Neighbours. The real ones, not the TV soap.
Every Thursday the person who lives in the flat below me watches TV until 00:40am. He probably doesn't think the TV is on loudly, perhaps it isn't. But it's too loud for me. I like silence when I'm trying to sleep - or, at least, not something that might make sense.
I can't hear any word clearly enough to understand, but I can here that it is conversation, and it keeps me awake. Until 00:40. Then he'll switch it off.
Why? I mean, why 00:40? What is the magical significance of that time?
Still, I'm prepared this week - the 3rd week. Last week I was so tired you'd think I'd sleep anyway, but I just don't work like that.
Curiously it's the only thing about which my wife and I significantly disagree. To her having Radio 4 playing is "background". To me it is in-yer-face "foreground". To me music is background and it helps me concentrate (except when it has to be played at full volume - and let's face it, some things do). To her, it's irritating. She hates silence. I love it.
Apart from that we' re perfectly compatible - unfortunately for our poor children. We agree so completely on pretty much everything else that if a child tries the "asking the other parent" trick, they will get the identical answer for the identical reason. In fact they don't bother any more.
So I have 50 minutes to go. I made sure I got a good night's sleep last night. Still tired, of course, but not like I was last week. I've put on a CD that takes the requisite hour to complete.
Apart from during my computer-less-ness yester-eve, this week I have mostly been writing a treatment for Monsters for submission to the Cheltenham Screenwriter's Festival Scriptmarket. I wrote most of it Monday and finished it on Tuesday. This evening I took the editing pen to it and started ripping stuff out.
I'm really not sure about it, as it seems very disjointed. I do a lot of cutting between different people and locations often in quick scenes. It works well in its fully written-out form (I think it's quite televisual, and people who know seem to agree), but it doesn't seem to translate well to prose form. I'm trying to keep the flow natural and begin new scenes with something that naturally guides the reader. But I'm not a happy bunny.
I keep looking at it objectively and feeling that it really doesn't work. Oh well.
I'm going to keep writing until it gets to midnight and then post this blog. Then I shall write at least one more blog which will come through tomorrow afternoon - and maybe another for the weekend. Hm, Blogger seems to be 3 minutes behind my clock.
Another minute gone. Read "A Minute Passed".
Not long now.
(I wonder what the folks back home are doing...)
(We're not doing anything!)
Right.
What's on the turntable? "Sirius" by Clannad from "PastPresent"
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