HAMSTER!
So Why Do You Want To Do It? Page 4
It was done with a sharpened spoon.
To put it simply, I just love coming up with an idea and watching it develop with characters and dialogue.
Could we please stay on topic. Was it a pen or a spoon?
Come on, everyone in prison knows that the penis mightier than the sword - so it was clearly a pen.
It was a pen.
Well, you post a rather vague and mis-spelt thread topic one night and there you go... Really interesting to hear everyone else's reasons. I started the thread in one of my episodic periods of self-loathing and self-doubt, which I am sure all of us get to some degree. The lowest time for me has actually been having to re-write this commissioned pilot. Not because I have only ideas for one episode, it's just having to polish and improve the same script - which for me involved re-writing almost root-and-branch. And after a 9 hour full-on working day, or a 24 hour shift on-call, I sometimes feel the last thing I want to do is to sit down at the computer and make new jokes and improve dialogue.
I guess I just dislike the tedium of the process. I love having ideas in my head, it's lovely to be getting somewhere, but I guess I'm one of those writers who need other people giving me the carrot plus the stick to get me to do it. I don't enjoy my deadline, but it's the only thing that will probably get me to do it on time. 
Oh, boo-hoo having to rewrite a commissioned pilot! I tell you what tedium is: having to rewrite a dire, dire primary school not-quite-but-almost Nativity play so that the parents/kids/teachers don't kill themselves five minutes in! The characters have no individuality, there is a cast of *thousands* (including an entire herd of sheep) and you can't put too much emphasis on the performers as they're six-years-old!
I finished it last night though and it seems to have worked quite well. I even managed to get one of the sheep to say: "I'm here all week -- try the lamb", which is quite, quite dark but I'm pretty sure the kids won't get it...
(Agree about how hard it is after work to motivate yourself. Nine hours in front of a computer and the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer again. This is the biggest hindrance to my writing...)
Dan
Quote: swerytd @ November 6 2008, 10:20 PM GMTOh, boo-hoo having to rewrite a commissioned pilot! I tell you what tedium is: having to rewrite a dire, dire primary school not-quite-but-almost Nativity play so that the parents/kids/teachers don't kill themselves five minutes in! The characters have no individuality, there is a cast of *thousands* (including an entire herd of sheep) and you can't put too much emphasis on the performers as they're six-years-old!
I finished it last night though and it seems to have worked quite well. I even managed to get one of the sheep to say: "I'm here all week -- try the lamb", which is quite, quite dark but I'm pretty sure the kids won't get it...
(Agree about how hard it is after work to motivate yourself. Nine hours in front of a computer and the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer again. This is the biggest hindrance to my writing...)
Dan
But, as a previous suicide risk, motivation for light-hearted whimsy sometimes becomes slightly irrelevant. Love the "try the lamb" line.
And now Seefacts is away, the fact that I have at least one set of sketch characters through to the School Of Comedy series table read, with possibly more stuff on the way, will not only mean that I might also be writing for kids, but I shall probably start berating my twin daughers to start to "show some f**king comedy smarts" (I was a child actor).