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Six weeks tonight since I had my last alcoholic drink. It’s been incredibly easy this time (I guess partly because I don’t socialise as much these days, though that hadn’t stopped me drinking every night for the last year or so) and I am not missing it at all. It doesn’t seem to have had much effect beyond that. I haven’t lost any weight (though I am trying now to eat more healthily and get back into exercise too) or been feeling any different really (having a baby is a bit like a permanent hangover - Phoebe ensured I only got about four hours sleep last night). But I am still glad to have knocked it on the head, if only for a little while. At the moment though I have no compunction to return. Catie and me are aiming for 100 days (so we’re not even halfway through yet), but I may push on with it.
I thought I was going to be too tired to get anything done today, apart from beat my Addams Family Pinball High score (achieved - second time I have got over 1.5billion). But after a positive day yesterday I managed to find the requisite energy in the afternoon. And again worked in the evening (which it turns out might be a positive work influence from being a dad - things are quiet and I get a second wind and I can’t go out so I might as well write). And I pretty much finished the second draft of the script. I really hope I am on to something with this one. It does seem to be coming very easily. When I finally sat down to write the first draft I did it in less than a week and this second draft, although with some major differences to the first, has come together in two or three days. After knock backs and disappointments I had started to find script writing a struggle. But hopefully this is a sign that my mojo is returning. And that I am being a bit more mature about it. A lot of the difficulty is self-imposed and the lack of application, coming in the most part I guess from the fear of yet another failure. Will this one break the jinx?
More importantly if it fails to get green-lit, will I resist the petulant urge to self-sabotage? Or will I pick myself up and do the next one. One of my career regrets is that I haven’t written more television. In my less self-loathing moments I think that I am good enough and that maybe I have been unlucky not to have more stuff on. At other times I realise the good fortune I have had to get things broadcast and also been paid for writing spec scripts. Indeed most of the failure to launch, I believe, has come down to myself. I had opportunities that I squandered and failed to get stuff in on time. I was paralysed by my own fears and self-doubt and possibly entitlement too.
It’s a very tough game. Even when you’re not fucking it up. And it’s far from fair. I watched Zoolander 2 tonight, a script so lazy and badly written that I would have guessed they improvised the whole thing if they hadn’t had sets and complex costumes which must have required some preparation. Never write a joke where a surprise celebrity cameo will do (though the stuff with Kiefer Sutherland - especially the denouement - god knows why I am being so reverent as to prevent spoilers - did make me laugh, if only for its horrible inappropriateness). How do films like this (and all Adam Sandler films) manage to attract such brilliant actors? - Kristen Wiig was entirely wasted in this, but what made her turn up at all? Is it just a big payday for minimal work? It feels it must be something more. I know that things don’t always turn out as well as you’re expecting. But even for a film that is meant to be trading on being rubbish, this was bad rubbish, not good rubbish.
So that gives one hope and despair in equal measure. My stuff is definitely better than some stuff that gets made. But then the people who make stuff clearly don’t understand (or more likely don’t really care) what makes a good script.
Anyway, my script is far from perfect and the hard work (and multiple changes) begin once we’re allowed to actually make the thing (from memory-it’s been a while), but I am hopeful that the ease with which the characters and scenarios presented themselves mean I have stumbled on to something good. Though it can still be ruined in so many ways by so many people (mainly me), not least of which being the couple of people who decide if it’s good enough to spend some money on.
