I guess it's about time I explain my notable absence from the blog for the last month. Trust me, this time, I have a valid excuse (unlike that time last year when I tried arguing that maybe, just maybe, my house had been burgled, my car had been driven off a cliff, and I had been thrown off a moving rollercoaster 50 feet in the air and had broken every bone in my body... incidentally, none of which actually happened), and when I tell you, you will jump up and down and squee, before glancing around awkwardly in the realisation that what you just did was so not cool.
For the last month and a half I've been working on a play - my third "finished" play and my first play ever to get performed. I know, I know: how exciting. Scriptwriting itself is nothing new to me; while I've hardly been doing it for 30 years (two and a half years and counting, actually), I feel completely at home writing dialogue. I always play down the Hollywood idea that everything happens for a reason - fate, kismet, destiny, hocus-pocus and all that crap - but I feel now as though I finally have an explanation for why I had to endure a good 16 or 17 years of my life living with a crippling shyness: because I talked so little, I listened instead. So yeah, while you lot were sitting around chatting about your friendship bracelets and your first snog and how "Oh my god, my mum totally doesn't get it!" (and yes, I'm stereotyping here), I was eavesdropping on you interesting lot and, subconsciously, finding out how conversation works. Oh, and FYI, if you want royalties, then pfft, feck off. You lot wouldn't let me play with you, so you get NOTHING. Suckerrrrrrs.
The play is on in under two weeks!!!! (...Wait, hold on. I think we need another exclamation mark...)! (...There.) I still actually have no idea what is in store, so watch this space.
Another thing that has been taking up vast quantities of my time is being part of the BBC EastEnders: E20 Writers School. You all know EastEnders, right? *Polishes nails off on blazer.* (I am actually not wearing a blazer, but I don't think an image of me polishing my nails off on my faded, misshapen pyjamas would quite get the image of me being a cool dude across as well.) I'm almost a month in and, as stressful as the workload can be at times (especially when juggling it with the play and my paid employment), it's been one truly amazing experience. Like I said, I'm not particularly new to scriptwriting, but so far all my experience has been with writing for theatre; writing for television is something entirely different. Add to the fact that I've been watching EastEnders for as long as I can remember. To use a cliche, it's a dream come true.
So there you have it. That's why I've been gone for more than a month. Yeah, it may not be burgalry or cliff-diving cars or flying off rollercoasters, but it's a close second.
