BAFTA

Blimey, it’s all kicking off this month, isn’ t it?!

So you know how I mentioned I entered my first every script – Mum-Life Crisis – into the BAFTA Rocliffe Comedy Award and didn’t get anywhere? Well, after they gave me so much helpful and brilliant feedback, I reworked it and sent it to a production company.

They were very nice about it and gave me even more helpful feedback.

So I reworked it again and entered it into the Funny Women Awards. And they shortlisted me!

I didn’t get to bask in glory for long though – they let me know the next day that I didn’t make the final. But STILL!

I’m still high on making it onto the BAFTA Rocliffe Children’s Media Forum with my second script (co-written with Alex Milway) and then I go and get shortlisted for Funny Women with my first script!

It’s all too much. How will I cope next month when I don’t get shortlisted for something? Life will seem hollow and empty without all this external validation.

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).

want_to_write_a_children_s_script_with_me__-_shinykatie_gmail_com_-_gmail

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:

bafta_rocliffe_children_2016_-_shinykatie_gmail_com_-_gmail

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.