Walking into the sunset...

Dear Mum,

Well... ‘A Fear of Buttons’ (inspiration taken from a blog a few months back) has been signed, sealed and (hopefully) delivered - my debut as a scriptwriter.

In typical form, the printer ran out of ink on the day that I sought to print the script. Having advised Pippa to get her dissertation bound at least 24 hours before her hand-in day for fear of fire, flood or an exhaustive queue at Rymans, fate decided to play an ironic trick on me.

Panic ensued. I called Dad to assist. After a couple of attempts he managed to get it sorted.

It then failed once more, the black type gradually fading down the pages like a Deluxe colour chart, ranging from ‘Vivid Slate’ to ‘Pale Pewter.’

I copied and pasted the section I needed into a new document and emailed it to Dad.

This was an error. He very kindly printed off the last 12 pages which were saved in the new document; page 27 now being page 1, page 28 being page 2, page 29 being page 3, and so on. Bugger.

Like a child lovingly adding final touches to a project, I then had to cut white label stickers into tiny 0.50 cm x 0.50 cm square pieces and scrawl miniscule page numbers inside these perimeters before clumsily pushing them down onto the wrong printed page numbers.

I don’t mind telling you it is not a work of art. I mean the script, not the improvised numbering system – though this is also no work of art, the black smudges being notable proof of this.

It is not a life-changing script. It is no Richard Curtis.

But then I am not Richard Curtis. I am Lucy and I’m hoping a little piece of me can be found in that script. It is meant to be both amusing and touching. Both simple and subtly complex. Both serious and mocking.

I don’t anticipate anything to ever come of it. No doubt I’ll read it in a few months time and cringe at it. But it was a wonderfully fun exercise; coming up with characters, taking inspiration from the language of those around me, tying ideas together.

It has also made me think that, perhaps, I should just start writing a novel. As said in ‘One Small Step’ I do have a strong idea but I don’t feel ready to seriously broach this yet. So, a bit like Ian McEwan biding his time with ‘Atonement’ by first penning lesser novels, perhaps I should think about writing something else in the mean time...