There’s a neglected folder on my computer containing a load of half-finished comedy scripts I was working on. Well, four scripts to be exact. All of them stop at the midway point, the moment where the Voice of Self-Doubt starts shouting, “this is rubbish!” and I give up. Then procrastination took over and they sat untouched for ages.
I used to love writing. Back in primary school my teachers used to dread asking the class to write something, because inevitably I would hand in a 20-page stream of consciousness. “Write a story about a dog,” they said: my dog ended up on Mars in a flying shoebox. At some point, however, things changed. Voice of Self Doubt grew louder and louder, and I pretty much stopped writing anything. Unless you count FABland, which I don’t any more.
Anyway, last week I decided to start from scratch, taking the best of the four scripts, rewriting it completely and incorporating some new ideas. And it’s going well. The main plot involves a sadistic PE teacher — something of which I have considerable experience. The subplot is about a broken toilet, which I don’t have experience of, but frankly, with a toilet, how can you go wrong?
As of tonight I’ve got about 7 scenes of one episode completed, with no sign of the Voice of Self Doubt or the Procrastination Pixie. But now I have writers’ block. Ho-hum.