That headline is the short version. Here’s the full story:
At the start of the year I entered my first ever script – an ante-natal sitcom inspired by my ecourse/book – into the BAFTA Rocliffe Comedy Award. I didn’t get anywhere with it, but the feedback they gave me was so helpful and positive that I felt brilliant.
I wish I’d done it sooner!
As I entered it, I saw the deadline for the Children’s Media competition was a few months away. So I sent my husband this email. (Even when you’ve been together for 20 years, asking someone to co-write with you is a strangely vulnerable experience).
Luckily, he was up for it. He’d written a book treatment about 10 years ago that I’d mentioned I’d like to turn into a TV script. He wrote me a load of episode synopses and I put the paper in my pants drawer and just kept looking at it every now and then, thinking, “Well, you never did bother writing that script did you?”
It became my pants drawer shame space.
Anyway, we entered. Then we got this email:
OMG!
So then we spent the weekend letting the children binge watch Clifford The Big Red Dog while we worked on our script.
AND WE GOT THROUGH!
Ok, so we didn’t make it into the Showcase (which is where the perform your script at BAFTA in front of an audience and then industry bods critique it while you sweat), but we are on the Forum List which goes out to the industry!
So thank you Alex Milway!
And what’s the moral of this story? Well, if you ever thought, “Hmm, I really want to write scripts,” but haven’t got round to it yet. Pull your finger out and JUST DO IT.
Don’t live with a pants drawer shame space. You’re better than that.
