I’m stuck. I’ve hit a wall with this latest script. I’ve written my characters into a sitcom scenario that should be a tremendously funny moment – a sitcom dinner filled with hilarious misunderstandings – and yet I can’t seem to get any of the words to form on the page.
I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’ve been staring at it too long. Maybe I need a second pair of eyes to offer some advice. Maybe… I don’t know, maybe I just need to sit down and hammer the scene out no matter how it turns out. That’s what first drafts are for, isn’t it? Get this shit out of your head and onto the page, and you can make it work later. But I obsess over making it work now. The rest of this script is stupendous, containing one of my favourite moments from anything I’ve ever written, but the rest of it just isn’t coming together. Everything was going so well…
I’ve spent the last few days just watching sitcoms and trying to absorb as much via osmosis as I can. I’m currently watching “Joking Apart” for the first time. It’s funny, but it hasn’t aged well. There’s a distinct veneer of the 90s about it that is a little difficult to get past. The saxophone in the opening titles and incidental music, the fashion, the slightly off-kilter acting, it’s all a little overwhelming at times. I can usually shotgun a six-episode series of a show in one day, but I find myself digesting “Joking Apart” in bits. An episode here, an episode there.
Maybe I should get Adam to have a look at it. But then his schedule hasn’t been ideal as of late. He hasn’t even had the time to give me notes on the first script I sent him…