#72: A room not of one's own
Happy Friday!
As you can see, the Department for Work and Pensions are optimistic that my comedy writing career is really going to take off over the next 31 years. I'm sure that the reason they have so much confidence is that they've heard I write in Arcot Street.
We had a meeting with Foiled producer Tom Price last Friday. He gave us notes on the first episode we've written for Series 2 (confusingly, the third episode). A tense moment. The good news is that we can still write jokes, the other good news is that the plot is 60% there. Not too shabby for a first draft.
We've parked Episode 3 (Everything's Queues) for the time being because, along with the notes, Tom gave us something else: a deadline. And it's soon. We've got until the 7 of May to get the other three episodes in similar shape. Phew.
So Beth drove us down to Wales for two days of writing in the comedy airs of Penarth. The fact she was horrendously ill was irrelevant. When you've got a deadline that dictates you write 5 pages a day, you write 5 pages a day. So we did. And then she drove all the way back on Sunday night. Trooper.
These are the things that don't get written about and remembered: why not just take the day off? Well, for one, the Department for Work and Pensions don't do sick pay for comedy writers.
It helps that we write as a team. When one person runs out of steam, the other steps up to the keyboard and lashes out a couple of pages. Sometimes all that's needed is the encouragement of a laugh to what's already there, fuelling the appetite for more.
It also helps that we write cosseted in the bosom of Arcot Street with Beth's family, consummate and impeccable hosts. We write sitting around the kitchen table, drip-fed a steady flow of hot tea and toddies, with the family playing the sympathetic audience and providing a loud laughter track. The backdrop hustle and bustle of the kitchen sink drama that is P-Town is distraction and inspiration alike.
This is what it takes to write a sitcom - at least, this is what it takes us to write a sitcom. I always come back from Penarth with acute symptoms of caffeine withdrawal - pallid cheeks, the shakes and a lassitude of ennui.
But maybe that's just symptoms of withdrawal from Foiled's incomparable Arcot Street home. Thanks guys.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
This newsletter goes out to 120 beautiful people every week.
If you'd rather not receive it - and that's cool, I unsubscribe from cleverer, funnier mailing lists all the time - let me know or simply hit the self-destruct button below.
Fancy hacking bus shelters or striking in McDonalds?
I'm selling DOPE
Are you buying?
Headlines making you anxious? Delay reading them - Oliver Burkeman
In the Guardian, Oliver Burkeman discusses how he digests the news and the similarities with the way he manages his personal worries.
[O]ne excellent way to stay calm but well-informed, I’ve found, is to consume the news a day or three later than everyone else...
After I’d done this for a while, it struck me that it’s essentially what I’d been doing for years with especially persistent personal worries: I’d make an entry in my calendar two or three weeks from today, and resolve not to fret about the matter till then. In almost every case, by the time the date rolled around, the issue seemed absurd.
Everyone tells you to live in the moment – but there’s much to be said for putting the moment off for a few days.
I've been doing something similar with the news for over a year now, mostly using friends and family as a filter for urgency. It's an idea I first picked up from Tim Ferriss in 2009: he calls it the low information diet, a technique predicated on selective ignorance.
And Jason Kottke comments:
A new car loses about 10% of its value as soon as you drive it off the lot; most news depreciates a lot faster than that. Humans are curious, hard-wired to seek out new information on a continuous basis. But not everything we haven’t seen before is worth our attention.
And what a great technique to manage worry as well!
Extraordinary aerial photograph of Edinburgh circa 1920
Via Austin Kleon
OUTPUT >>
As you may have noticed, this mailing list is the engine room of my blogging. Here's some you might have missed:
Why I sauna (March)
From a log in a quiet noisy place with mud underfoot (March)
...COMING UP...
The Isle of Wight for a long weekend of sea and sunshine.
Thursday 19 April is Bicycle Day! Celebrate responsibly.
LIKE WHAT YOU SEE?
If you enjoy reading these weekly newsletters, then you probably know someone else who would too.
I made a button for that as well.
ADMISSION: I wrote this mailing list on Wednesday. So if the world has ended in the meantime, please don't take offence at my omission.
Much love,
- dc
CREDITS
David Charles wrote this. When not writing this, David co-writes BBC Radio sitcom Foiled, does copywriting for The Bike Project and the Elevate Festival, and volunteers for refugee youth club Young Roots. He is almost always available for work. davidcharles.info // @dcisbusy
Nikola Tesla predicted the smartphone in 1926.
Via Kottke.org