Killing less time than I used to...

I will be around a little bit more now. I am in the midst of seriously redrafting big play. So I will need a distraction and will be slipping back into my tried and tested procrastination techniques. I could be rewriting the opening now, which involves a flag and a scaffold rig, but am I? No, I am here, blogging. Just like old times. I apologise for not being around on a regular basis over the last few months, save for my Sunday Night Feeling efforts. I have been caught up in the most peculiar world of marketing, design and public relations. Stroking people's egos has taken up far too much of the time I would otherwise spend stroking my own ego. In addition to redrafting big play, I am also gearing up, along with my Single Span friends, to make a short film about Ted Lewis, the chap that wrote Jack's Return Home, upon which Get Carter was based. The screenplay is by Nick Triplow and Lozman and I will be directing. Life has become one strange round of meetings at which we discuss trains, guns and multi-storey car parks and our never-ending list of outstanding actions. I should also be revisiting the shot list but, well, here I am. The good thing about the short film is that we have received funding from our heroes at Humber Mouth to make it. It will be screened at the festival as part of a bigger 'event' of our own making. Which adds a bit of pressure. But that is a good thing because, without it, I would be on here, blogging. The bad thing about the short film is that we're scheduled to shoot on the same weekend that I could have been pitching some ideas to WarpX and Rollem. I found out the other day, amongst the spam, that I am one of the lucky bleeders to be selected for Page One, an intense three-day ideas 'hothouse'. But I can't do it because I am making a film. I am happy to be making the film. But Kay Mellor may like my ideas for drama. But that will have to wait. I am also, along with M, avoiding co-writing another, slightly smaller, play, also for Humber Mouth. Us and Humber Mouth go way back, which is nice. We've both been festival critics. And without it, I probably wouldn't be here now avoiding writing plays (the hardly seen by anyone but friends and family early writing workouts Store Me Whether, Off Their Trolleys and Worst Seat in the House are all a part of my Mouth experience). I'm proud to be a part of the festival again. And the play should rear its head in Hull Truck's shiny, new and currently unopened studio space, which is something else to be proud of. I suppose I should go and crack on with some of this stuff. Or at least pretend to (next stop: the fridge).