Windy City

My workspace is up in my loft (conversion job I had done a few years ago - excellent investment) and right now I'm up here with the Velux window open, listening to the wind whipping fiercely through the trees - it's pretty nice, like being at sea without the risk of drowning. Yesterday I decided it was about time I got back into a routine; I was doing really well before Cannes, but since then it's kind of fallen apart for all sorts of reasons - but anyway, spurred on by the dimly remembered yet inspirational words of Richard Linklater ("just get on with it. If you don't love writing, then stop doing it and go and find something you do love, and do that instead" - that was the gist of it, anyway) I got up, made coffee, and cracked on with writing the play. Result! It's not finished (yet) but all the bits are in place, I just need to put them in the right order and fill in some bits in the middle. I'm much more organised when I'm writing screenplays than stage plays - do other people find this to be the case? Or is everyone much more organised than me, full stop? Anyway, I don't feel quite so despairing about the play as I did last week, and I don't totally hate it any more.

I returned to the computer fully intending to do more work last night, but instead was hideously distracted by discovering the "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" website (henceforth to be known as POTC2 - much quicker). I gathered all the plunder, but be warned, it takes AGES and the rewards aren't that great. Still, if you're mad keen to hear Mr Depp whisper "I know what I want, I know what I want", it may well be worth losing an evening.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with the Arts and Culture Officer for the city council where we're hoping to make "Echoes". I've had some fabulously encouraging emails from her department, and they seem really interested in film-making, so fingers crossed. I don't know what type of support (if any) they'll be able to give us, but it will be good to go and chat anyway. Part of the deal with applying for funding through the regional agencies of the Film Council is that you have to raise a certain percentage of the funding yourself, although part of this can be "in kind", as well as in hard cash. We're really well off as far as "in kind" is concerned, it's just the money we're short of.

And in other news - it's no wonder my Astilbe was reduced to mere stalks - yesterday's beer traps had over 100 slugs in them, and this morning's contained 50+. What's interesting is that the pile of 100+ dead slugs I tipped out yesterday was much reduced this morning, so either they were pretending to be dead because they had mega hangovers (and after the cheap lager I gave them, who wouldn't?), or my local hedgehogs really enjoyed marinated slug for dinner. Happily, the slugs have been so preoccupied with attempting to reduce my flower border to twigs that they have left the salad project alone - lettuces and rocket are popping up nicely, as are tomatoes, but spinach and spring onions are totally non-germinating so far while the five varieties of peppers I sowed are a bit patchy. But hoorah, five jalapeno seedlings have emerged. Looks like everyone's getting chilli oil for Christmas again.