A man came round to look at the damage in my cellar. I need to get some quotes for the repairs for the insurance people and the good news is that (touch warped and wet wood) it looks like I should be covered for all but £75 of the work (though the actually insurance people haven't been to see the devastation yet, so things may change).
The bad news is that the man from the flooring company seem pretty convinced that I wouldn't only need new flooring, but that builders would need to come in and take up everything underneath as the dampness will have spread downwards and (if I even more unlucky) upwards through the walls. Although again I hopefully won't have to pay for all of this, it will no doubt cause quite a disruption to my home life and also means me getting more men out to give me a quote for that. It's more palaver at a time when I really need to be getting on with my proper job - losing money on internet poker. No, I mean writing.
I have til Friday to finish my sit-com script. I did some good work this morning, but the news about the cellar played on my mind and I wasn't in the mood this afternoon. I am really miles away from finishing it, but past experience shows that sometimes one good day of writing can turn something like this around and a looming deadline usually does the trick. But not always and I think realistically I will only get so far. Maybe far enough to have something to show the people who are waiting impatiently for my manuscript, twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do (including all the actors and cameramen and make up ladies who have nothing to do but sit down hoping my script is about to pop through the door). It's a horrible, depressing experience: dreadful in the sense that I am full of dread. If you're read warming up for some time you will know that this is normal, but it doesn't get any easier. In fact it gets harder every time. A morning's optimism can be destroyed by an afternoon visit by a tradesman with bad news.
Hopefully I will break the back of it this week and the knot in my stomach will subside. You know, unless my house subsides first.
What makes things worse is that I know how lucky I am to have this opportunity and yet still I shilly-shally around with getting the work done.
What makes it even worse is that I will need to earn the money from the script in case the insurance won't pay to have my house rebuilt
