I’ve been working on the Writers’ Guild Awards for just about a year, so I got to go to the event last Monday. I will never show you pictures because they are startlingly visible evidence that I was even more ill than I thought.

Even so, even being ill, even being there not because I was nominated for anything but because it was work – I suppose it was work – the Writers’ Guild Awards event is the place to be. It is the room to get in if you possibly can and, if anything, I thought this year’s was the best of a remarkable run.

And although it didn’t win its category, “Slow Horses” by Will Smith was nominated and I am actually proud of that. I didn’t write that excellent show, I wasn’t a judge in that category, but I was the one who entered it into the awards.

But then, it’s such a strong show and the Writers’ Guild Awards ceremony is about the best British writing, it had to be entered, it had to be considered.

Consequently that wasn’t me, that was just necessary.

And although I worked on the awards for a year, obviously so did many people. Yet when it came to the night itself, all my jobs were long done and consequently out of all the people working there, I was the sole one who could relax with nothing to do.

I did end up with the odd task but still, the actual event on the night was neither one pixel better or worse because I was there.

So I had a great time, a really tremendous time, and the night was a success. Plus so far in 2023 I can point to various things I’ve learned already, various things I’ve made happen or just plain made, I can think of people I’ve met and things I’ve done.

I suppose.

Well, more than suppose, just before you and I started talking I actually made a list for myself of what I’ve done so far.

But.

I had to write that list because it still feels like we’re only just back working after Christmas and that nothing has happened, that I’ve done nothing. For some reason I am finding 2023 murderously difficult to get going in. Today is January 20 and suddenly, this very second writing to you, what occurs to me is that it’s therefore eight weeks since I had a haircut.

That’s my January. An absence of barbershops. It’s not an accomplishment.

So here’s the thing. Without question, I need to get up off my backside and bloody do something. Except I’m a writer, so what I need to do is sit that backside right down and write.

You see the dilemma.