On Fire

A good day's work on the spec script today, with my finally feeling like I've got the answer to 'How much plot do you need to fill a 25 minute episode?'

Blazed through a new scene-by-scene breakdown - including finding a way to accommodate a twist in the tale that totally blindsided me a couple of days ago - then got halfway through a draft of episode one before running out of steam. You could smell the keyboard burning from the end of the road.

Well, it was either that or the stench of the potato we forgot was in the microwave yesterday evening. By the time someone remembered it, it was black as a taxman's heart and the whole house reeked like back-burnt bushland.

But at least the incinerated tuber smell has covered up the other odour pervading the place, the reason why yesterday was a dead loss on the writing front and why the vaporised vegetable was forgotten in the first place. You see, my daughter spent most of the day throwing up, courtesy of some bug or other, and the clean-up efforts account variously for my lack of creativity and any cookery-related memory lapses ... It was like that Monty Python sketch, stretched out over twelve hours.

Oh, you know the one ...