You (I) run fast through autumn and early December to get that time off at Christmas and New Year, trip up (get the lurgy, natch), sleep a lot and fall madly behind. It has, I realise, become a pattern.
BUT! Waving a blazing torch of flaming, rejected, double-side printed scripts, I stride with gumption into 2012, four days and three submissions down, two networky theatre website profiles updated (three when you count this) and only two rewrites still to do. That’s if you exclude The Orphans, of course – those toddler-aged scripts that swing from dusty shelves, spurned by this neglectful shrew. I saw a facebook posting today which asked writers what name they use for the Next Script (the one that obsesses you never being the current one). Best answer: “the Mistress”.
Back to the now: rewrites a must for two shows heading soon into production (No Milk, No Stamps and Away with the Fairies). And I need to develop some laser-focus before I start out on the Channel 4 screenwriters’ course – 4Screenwriting – later this month. It’s a superb programme – 12 of us learning how to work to commission, writing for TV, given a “dry run” and a pilot to develop.
Gill Kirk, scriptwriter 