Starting is restarting

Getting back into writing after a break can be daunting

For the last 16 years, my life has had an annual rhythm in which everything leads up to Ada Lovelace Day on the second Tuesday of October. My year ‘starts’ in November as I begin to think about what’s going to happen for Ada Lovelace Day next year and write my sponsorship prospectus. The intensity and stress then slowly ramps up until around mid-August, when ALD takes over completely. 

This means that my writing has a yearly schedule too, as I have more time and mental space to write from November to August, and then very little of either until ALD is over for another year. Every year I think I’ll be able to carry on writing through the crush, but I never do. (Although this year I did manage to do Joel Morris’s course on writing comedy, largely because he doesn’t set homework. It was very good, well worth doing.)

This means that I’m back in the familiar place of restarting my writing. I’m focussing fully on Fieldwork and, indeed, I’m writing this on a train to Oxford where I’ll meet up with one of my coconspirators, Prof Pen Holland, for lunch.

And tomorrow (or yesterday, by the time you read this), I’m meeting up with two writerly friends for what I hope will be similarly inspiring conversations. I’m also going to a podcast conference on Saturday to learn about production, sound design and fundraising, which I hope will be both interesting and helpful.

It’s easy to feel a bit overwhelmed at this time of year. I am still really very tired from the stress of ALD and then a ten day holiday in America that I took directly afterwards to go to a family wedding and then on to New Mexico. The jet lag last week was not kind to me. 

But carrying me through is a feeling of genuine excitement, partly engendered by Joel’s course, which was really good for my confidence, and partly due to the fact that I can see the road forward to eventual production and publication. It’s not going to be easy, not least the fundraising bit of it, but because I intend to make this podcast independently, I don’t feel like my success depends on the whims of other people. I have agency, and I’m going to damn well use it. 

In terms of restarting work on Fieldwork, I’m not going to be rewriting my existing script, because it does not have good bones and no amount of tinkering around the edges will fix that. So I need to start again from scratch which, as always, feels a bit intimidating. 

But I love a good plan, and sharing my plan publicly also gives me a bit of accountability, so here’s what I need to do: 

1. Reread my science interviews to give me some ideas about what my characters are doing during the episode. Read up on bats a bit more. 

2. Read a load of audio drama and audio comedy scripts.

3. Draft a new outline, making sure that I’m clear on my protagonist’s central character flaw, how the plot will test that flaw, and how the episode will resolve.

4. Flesh out the outline, make sure I’ve hitting the right beats at the right time. 

5. Write the script. 

Given that there are very few places to submit comedy TV scripts these days I won’t bother drafting a TV version and will just go straight to audio. I’m not yet sure how I’m going to adjust to writing for a podcast as I’ve never really done that before, but I think it’s just a matter of not putting anything on the page that can’t be heard. 

But, one thing I must say: I started the first draft of this post thinking it was going to be another one of those “Suw’s got writer’s block again” posts, but in all honesty, I don’t. I’m just very, very tired at the moment. It’s so easy to underestimate how much all the stress of Ada Lovelace Day takes out of me and, more to the point, how long it takes me to recover. So I’m going to be very kind to myself and give myself space to recuperate. 

Whilst I do that, I’d love to hear in the comments what sort of writing you’re up to at the moment, and what your writing plan is, if you have one!