This is on my mind. Some many years ago now, I was at a story meeting for ITV’s revival of Crossroads at the network’s Lenton Lane offices in Nottingham. I was so nervous beforehand that I threw up in the car park. The one man I even distantly knew was weirdly keen on asking what I thought of some firemen in their uniforms nearby. Apparently I didn’t give the response he wanted because when we then went inside and sat at a huge square table, he made a point of sitting at the opposite end where I was supposed to see him refusing to look at me.<\/p>\n
I didn’t notice. I don’t seem to have noticed much that day, but all of this is on my mind again now, talking to you, because of something I did notice. I think there were fifteen of us at that table, maybe thirteen writers, definitely one producer and I think I remember one script editor. Twelve of the thirteen writers were old hands, they saw this meeting as a chore they had to tick off in order to get paid, and I was just glad to be not throwing up again.<\/p>\n
Except that’s not quite true. There was one more thing I was glad about and it was to do with this business of them finding it a chore. Whether they meant it or whether they were trying to look good amongst their group, every writer there but me was sullen, superior, annoyed at their job, and talking only about the money. They were superior to me as writers, but they did not want to be writers, at least not on that show, and they acted as if this career were the dullest thing in the world. Certainly they acted as if it were beneath them.<\/p>\n
This was writing. On a television series. Granted, not the best series in the world, and actually it was never going to be the best writing either because of how staggeringly prescriptive the work was. We were each given a scene breakdown, literally every scene in our episode, in order, with details on each one. In retrospect it was like the job was colouring in. I took it very seriously and actually managed to argue my way into having two of the scenes reversed in the sequence because they so clearly played off each other dramatically better.<\/p>\n
That’s what I thought then and of course I can’t remember the details now. Today I suspect the producer let me win that switch because she didn’t care. If it didn’t work, she’d just reverse it back in the edit.<\/p>\n
But for all that I was a weak writer on a first go in this form, I was excited and truly everyone else was not.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, I was asked if I still get excited by writing projects when I’ve been doing this a long time. I nodded so vigorously that my jaw slapped the table. That was partly because it was the straight truthful answer, but also because in mid-slap I realised that all these years of writing later, I still haven’t become as jaded as those Crossroads writers.<\/p>\n
That’s nice for me. But actually, yes, that is nice for me. Not twenty minutes ago, I found out a fact I’ve wondered about for more than my entire time writing as a career. If I don’t tell you what it is, it is really because it is the smallest thing imaginable, it’s to do with single words on a project, but I found out what was behind this tiny, tiny, tiny moment and I am dancing because of it.<\/p>\n
I’ve been through some very bad times as a writer — and I got fired off Crossroads — and to my mind I’m still just starting out, but you get to dance. Don’t let this ever end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is on my mind. Some many years ago now, I was at a story meeting for ITV’s revival of … Continue reading