My Yeer By Jason Arnopp, Age 35 1/2

I’m fucking knackered today, and can barely remember my own name. So it’s the perfect time for that Review Of My 2007 piece I’ve been putting off writing for a few days now. If stuff comes to my mind when I’m this tired, then it HAS to be memorable and, hopefully, worth remembering. If you get bored, head over to Phill Barron’s gaff and read his account of 2007 instead: it’s very good value. And he can remember which months he did which things in.

GOOD STUFF IN 2007

• Getting my first produced credit with the short Look At Me.
  
• Being hired by Magician Pictures to write a full-length film script.
  
• Going to Cardiff a fair deal to witness Doctor Who being made. And Sontarans. Loving those Sontarans.
  
• Having a (no doubt invisible) bit part in Doctor Who.
  
• Going to Cardiff to write a Mixmag on-the-road feature about Klaxons (very nice men).
  
• Attending Adrian Mead’s inspirational Insider’s Guide To Writing TV Drama class in March. Meeting other writers who then turned out to be bloggers, then mates.
  
• Being inspired to start this blog. I love the communal sense of this blogosphere thing.
  
• Interviewing Fearne Cotton and the luscious Holly Willoughby.
  
• Following Sharon Osbourne around backstage at Parkinson. And being paid to do so by heat.
  
• Getting the Acting Reviews Editor job at heat.
  
• Getting a girlfriend who's as luscious as Holly Willoughby.
  
• Having my first hardback release, after contributing a short story to Big Finish’s Bernice Summerfield: The Missing Adventures.
  
• The Screenwriters Festival in July. Loved every minute of it. Made contacts, friends and combinations of both.
  
• Reading lots of other people’s scripts and getting them to read mine, offering valuable feedback. Apart from the ones who didn’t love my work. Those people are now dead.

BAD STUFF IN 2007

• Almost going totally mad while moving house, despite having two months to prepare.
  
• Becoming a little too keen on attending various classes and schmooze-fests, at the expense of securing my arse to a chair and writing.
  
• Losing a few regular jobs – mainly crossword-related.
  
• Trying to do too much stuff at once.
  
• Being a complete workaholic who barely stopped sitting in front of a computer.
  
• Making a bollocks of a pitch-fest event in London (but learning from the experience). Bizarrely, interviewing the Dragons of Dragons' Den - in their Den studio - a few hours beforehand had been comparatively stress-free.
  
• Failing to finish a couple of spec scripts.
  
• Holly Willoughby failing to cancel her imminent wedding, despite meeting me. Puzzling.
  
• Death in the family. Always a pleasure - especially when you're at a Spanish film festival.
  
• Locking myself in my flat.
  
• Struggling to stop smoking. Blame the smoking ban – there I was a week before it started, in a London boozer, thinking, “Shit, this is my last chance to light up, etc etc”.
  
• Accidentally setting fire to a nun in Ipswich.

RESOLUTIONS FOR 2008
Professionally? Nothing. I know that I’m a complete work-freak who’ll keep toiling like a dog with opposable thumbs. Found my scribbled list of resolutions for 2007 the other day, and they included things like “Write two great specs. Make contacts in Hollywood. Sell that script. Move mountains. Meet God”. So this time, I’m just going to have faith that I’m motivated enough without having to set myself ludicrously high hurdles. If anything, I’d like 2008 to be the year when I slow down ever-so-slightly, become a little more selective, go abroad more and just enjoy life to a greater degree. Would be nice to watch more films, for instance. Perhaps even films which I then don’t have to review. The joy of watching films for their own sake drifted away from me last year. And I want that joy back! Fuck me, I might even have a non-work-related holiday or three. Imagine that…

PS One of the Bad Stuff entries is untrue. Can you guess which? Yes: I didn’t try to do too much stuff at once.