Best and Worst moments of your Writing career

TOP

1 118 and being a semi professional comedy writer for a few sweet short months.
2 Getting my gags in the Sun including a cartoon but no interview.
3 Having 10 sketches in News Revue for a couple of weeks.
4 Having about half a dozen in the News Revue Christmas Special.
5 Proper laughs at LCW readings.
6 The aproval of my friends on line.
7 Being interviewed by the Bussell.
8 Getting an abusive poem from Morrace.
9 performing in a couple of stage shows that got some laughs.
10 Did I mention 118? In the early days getting 6 of my gags come up in a row.
11 Selling a few gags to proper standups.
12 Making people laugh as a standup and atleast one person walk out in tears.

SHAMING MOMENTS OF HUMILIATION

1 Having the same level of success with BBC Comps that Gary Glitter has with CBEEBies auditions.
2 Tanking as a standup infront of hateful uncaring crowds.
3 Doing standup in the pouring rain infront of a hotdog queue in Hull, then getting rammed by a kid on a trike which also didn't get a laugh.
4 Getting my pilots rejected and not sulking.
5 Having horrible versions made of some of my scripts.
6 Downing 2 pints in front of the King Gong audience and then getting 10 seconds.
7 Being in a couple of sketch groups that never went anywhere despite working at them for some weeks.

My best and worsts are minimal as I never actually do anything. The highlights are:

BEST

1 - Selling a greetings card caption to Emotional Rescue for £125
2 - Having my Prime Minister's Question Time charades sketch performed by NewsRevue and being sent a cheque for £11
3 - Making the Long List for the BBC Last Laugh sitcom competition
4 - Selling a travel article on Co.Wicklow in Ireland despite never having been there
5 - Getting the editor's job on the company magazine having started off as just the designer. You can see the latest issue here: https://www.linx.net/files/hotlinx/hotlinx-18.pdf

WORST

1 - The greetings card caption was never used and I lost the printed sample they gave me
2 - Having my Prime Minister's Question Time charades sketch performed by NewsRevue only once and not cashing the cheque for £11 - I just KNOW it went down appallingly on the night
3 - Not making the Short List for the BBC Last Laugh sitcom competition
4 - Never receiving payment for the travel article on Co.Wicklow
5 - Having the editor's job on the company magazine - read it and see why

I'll just do a top and bottom three:

BEST:

1. Sitting with Henry Normal in his office whilst he told me that he liked my sitcom.

2. Having a show pitched to the BBC.

3. Writing for Mitchell And Webb.

WORST:

1. Sort of stupid 'worst', but one of the first comedy things I wrote was for that BBC competition where you had to complete the last ten pages of a script. I did 'The Old Guys', I was really happy with what I wrote and when I heard nothing back it really bummed me out!

2. Being a commissioned writer on a TV sketch show pilot and getting a big old head, assuming greatness would follow shortly. Then the producer left, the show was dropped and the production company seemingly refused to communicate with me again! Take that big head!!

3. Recently I penned a show with another writer, we were really happy with it and I was about to hand it over to a producer contact, brim full of confidece . . . then a show with the same basic premise came on air and so more or less killed our show dead. That really pissed me off!! It was a good script!!

Cheers, and bad luck on the knock back. At least your sketch was liked though and not shredded.

Quote: Matthew Stott @ June 16 2009, 8:39 PM BST

3. Writing for Mitchell And Webb.

3. Recently I penned a show with another writer, we were really happy with it and I was about to hand it over to a producer contact, brim full of confidece . . . then a show with the same basic premise came on air and so more or less killed our show dead. That really pissed me off!! It was a good script!!

View original

Congrats. I take it this was the radio show?

And which show was it? Go on, give us a hint.

Quote: hotzappa11 @ June 16 2009, 9:59 PM BST

And which show was it? Go on, give us a hint.

View original

Well, it was on one of the main two channels in the last couple of months, but I shall say no more! In a few years when it's been forgotten I may be able to dust off our show!

Best - having 5 sketches in 3 different radio shows in a single week.

Worst - not having a single sketch on the radio since.

And a mixture of both, has anyone else on here had the pleasure of not hearing their sketch in a show, then being surprised to hear their name in the credits? It's the best worst feeling ever...

I had the pleasure of seeing my sketch in a show and then not seeing my name in the credits. Ah well.

My writing is really just a hobby/learning thingy but...

Best:

1) Getting teenage girls fans write to me from time to time who think I am "cool".

2) Winning comps.

3) Being told I have the coolest name ever by one of my fave comedians.

Worst:

1) Finding someone had set up a blogger site with some of my work, claiming to be me and looking for paid work.

2) Having an idea I had poached.

3) Getting bad reactions from male counterparts for gaining something they didn't and kept going on about the fact it was because I was a girly girl. Was made to feel awful like I didn't deserve it.

No shit what was the blogger site?

No one wants to be Sootyj especially Sootyj

Best -

*Hearing the studio audience at LWT go nuts at one of my sketches. It was a huge wave of guilty laughter and I loved it. (The sketch involved drowning puppies).
*Sitting in a room at the BBC with Ian La Frenais a couple of weeks ago as he told me that he and Dick Clement "pissed themselves laughing" at parts of my script. If nothing else happens in my career, it's all been worth it just for that.
*Winning the BBC's Last Laugh comp and meeting Jeremy Dyson, Sue Nickson, Jason Manford, Steve Edge, and Bob The Builder. (The real one!)
*Winning the BBC's Northern Laughs competition.
*Going to the Scallywagga 1st birthday party last year and hearing people laugh at my stuff onscreen. (Cue derisory comments from Scally-haters... :-)
*Getting an unexpected bonus cheque for 8 grand from the birthday card company I write for. (They'd backdated two years bonuses)
*Having some of my material filmed by Hat Trick last year and pitched to Channel 4.
*Writing on Ed Byrne's panel show pilot Sex Bombs.
*Getting an email from Shane Alan the commissioning guy at C4 saying how much he liked my stuff and whether I'd like to hook up with Hat Trick. Well duuur!?
*Sending a producer at Baby Cow a DVD of my stuff and her ringing me up to ask if I could send another copy because she'd liked it so much she'd lent her copy to a mate and never got it back.
*Getting my first-ever BBC cheque, which I never cashed and now can't anyway, because it's three years out of date.

WORST:

*Having a large television corporation (ahem) tell me they really wanted to make a sketch show I'd written with another writer, only for them to string us on for over a year and then change their minds. That was a tough pill. Then having to tell the other writer, which was also not a pleasant task.
*Being stricken down with Labrynthitis (no it's not an aversion to bad David Bowie films) - it's an inner ear complaint and it left me unable to function or work properly for at least a year. I had a mortgage and the baillifs were called in more than once. Thank God I got better.
*Having my first ever reply from the Writers Room in '95. The script was set in a pub and the comments scrawled on my script in red pen read "It's all here...busty barmaid, grim alcoholic customers, and all the unsubtle, unfunny jokes that "Cheers" wouldn't touch with a bargepole."
*Coming to the conclusion that those comments were actually spot-on.
*Finding out just how many rewrites are usually required before anything gets on telly.
*Finding out how incredibly difficult it is to get a sitcom away.
*Finding out the grim reality that despite what any producer / commissioner might tell you, your show can be shitcanned and buried without trace at any point between writing it and filming. And sometimes even after filming.

It was the most bizzare thing that has ever happened to me. I only discovered it when DannyJB dared me to Google my name. It had a whole load of stuff I had on 4laughs. I was very angry about the stealing of my work but more freaked out. I had to prove to the site I was who I was before they removed it. They were even using my name on another site that was a dating site. Really scary. I think it must have been some silly kid to be honest.

Good:

* Winning a chunk of change from Warner for a sketch Graham Norton would blush at.
* Making it to the MySpace comedy finals and getting the chance to meet some really talented competitors.
* Getting the thumbs up from Shane Allen (Channel 4) and being referred to Hat Trick to make a mini sketch show pilot.
* Somehow building a blog readership of Canadians who were only too happy to welcome me to their lovely land for a very memorable summer.
* Making friends with a Hollywood screenwriter who has taken on the mantle of unofficial mentor.
* Pitching my first screenplay to Luke Goss in a Beverly Hills hotel lift.
* All the gifted directors, performers, composers, sound designers, producers and writers I've had the pleasure to work with.
* Getting a "one to watch" from ex-Babycow's Ric Michael.
* Every time I produce a sketch that somes out just right.

Bad:

* Three times discovering that a project in production/about to hit, bears uncanny resemblance to a project of my own.
* Just about every go I've had at stand up.
* Being told by a producer at Mirimax that my first screenplay needed simplification, given that it was "more complex than J-Lo falling out of a tree."
* Twice missing the deadline for the BBC College of Comedy through stultifying empty-headedness.
* Having that mini sketch show pilot passed over.
* Every time I produce a sketch that doesn't work at all.

3. Writing for Mitchell And Webb.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew, that is great.

I didn't know they accepted outside writers. I had a go anyway but I think they hate me. They either hate me separately or hate me en masse. I think the sketch about the cannibal couple put them off.

Quote: David Bussell @ June 17 2009, 10:58 AM BST

* Pitching my first screenplay to Luke Goss in a Beverly Hills hotel lift.

View original

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!