Friday's Always on my Mind

Eagle eyes and pedants will notice that this, a Friday post, is dated Saturday. When I first took that terrifying step off the gangplank of full employment into the glorious sharkpit of freelancing, I made a promise to myself that every glorious Friday afternoon, I'd take time out to spend in the uber-cool, seventies retro surroundings of the pool hall next door.

I loved that pool hall because it was there I had a glorious revelation - as I glanced around the lava lamp and louvre wood wall decor they started to play Headhunters by Herbie Hancock, an album I first heard when I was ten, at about the time when TV drama was filled with American slick-cop heroes in bars done out just like the one I was in. I had a blinding revelation that at 36 I was exactly where I'd dreamed I would be when I when a ten year old boy, right down to the soundtrack and the decor - I'm guessing not many people can say that.

Needless to say I only ever spent one Friday afternoon in that pool hall and that was with a script editor discussing my episode on a lunch break from a home briefing. Because of course, it turns out that Friday is the day all the editors or producers want their scripts delivered so they can 'read them over the weekend'. It's a curious fact that they never ring you up on Monday morning with notes having pored over them all Saturday, and that often its the NEXT Friday when you actually hear back from them, but I'm not going to be churlish. Unless you're Neil Gaiman, Ian Rankin or Russell T Davies, the odds are your editor works much longer hours than you do, so give them their weekend.

If you really want that free Friday afternoon, you could always put in a few extra hours and ... sorry, excuse me, I can barely type for laughing.... deliver your script a day early.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying... I may not be posting much on Friday's. Instead what I'm aiming to do is persuade a few producers, agents, editors, commissioning editors, writers, directors, publishers etc, to share some insight with everyone about what they look for in a writer, especially a new writer. Watch this space.