Care and Control, a drama series about social work that I've been co-writing.

It was such a relief; it felt like I'd suddenly opened the blinds and let the sunshine stream into a part of my brain that had been shuttered up and abandoned. Like I tweeted at the time, I felt like John Mills when he gets his long-awaited pint at the end of Ice Cold in Alex.

Anyway, the editing gig should be out of the way in the next few days, though I've got a few other shifts booked for this week and next. Hopefully I'll soon manage to get back into a routine - and when I go back to having the odd day off, I hope I can stick to the writing the way I did during my marathon editing stints.

Bring it on, the future starts here, etc!

2 comments:

Sofluid said...

Glad to hear you're now able to get back to your own writing projects :)

I know the feeling, as I get frustrated every day in the day job not being able to write but I am at least able to get a few hours in during the evenings - must have been incredibly frustrating not being able to do it at all!

Looking forward to hearing more about Care & Control :)

The Kid In The Front Row said...

Why is everyone on twitter? I find it most disappointing. Not for any solid reason, just because I am a twitter-hater, like I hated everything else before I joined!

Glad to have you back from your little hiatus. Not that I knew you before a minute ago.

By the way, I love the VHS at the top of the blog; wish I'd thought of it first!