Only six days to go! Which means that today is 19th December. So why am I feeling totally Christmased out? Perhaps because I’ve already had quite a few Christmas dinners?
Don’t get me wrong – I’ve had some really lovely social events in the last couple of weeks. There was my lovely three-day visit to V in Rainhill, which involved not only a Christmas dinner but also a paella with sangria and a panto! Great time! Then I had Christmas lunch with the DCHS girls; my three oldest friends. And when I say oldest here, can I please clarify that I’m using in the sense of longest-standing and not actual years, as I’ve already managed to upset two of them by the use of the word on FB! On Sunday we had a bit of an Anglo-Antiguan celebration during the reading of Singles’ Holiday in the form of mince pies and rum punch.
Tuesday brought a lovely meal and catch-up with my dear friend B in Hertfordshire and then last night it was Murder Mystery Christmas, my present to the Sister, the Brother and the Sister-in-Law, which also involved a Christmas dinner. We enjoyed ourselves; these evenings are always great fun. And our team, the Southend Sleuths guessed the murderer correctly and the weapon and half the motive, so we came a very respectable second!
But now it quietens down, sort of. There’s the Festival of Plays at Anna Scher’s on Friday and I’m pleased to say that my play, Long Lost Family, is in it and I”m also acting in Sally-Anne Cullen’s play, Roger’s Money, too. And although no food is involved there’ll be a lovely Christmassy feel to the evening, I know. Then my pre-Christmas dinner on Monday with the Daughter, which I’m looking forward to very, very much. The rest of the time will be my own to get on with finishing Singles in India and finalising the final draft of the Singles’ Holiday script. I thought I was almost at the end of SII, but the plot’s taken a bit of a turn so typing the final page, which was quite close, has now slipped back onto the far horizon. I’m sort of switching from one to the other, when I’m not writing my blog, of course.
So – as lovely as it’s been ‘chatting’ to you all, I have to go back to work. I’ve left my Singles in India group buying for Britain in a megastore in Jaipur and they have to get back on the coach very soon or they’ll be late for dinner.
And I have to continue taking the metaphorical red pen to the playscript, which is proving to be quite a task as I have to make difficult decisions to reduce roles and character prominence.
Nobody said writing was going to be easy.
A writer’s lot is not an easy one. Discuss.
