5030/17950
I was remarkably relaxed about the fact that it is the first AIOTM record. I had a whole video script to learn and a whole audio script to learn (we're doing two podcasts at each recording, the audio one for immediate release, the video one for when we're ready). But I seem to be in a good place creatively and for some reason felt confident that I could get this done. There's a lot less pressure in doing these monthly than there was in the old days when I did them weekly. It may get tougher as we go onwards, but I was looking forward to the challenge and seemed to have a few ideas.
So confident was I, in fact, that I took the afternoon off to go and have lunch with friends. They have a daughter who is a year or so older than Phoebe and the two girls hit it off, although Phoebe was in awe od the older and cooler girl and her new friend liked having a little person to follow her every whim. But it was really cool to see them playing together, one of them talking and the other babbling, but still seemingly conversing and understanding each other. The older girl very kindly let Phoebe try on her Elsa from Frozen dress (though stipulating that she would have to give it back before she left). We've occasionally dressed Phoebe up as an ewok or whatever for our own amusement, but this was really the first time she's done fancy dress and it was interesting to see how much she loved it. She knew it was special and swished her long dress with pride. It's fascinating and heart-warming to see the leaps in her development and also terrifying as each new thing means saying goodbye to the baby we knew, whilst welcoming this new tiny person. She's getting dextrous and fascinated by how things work and it's such a jolt to see her problem solving and working out, for example, how to stack boxes inside each other, sometimes having to take a small one out so the big one will fit in. Though today having done this almost perfectly she then tried to put the biggest box inside the other boxes, so however many boxes she took out, her task was impossible. What a fucking idiot.
I ducked out of the fun a bit early to travel back home. I was mildly concerned about not having had time to learn the video script, but made some headway on the audio. And then, with incredible calm, recognising how tired I was, I left the script at a point where there were still a few pages to write and went to bed. I hoped the bits that were problematic would sort themselves out overnight and I could finish up then and then concentrate on the video. I don't know if the calmness was confidence (I think I had the making of two good shows) or if I was just being less stressed about it than usual - the video is the main event and the audio just an extra, so there isn't so much riding on it. But weirdly by not shitting bricks about it, I think it came out better. This week has been very encouraging in terms of getting my writing mojo back on track and I was delighted and excited by how easily the ideas I was having were coming out on to my computer screen as pretty much fully formed routines. I have always preferred deadlines and think they focus creativity, but whilst not every idea was definitely comedy gold and some bits were deleted and sent off into the electronic ether, I had that little buzz of excitement back in my stomach.
Maybe it is crazy to revisit an old format, but by the end of the day I was tending more towards the opinion that maybe we'd been crazy to stop doing it when it was just on the point of becoming properly popular. The problem was its old weekly nature. I am hoping that doing it monthly will turn it into a pleasure and not a terrifying mentally-unbalancing chore.
But I think also that having a bit too much stuff on my plate does help to stoke the creative fires. This stupid schedule that saw me writing a screenplay on Thursday, gigging in Stratford yesterday, trying to complete a TV and a radio show this weekend and then going out to do another small acting job on Monday creates the right kind of stress and has enough variety to make me fire on all cylinders. Obviously I am concerned that AIOTM might be an unfunny disaster once we get it in front of an audience, but I am relishing the opportunity to try it. I feel very lucky to have these opportunities. But as the man said, the harder I work, the luckier I get.
