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A Day In The Life Of A Comedy Writer
The problem is that there’s a certain magic involved in crafting humour and the writer lives in dread of the moment it might vanish, never to reappear. He doesn’t know where it ever came from and he can’t just go to the comedy station and fill up his tank again. At least when writing action scenes he can bring in a stunt writer, but with comedy there can be no substitutes. So he brushes his teeth and drowns his hangover in coffee before switching on the computer and remembering that he hasn’t washed the car since yesterday and no self-respecting comedy writer would be seen dead in a dirty car. So he goes out and washes the car and the neighbour’s as well because, well, Butch isn’t such a bad guy. And that effectively takes up the morning and his stomach rumbles and he remembers he never really had any breakfast, he was so eager to start work on this new script, the deadline was only last week. What shall it be for lunch, then? Something Greek, perhaps? Humous and pitta bread? Or Italian. Pasta with chicken in a garlic sauce? Or why not push the boat out and cook some Lebanese lamb kebabs and have them with a Mediterranean salad? He has a ham sandwich, which finishes off the loaf and just as well because it was about to do that chameleon thing and change colour. But he slumps in front of the TV anyway and what do you know there’s a documentary about the sex life of gnats on Discovery and he’d always wondered with that ever questing mind of his how gnats managed such things. With lunch over he finally makes it to the keyboard and checks his email and discovers that he has more friends in his spam folder than in his address book. But the machines running slow and obviously needs a defrag and probably a virus scan as well and he can’t possibly write with all these processes running because that would slow everything down to an utter stop. So, with a huge effort, he drags himself away from the computer and wonders what his friends are doing. The idiots won’t be in the pub because they all work stupid nine to five jobs which bring them in regular salaries. But it’s worth a long shot so he grabs his mobile phone and fires off text messages to all and sundry announcing that he is available for drink and debauchery, or as he justifies it, research and development. And, guess what, Doug responds, he’s on a half day and he’s in the bar. Should he, or shouldn’t he? He can’t work, the computers out of action and there’s nothing pressing in the house, apart from the ironing that needs done and that bad pun convinces him. He’s not on form, the magic has deserted him. With luck it will return tomorrow and he will write till his fingers bleed. In the pub Doug greets him with, “Get much done today?” And our man replies, “It’s not just about the writing. To get output you need input. Mine’s a whisky.” Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Gurmeet Mattu is a comedy writer with an award winning 25 year writing career. He currently offers free factsheets, critiques and online writing training at www.scriptschool.co.uk |
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