I got up at 7.30 in the hope that I could nail the latest script by lunchtime - which I almost achieved, though it was 3.40pm before I sent it in. Some people have a late lunch. As always the rapidly approaching deadline proved to be somewhat inspirational. After hours of sitting, staring vacantly at the screen and then deciding to look at Twitter instead, this morning I hit the ground running and jokes were spewing out of my fast moving fingers even though it was only eight o clock in the morning. The question for all writers is, "Is the hours of sitting getting nothing done actually part of all this, or can we just sit down on the morning before and have the same effect?" Unluckily of writers I think that the answer is that the ruminating is a vital part of the process. Even yesterday when I was out waiting for my friends to jump out of someone else's friends the hoodie and the adult world's prejudice against the young were ticking away in the back of my brain, which was slowly, but surely slotting the pieces and the argument of the script into place. I still think I make this a lot harder for myself than it needs to be.
I spend so much of my time wishing that I was capable of just sitting down in a chair every single day, working solidly for four or five hours and then relaxing and enjoying the rest of my day. If I could simply do that five days a week then I would get about ten times as much work done as I do now, but I can't and thus the work time creeps into my leisure time, permeating it like a gas, rarely allowing me any respite. I have been trying to more effectively manage my time for at least a decade (starting Warming Up nearly eight years ago was an attempt to address this very issue), always thinking that maybe tomorrow will be the day that I clear the fug out of my head and have everything in place and just sit down and let the words come. Yet that never happens, much as I would like it to. I could spend my afternoons visiting museums and art galleries and reading books and sitting in cafes and my life could be a semi-holiday every day. But instead I find myself playing 3251st game of Yahtzee (not including the six or so months of games that I played on my previous iPhone), watching Deal or No Deal and wishing I was dead.
I don't think this will ever change, though it does seem a shame that my brain is so disorganised and easily distracted that I don't get to live the other reality unless I am actually on holiday.
Of course part of the reason that it was possible to get up at 7.30 this morning was because I hadn't been doing my other job (of being a stand up comedian) last night. The two jobs inform each other, but also impinge a bit. And the problem is I sometimes forget that the stand up bit is a job. I probably don't need to beat myself up for not working hard enough, given I am a bit of a workaholic really, but evenso it does feel like I waste much of this precious gift of life.
Still all this wasting of the precious gift of life gives me plenty to write about.
I suppose I just have to accept that it's unlikely that I will ever change. But will keep on making doomed efforts to do so anyway!
Having said that in AIOTM terms having a script pretty much completed 24 hours in advance makes me more prepared than a boy scout. And now it's done I am looking forward to it, whereas last week I was cursing my stupidity at taking something so hard on so soon after Edinburgh. Just as I will be later in the week as I start work on the 3rd and 4th ones. Even though they are only half an hour long this is a bit like having to write a new Edinburgh show every week, but it is rewarding to think about new subjects and formulate opinions and theories about them.
As I listened to the personal problems of some of the other comics backstage at my other job tonight (although I was working for free doing some of my secret charity work that I don't like to talk about) I realised what a lucky life I have been blessed with. And none of this stuff is me complaining, just trying to give you (and moreso myself) some kind of window into how my job works. I have ridiculous good fortune and the older I get, the more I realise that.
I will continue to play away my life I suspect. It's a perfectly valid way to live. As valid as any of our lives are. I have stayed true to the spirit of the cock drawn on the blackboard. I was thinking about this as I wrote my script. As kids we all find that funny, but one by one we stop - either we mature or we sell out our youthful ideals that a cock drawn on a blackboard is funny. But when we found it funny I bet we all swore to ourselves that we'd always find it funny, that we wouldn't get to the point where we looked down our noses at the joy the blackboard cock can bring (also equally valid drawn on walls or in the condensation on windows). I have been consistent and not let down the young me, like 99% of the class of 76. It doesn't make me better than the others. In fact it almost certainly makes me worse. But I am going to keep that up until I die. Thankfully the desire to be mature in everyone else creates a society in which I am able to be so willful and irresponsible. So thanks to the non-cock laughing squares. With their regulated work periods and their families and hobbies and happiness. I have won!
