LITERARY EX-LAX

So, at the minute... I'm in possibly the busiest time of my yearly work cycle. The way it tends to shape out for me is that work starts winding down over the summer, the autumn months are the quietest, there are rumblings of work picking up in December, it kicks off in Jan, and then it's flat out from about Feb to June. 

I'm lucky in that - for now at least - I have a relatively predictable schedule (it's a consequence of working in kids tv, due to the fact that most kids' shows are filmed over the summer, when the child actors have a big chunk of time off school, see).

However, due to the fact that kid's tv doesn't pay as well as adult tv, I usually take on more work than I might otherwise do in order to make ends meet. 

It also doesn't help that I've somehow become pegged as a "comedy" writer, so most of the shows I do are at least a bit funny - and in my experience, comedy is far harder and more time-consuming to write than drama. It's another box to tick; you have to nail the characters and the story as you would a drama... but there's also the added complication of having to make things amusing. Which is often the most challenging part of a script. 

Added to this is the fact that I need to finish the DVD for Found Footage, and promote and set up Digitiser The Show, and answer emails about Digitiser The Show (it appears to have raised my profile a bit, so I'm getting LOTS of requests to do things, or contribute to things, or reply to thing). And write Digitiser2000 every day, of course. 

Which is not a whinge, by the way! I love doing it all, and I do thrive when I have plenty on - but sometimes I reach a place where I'm left a bit... stuck, I suppose. 

Occasionally, it happens that I have so many plates to spin at once that I don't know which one to turn to, and I sort of end up paralysed with a knot in my gut. There's usually at least one point every year where it happens to me, and this year I'm busier than I've been since about 2014, when I last had two shows on which I'm lead writer. And back then I wasn't doing my own crowd-funded projects either. 

So that's where I've been at the last few days; sort of doing nothing other than little piecemeal bits and bobs of different things... despite the fact that if I could just focus and finish one of them - it'd ease up pressure across the board. It's paradoxical, but that's why I've written this; to see if writing down how I'm feeling will help shift the blockage, like a sort of literary Ex-Lax.

I'll let you know if it helps.

Paul