Everyone is doing the 25 things thang, so I thought I'd join in. 25 things about me. If you are tagged, you are supposed to write 25 things about you. Simple!
1. I am a dreamer, my dreams have changed recently though. I don't want to rule the world, I just want a nice house to grow old(er) in and a nice garden to grow vegetables in.
2. I am completely head over heals in love with my husband, it just took me a while to realise it. He gives everything in my life meaning. Even washing up is bearable if he is in the kitchen. I smile when I hear his key in the door. I love him bringing the guardian crossword home for me to have a go at, even though that is terribly married/ grown up/middle class. I love my life with him, because of him... and I don't care what people's reactions are to this soppiness!!
3. This is my life's to do list in no particular order:
Dive somewhere beautiful
make a pot
play ice hockey
learn to rollerskate
go gliding
fly solo
have acrobatics flight
go to peru
go to India
learn spanish
keep chickens
get dreadlocks
do a triathalon
be a mum
knit something useful
understand basic electronics
service a nice watch for Andy
London to brighton
learn an instrument
get somewhere with the museum
4. Writing is my love. If I could do any job in the world, it would be to write comedy full time. Or fighter pilot. Or ice hockey player. No, red bull air race pilot... no underwater photographer. Definately underwater photograper.
5. My sitcom The Museum is being performed on stage in the Leicester Square theatre in a few weeks. I'm super excited.
6. Sometimes I think I'm brilliant at my job and I get really annoyed at my pay, and think I'll pack it in and go and get a much better job at an oil company. Other times, I want to curl under my desk and hide there until the last person goes, all the lights go off and I am safe and alone.
7. I have ME/CFS. This means I get tired easily and I can't exercise because it can make me really ill for weeks. Most of the time my head feels like it's full of cotton wool and my sinuses and muscles ache. Imagine how you feel when you are getting flu but it hasn't quite developed. That's me most of the time. It also affects my sleep patterns, my concentraion, my tolerence to alcohol & caffine and my moods. It's a very hard thing to live with, which is why I get SUPER PISSED OFF when people think it's made up, or that I just need to pull myself together.
8. I once ran the Snowdonia marathon. It took me over 5 hours, but I loved it. I've also ran the great north run, the Georgetown to Idaho Springs half and various other shorter races. I don't run at the moment because of the ME. Which is a shame because the adrenaline rush I get from exercise and crossing the finish line is an amazing feeling. I miss it :(.
9. I only learned how to cycle last year, and promptly became a bike geek. I'm going to learn to swim properly then do a beginners' triathalon up in Scotland. Hopefully in 2012 to coincide with olympic year! It's very hard for me to train though, obviously..
10. I find the taste of rocket and corriander to be extremly exciting.
11. I am rubbish at keeping in touch with friends, partly because I find telephones terrifying.
12. I love margaritas and tex-mex food. I'd really like to go to Houston for 6 months and get fat on quesadilla and jose cuervo. Then I'd go to our Denver office and get thin on fresh air and good views. Then I'd go to our Trinidad office and get a tan, and head back to Egham brown and thin :).
13. One of my favorite things is laughing until my face hurts and my tear ducts keep squeezing. Something that did this to me was when I mixed Zombie Nation by Kerncraft with the Monty Python Spam sketch. I can't really explain why.
14. My hobbies include yoga, cycling, running, knitting, pocket watch repair, claymation, poi spinning, reading... well, pretty much everything ever invented. I'd rather be a jack of all trades.
15. I wish I could speak a second language. One doesn't seem like enough.
16. I wish I could play an instrument. Properly. Banging out smoke on the water doesn't really count.
17. I am mentally a child, but I'm happy with that. I love the thrill of discovering new things, and hope I always feel like that.
18. I didn't go the pub for months when I lived in Southampton because the thought of walking into a room full of people terrified me.
19. I miss my life in Wyoming. I miss working short days, writing lots, and spending weekends camping and skiing and diving. I'm sad that paying the bills involves spending all your energy pushing a mouse around. I hate being a grown up. But I'm grown up enough to accept that if I want to have a house and food it's something I have to do.
20. I don't like it when I moan. I'm trying to be more the sort of person who deals with things or shuts up about them.
21. I still have a phobia of plant roots.
22. I was once sick from drinking and dropped my wallet in it. Kate tells everyone she meets this story, which ensures that even if I was president of the UN or the next noel fileding or queen of england, I'd still be the girl who dropped her wallet in sick.
23. I think a life without music would be hell.
24. My husband thinks I'm a hippy. I'm not. Poi+joss sticks != hippy.
25. I am utterly, utterly useless at maths, physics and hard thinking in general. Can I have a job please, mr oil company exec?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Friday, September 05, 2008
The Sitcom Trials
The 16 winners have been chosen and informed... which means I can't be one of them. I'm absolutely gutted. With feedback like this:
Loved it. Thank you.
and this
Re: The Museum.
I really love your dialogue, I think it's original and inventive. I feel though that you're shooting yourself in the foot by limiting yourself to only 2 performers and was aching for you to bring some more characters onstage. You create wonderful characters; let's see 5 or 6 of them onstage at the same time. The more characters, the more scope for conflict, surely? And the more conflict, the more comedy.
Please don't be offended by this, I'm writing it because what you've given us so far made me laugh out loud (and ploughing through 300 scripts that's been a rare, rare thing). I just think you've got more in you. TV sitcoms tend to have a core of 5 or 6 recurring characters. Let's see yours all at once.
Simon
for
Every 1's a Critic
I don't think it was unreasonable of me to think I had a really good chance. I know my stuff is good, I know I can get somewhere with it... but not this way. I'm going to have a rewrite and enter some more things... but first I need to give myself time to feel gutted and shocked. Well, actually I only have about 10 more mins to do that because I have to go back to work. I feel like sitting in the rain and crying. I know I'm taking this way harder than I should be, but I am just bitterly dissapointed. Maybe after looking at houses and cycling and shopping and all the million and one things I have to do this weekend I can get back on the horse and get writing again.
Loved it. Thank you.
and this
Re: The Museum.
I really love your dialogue, I think it's original and inventive. I feel though that you're shooting yourself in the foot by limiting yourself to only 2 performers and was aching for you to bring some more characters onstage. You create wonderful characters; let's see 5 or 6 of them onstage at the same time. The more characters, the more scope for conflict, surely? And the more conflict, the more comedy.
Please don't be offended by this, I'm writing it because what you've given us so far made me laugh out loud (and ploughing through 300 scripts that's been a rare, rare thing). I just think you've got more in you. TV sitcoms tend to have a core of 5 or 6 recurring characters. Let's see yours all at once.
Simon
for
Every 1's a Critic
I don't think it was unreasonable of me to think I had a really good chance. I know my stuff is good, I know I can get somewhere with it... but not this way. I'm going to have a rewrite and enter some more things... but first I need to give myself time to feel gutted and shocked. Well, actually I only have about 10 more mins to do that because I have to go back to work. I feel like sitting in the rain and crying. I know I'm taking this way harder than I should be, but I am just bitterly dissapointed. Maybe after looking at houses and cycling and shopping and all the million and one things I have to do this weekend I can get back on the horse and get writing again.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
waiting, waiting, waiting...
..until the producer has time to get back to me... until any of my friends have time to give me feedback... until Friday when it's the deadline and I'll finally know if I've got in. I hate waiting. I also hate disappointment, I really thought Bex and I had a chance with the last comp we entered, but we didn't get anywhere. I feel a lot more strongly about this one, partly because of the producer's feedback, but also because I have such a huge emotional involvement in The Museum. I've started talking about it as though it's a real place and the characters are real people.
It's hard with this, or any of my other comic ventures, to get feedback from friends. People are too busy with the real world to spend time in my fantasy one. It does make me sad though. But then people like my husband or my dad take the time to get involved and show they understand how much this means to me, and that really helps.
I might get in, I might not. I'll be crushed if I don't... but maybe that will give me the impetus to try and get my scripts out there to production companies myself. It's not over yet, it's hardly even begun.
It's hard with this, or any of my other comic ventures, to get feedback from friends. People are too busy with the real world to spend time in my fantasy one. It does make me sad though. But then people like my husband or my dad take the time to get involved and show they understand how much this means to me, and that really helps.
I might get in, I might not. I'll be crushed if I don't... but maybe that will give me the impetus to try and get my scripts out there to production companies myself. It's not over yet, it's hardly even begun.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Almost a year..
Hello!
Well it's been almost a year since I posted, but that doesn't mean that nothing has been happening..
Some of the things I learned since my last post: how to fly (a bit), how to ride a bike, how to spin poi badly, that geophysics is ok really, that being a grown up is hard, that friends are worth the effort, how to be happily married, how to make kartofflegratin, how to be nice to people and accet that they aren't like me, how to stay relaxed, how to cope with illness, how to do downward facing dog and most importantly how to go with the flow.
I am now living in Egham in a real house. It has walls and everything. The job is going ok, I've learned a lot, although apparently my lack of passion lets me down....
...so onto something I am passionate about. Comedy:
The Museum. I think I have a good chance of getting a place in this competition. I just have to make something good brilliant. In 6 days. It's very, very hard to write a good 15 min script. You have to develop characters people actually care about, set up some conflict and resolve it... and make it funny. It's a big ask. But I'm so excited about the prospect. I'm trying not to get my hopes up but I'm going to be crushed if I don't get in.
Sometimes I don't think about The Museum for a few weeks, then I'll hear Rocket Man and start grinning like an idiot. I love my Rocket Man ending!
The Deviant Attack. This is a sketch project I've been working on with Bex Moran, after she contacted me through chortle. We have some good stuff, and you can eve get us in the iStore... swish! Have a look here.
Can't hang around... I've got a script to edit. Must put the kettle on...
Well it's been almost a year since I posted, but that doesn't mean that nothing has been happening..
Some of the things I learned since my last post: how to fly (a bit), how to ride a bike, how to spin poi badly, that geophysics is ok really, that being a grown up is hard, that friends are worth the effort, how to be happily married, how to make kartofflegratin, how to be nice to people and accet that they aren't like me, how to stay relaxed, how to cope with illness, how to do downward facing dog and most importantly how to go with the flow.
I am now living in Egham in a real house. It has walls and everything. The job is going ok, I've learned a lot, although apparently my lack of passion lets me down....
...so onto something I am passionate about. Comedy:
The Museum. I think I have a good chance of getting a place in this competition. I just have to make something good brilliant. In 6 days. It's very, very hard to write a good 15 min script. You have to develop characters people actually care about, set up some conflict and resolve it... and make it funny. It's a big ask. But I'm so excited about the prospect. I'm trying not to get my hopes up but I'm going to be crushed if I don't get in.
Sometimes I don't think about The Museum for a few weeks, then I'll hear Rocket Man and start grinning like an idiot. I love my Rocket Man ending!
The Deviant Attack. This is a sketch project I've been working on with Bex Moran, after she contacted me through chortle. We have some good stuff, and you can eve get us in the iStore... swish! Have a look here.
Can't hang around... I've got a script to edit. Must put the kettle on...
Saturday, October 06, 2007
father time, put down your scythe.
On the way home from egham I chose to voluntarily listen to the bbc orchestra playing a medley of gilbert o'sullivan hits rather than the essential session on radio one because the mindless dance music was boring the shit out of me. I even found myself singing along.
ffs, what happened to me? :P
I'm happy though. My brief comedy experience has given me massive highs and lows, from being crushed with embarassement and crying to singing to the traffic and shouting yes. Adrenalin, after glow, fear and doubt. Massive highs and lows. That's what comedy is all about, fuck it.. that's what LIFE is about. When you feel joy and pain to that extent you really know you are alive.
You have to keep pushing yourself and challenging yourself and doing things that are a little scary. I hope I have a lifetime of new experiences and joy ahead of me, stuff to share with my hubby, but if I died tomorrow I'd have no regrets, I'd just be pissed off... I've done some cool stuff :).
I'm off to Houston to learn about wiggles. And to see my hubby, dive in a tank full of sharks, fly a plane, watch an ice hockey match, drive on the wrong side of the road, see some old friends, visit new orleans, make some new friends, eat steak and drink a few beers. After living out of a suitcase in a tent smaller than my unfeasibly small car I think it will be a blast.
ffs, what happened to me? :P
I'm happy though. My brief comedy experience has given me massive highs and lows, from being crushed with embarassement and crying to singing to the traffic and shouting yes. Adrenalin, after glow, fear and doubt. Massive highs and lows. That's what comedy is all about, fuck it.. that's what LIFE is about. When you feel joy and pain to that extent you really know you are alive.
You have to keep pushing yourself and challenging yourself and doing things that are a little scary. I hope I have a lifetime of new experiences and joy ahead of me, stuff to share with my hubby, but if I died tomorrow I'd have no regrets, I'd just be pissed off... I've done some cool stuff :).
I'm off to Houston to learn about wiggles. And to see my hubby, dive in a tank full of sharks, fly a plane, watch an ice hockey match, drive on the wrong side of the road, see some old friends, visit new orleans, make some new friends, eat steak and drink a few beers. After living out of a suitcase in a tent smaller than my unfeasibly small car I think it will be a blast.
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