6910/19830
Finished it with 17 hours to spare. Really mis-timed it this year. Way too much time. Could have done a seventh one.
I suspect there will be a bit of editing in the studio (and there might be time to rewrite some of it, as there a couple of recording days that we haven't managed to nail down yet) but it's obviously a great feeling to get it done.
And in a flash the pains and frustrations of the last six months are forgotten and replaced with overwhelming satisfaction. The pathetic existence of the writer.
It's such a relief to have made it this far - though it remains to be seen if the script is any good and if rewrites will be required.
This one has been hard and taken its toll, but I think it might have been worth the effort. Nothing will ever be perfect, but part of the reason it's taken so long is that I have been as perfectionist as possible. Balancing so many characters and plots is always going to be an impossible task and I maybe needed another couple of episodes to properly represent everyone's story (but I am NOT writing two more). Ultimately though I think I've done pretty well. You can decide when you listen to it.
I am NEVER writing another series though
Cut to...
To celebrate tonight I drank my first can of zero alcohol Guinness. It's been a little while since I've drunk a Guinness, but from memory I'd say they have done pretty well at recreating the taste. Others have said they think it's a little too sweet and that you can't drink loads of it without that becoming overwhelming. But I generally only drink one can of non-alcoholic beer on a night and this gave me the impression of stout without the alcohol. I quite liked it.
I enjoyed people on Twitter telling me that alcohol free beer was pointless and that people only drank beer to get drunk. A point of view which seems at odds with the beer companies seemingly making every effort to create more non alcoholic beers, plus with the fact that there are so many different tasting alcohols on the market rather than just one tasteless kind of drinkable alcohol. Anyway, now that these non-beers are getting better they still feel like a reward.
My daughter has decided to write a book. She's called it “Harry Potter and the Amazing Adventures!†I explained there might be copyright issues, but hopefully it will be so good that JK Rowling will allow it to be published. It was a pretty exciting start where Harry awoke to discover a magic vortex had opened up in his bedroom, but then we had to go and have dinner, so we'll have to wait for another day to complete this masterpiece. Little delights me more than my daughter being into making up stories. The Thriling Three may live again.
