The Open Road

I've recently taken steps to free up more time to write scripts and do script-related things. This week is the first of what you might call the new regime. The big push. I haven't divorced myself from journalism. Lord, no. Still, I've quite drastically changed the balance of how I spend my time. And by God, I like it.

So far this week, I've written the first draft of a new 30-minute TV spec drama script. Tweaked my Doctor Who short story for Big Finish's Short Trips: Christmas Around The World book, then sent it hurtling through space and time (well, the internet) back to editor Xanna Eve Chown. Applied for a couple of freelance jobs. Talked with director Dan Turner about exciting stuff over Nandos. Entered a competition (see yesterday's post - and you can now see my entry in the online gallery, by searching for my surname, as well as those of fellow blogsters James Moran, William Gallagher, John Soanes and Laura Anderson.) I've also managed to gloriously delve into my DVD-recorder's hard drive, which is loaded with all the continuing drama I've missed in recent weeks. So I'm loading up on EastEnders, Casualty, Holby City and Doctors, copying episodes off onto handy archive discs, and finally getting time to make properly detailed notes on characters, etc.

Just caught up with last night's EastEnders double bill. Sweet Jesus, how much would I have loved to write that Mad May stuff? Wonderful.

Adrian Mead Movie Released... This Week's System & Guilt...

On this very day, Night People gets released on UK DVD. It's a multi-character drama-comedy, set on the streets of Edinburgh. I haven't seen it, but am happy to plug it since Lucy likes it; and most importantly director/co-writer Adrian Mead's Insider's Guide To Writing TV Drama course in March was the singlemost influential and rewarding seminar I attended this year. For one thing, it plugged me into the blogosphere. Can't say better than that.

So here's The System for this week. As Harry Hill says, you've gotta have a system. It's a good one, too:

Mornings are for bread-and-butter type work - designing crosswords, writing advertorial copy, interviewing people, that kind of thing. Oh, and the odd bit of bloggery-pokery.

Afternoons are for some serious script work on the feature project known as ASK. I'm really hoping to get 10 pages out per day. After all, this system will be blown apart next week when I'm temping at heat magazine. So this is a very important week. Need to break the first draft's back.

Evenings are potentially for yet more ASK scriptage, depending on how tired my imaginative muscles are feeling. But they're also for watching films. Oh yes. I've had a bizarre syndrome, this last 12 months or so, whereby I've found it really hard to sit down and watch a film from start to finish - especially when alone. I have a theory that this was because I felt guilty for watching someone else's film rather than writing my own. It's a bad, bad way to be. But now that I am writing a film, the guilt seems to have eased off.

Why, only yesterday I watched two films. Okay, so I watched Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny with morning company, but then that evening I viewed Hot Fuzz in its entirety! All by myself! Woo-hoo! Someone bake a cake. Both films were, incidentally, tremendous fun and made me laugh my spleen loose. So I'd best nip over to A&E for a bit. That's the system screwed, then.

UPDATE: I've discovered that mornings are also for twatting about with a remote-control Dalek.

Mad Morning... Crazy Notepad Action...

Today was intended to be all about my own scriptwork. But no. By 8.30am, I'd received TWO emergency calls from magazines. One needed me to interview Malcolm McDowell this morning. The other, Heat mag, needed me to come in and temp on the TV desk.

As much I'd love to interview McDowell, Heat always comes first, so I had to regretfully turn the other fine title down. Anyway, here's the point: when you're self-employed, it's never 100% possible to set time aside for your own work. But lord knows, I'm trying...

Notebook update: there is now a green notebook in my jacket pocket, for capturing story ideas, dialogue and other assorted brainwaves. And if I DO need to use it for non-story scribbling, they go in the back. Eventually, of course, both sets of notes will meet in the middle. Then I'll buy another notebook.

Restless In Camden... The Script Factory...

What a strangely dissatisfying Bank Holiday weekend it's been. Typically for me, couldn't decide whether to fully relax or fully work, so ended up doing a half-arsed mish-mash of the two. As a result, damn it all, I've decided to treat today as a work-day. Think I'll enjoy it much more than lying around, pretending to chill out (hell, I don't even like the expression 'chill out', let alone have the ability to do it), when in fact I've got journalistic deadlines and the urge to write my own stuff billowing around my brain. Clearly, my new Office Hours Regime hasn't yet made me feel okay about switching off...

Just signed up with The Script Factory at http://www.thescriptfactory.co.uk. Is anyone else a member? If so, how'd you like them Script Factory apples?

Probably should've asked before joining, but I am, after all, an impulsive buffoon.

"How's it going with the New Work Regime, Jase?"

... I hear you shriek. Well, thanks for asking. It's going pretty damn well, so far. Started on Monday (switching to office hours at home, in case you're unaware of the New Regime and can't be bothered to scroll down) and stuck to it on Tuesday and Wednesday too. Today is completely different, as I'm in my hometown Lowestoft for a family birthday, but hey, that's the joyous flexibility of the freelancer.

Now, when I say I stuck to the Regime... my time is still bendy. Here's a for-instance. On Wednesday, I ended up having a two-hour lunch break, for one reason or another. Outrageous? Yes, I know. But I compensated by working an extra hour at the day's end, clocking off at seven. Typically, too, I suddenly had a real surge of productivity in that final hour and didn't especially want to stop, but I did anyway. Maybe I should have carried on, but... Ah well, I'm still getting used to this. And I was peckish.

Another thing I should point out is that I haven't been writing fiction this week. It's all been journalistic, actual-factual fare. I say this, because I know that fiction-writing works differently. Uses a different part of the brain, and all that. So I'm curious to see how, when I properly begin work on my sample-TV-scripts-in-order-to-secure-an-agent, it all works within the (loose) constraints of the New Regime. If you sit down at 10am and your imaginative muscles feel like snapped rubber bands, how is that going to work? In my experience, when you're pulling stuff out of your own hat, sometimes there's just nothing there and you have to wait for it to fill up again... We shall see.

So that's my update on the New Regime. Tell you something, though: I've enjoyed my evenings a whole lot more. Christ, I've watched FILMS, episodes of 24 and everything. Madness. I should be flogged stupid for such brazen displays of self-pleasuring sin...

Incidentally, am I the only one vaguely concerned about this Earth-like planet which has been discovered a few light years away? If they're anything like us, they'll have ballsed up their own globe and want some of ours.

The New Regime

I've been a freelance writer for 18 years now, which in itself terrifies me. There were a handful of years around the turn of the millennium when I did the magazine office thing, but those aside I've always been self-employed. I've never really made much effort to manage my time by any set rules. If anything, deadlines have dictated when I work. Wait for the deadline to start looming, for the heart to start thumping in fear of failure and it's amazing how motivation suddenly blooms.

Today was the first day of a new experiment. I'm going to try working near-enough office hours on week-days. While the joys of the freelance lifestyle include being able to have humungous lie-ins and go down the pub in the afternoon if it takes your fancy, that approach also has drawbacks. I regularly surprise 'normal hours'-type folk by working on Saturdays and Sundays. In a way, the weekend feels like any other days to me. Hardly notice it, apart from the lack of Sunday mail. Even worse, I feel guilty when I'm trying to relax. I'll be watching a film and think how I could be working instead. Annoying. Where do you draw the line?

I'll tell you where: right here. So say hello to the New Regime. Working from 10am til 6pm. I love the idea of having a definite cut-off point at the end of each working day. Even more so, the concept of having weekends free. Here's how today went...

0915: The alarm goes off. Up for breakfast, etc. Aiming to start work at 10.

1030: I start work. Clearly, I've underestimated how long it takes me to get into work mode. Tomorrow, I'll set the alarm half-an-hour earlier. Simple. And today, I'll keep working 'til 6.30pm to make amends. The morning goes very well. I get a lot done.

1330: Half an hour later than the scheduled lunchbreak, I head out into Camden to do a few things. Bank, post office, fighting a drunken Spaniard in an alleyway. That last one isn't true, naturally: just trying to spice this bit up, before your eyelids start to droop.

1430: Back at my desk, by Christ! Work, work, work. Focus. Nothing but work. If it isn't work, I'm not interested. Give me work or give me death!

1630: I can't find my remaining cigars. Yes, pity me, reader. After two years of non-smoking, I recently succumbed and returned to the stupid habit. I'm so addicted at present that my lack of cigars distracts me from work. So I go back out and buy some. Damn it.

1650: Back at the desk, puffing away like a cock. Loads of work done on two features for Doctor Who Magazine, which I'm tackling simultaneously. Hey, this is good stuff! Mother of God, this... just... might... work!

1830: Here I am, talking to you, feeling quite satisfied with the day. Of course, it's never going to be cut-and-dried simple. For instance, I have films which I need to watch, for review. Is that really work? Well, yes, it is, when you'd rather be watching something else - but could I justify watching them during these office hours? And tonight I have an episode of Hustle to review for heat magazine, but I like the show, so I think I can file that under 'relaxation'.

Now, how am I going to fit the gym into this schedule? More to the point, when am I going back down there, full-stop? It's been a month...

Does anyone else work to office hours at home? Commiserate, congratulate or just tell me the pitfalls, why don'tcha?