Eating Humble Pie (or the 'devil's food'!)

I am back on track in terms of dealing with my procrastination; the diary system is being implemented with points being allotted to various tasks, 'frogs' and duties - and what do points make? "PRIZES!" I hear you cry. Oh yes, indeed they do.... Unfortunately, lack of them also result in 'punishments'. As I've mentioned in previous posts, points mean nada unless there's a reward or a consequence. Although points-wise last month, I'd come out as neutral (neither reward-worthy, or forfeit deserving), I'd failed miserably on achieving my goals, so a punishment was indicated. This was administered this afternoon and involved me having to eat marzipan. I cannot begin to tell you how revolting I think that stuff is. This took the form of a Battenberg cake (see picture below) and I think the cafe staff thought I was pretty bonkers when they said 'enjoy' and I confessed I hated it!

BLEURGH! THE HORROR, THE HORROR!

I thought I could at least enjoy the pretty sponge bits after I'd forced down that evil yellow muck, but I felt so sick afterwards that I had to concentrate my efforts on not chucking up over this laptop. If that doesn't learn me to do my 'to-do' list, I don't know what will.... However, as I seem to have reached stagnation over the research for the one-woman show, we shall see...

Fingers in a few pies

Although I have been 'resting' for a while in terms of actorizing work, that does not mean I haven't been creatively busy. In fact I am actually quite proud of myself for having actually done something with my long-dormant screenplay which has been sitting in a drawer, gathering dust for the last ten months. I've entered it into a Channel 4 competition for new writers: http://4talent.channel4.com/people-development/4screenwriting: http://4talent.channel4.com/people-development/4screenwriting. Of course it would be bloody amazing if it was successful, but with 2000 applications and just a handful of places, the probability isn't high. The chance to work alongside industry professionals to develop a script would be a wonderful opportunity, so fingers crossed for me!

Whatever the outcome I am genuinely chuffed for having done something with it. I worked on it steadily (but slowly) for about a year before being advised that I might like to develop one of the characters more fully, which would have involved a fairly radical rewrite. Then I found myself overwhelmed with the madness of being in Faustarse and the upheaval of what was to follow, so yet again, this appeared to be another project that would never see the light of day. This was until Lorraine, a friend who has directed me in various pieces (and who incidentally has also suggested the subject of my one-woman-show) posted about the competition on my Facebook page, stating that as my 'muse' she felt obliged to let me know about it. The only thing that I had in an anywhere near state to submit was my screenplay. I felt so disconnected from it, I was dreading getting reacquainted with the characters - who in a Pirandello-way, would surely be angry after being so neglected for so long - I mean, one had already committed suicide for Chrissakes! So it was a pleasant surprise that it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought, and in fact genuinely a pleasure to work on it again.

There was no time for the radical re-write, but I tidied things up, reformatted character introductions according to convention and added a few 'filler' scenes until I was pretty satisfied with it. Lorraine read it and fed back that I might like to reconsider some of the character's names, as they were fairly 'anachronistic' for our time, and in fact, it read like something from the 1970's but with modern technology. I had wanted it to have a sort of old-fashioned, cloying and suffocating feel to it, but obviously this is not good if it's coming across as 'wrong' as opposed to a choice. However, renaming the characters would feel to me as though they'd gone into a dressing room and come out as someone else so that could not be an option. Therefore I simply heightened it a bit; for example I made the protagonist's mother listen to a vintage radio when she was cooking. I felt far more stressed writing the covering letter to be honest. Although the writing in the screenplay should speak for itself, one does need to sell one's screenplay in one's covering letter, doesn't one! I found an example covering letter after a quick Google search: http://www.sellascript.com/source/resources/Sampleemailquery.pdf 
Although it's clearly American, I thought it better to base it on something than nothing at all. Here's my 'in-a-nut-shell tag-line (or whatever it's called):

Trevor is a chronically single thirty-something IT support worker still living with his mother, who sometimes behaves like his girlfriend. Increasingly bogged down by fears and intricate rituals, Trevor’s world becomes unbearably small and he seeks solace in the visitors’ book of his local church.