Caption: 1 year ago.

My latest masterpiece involves the line:

"Caption: 1 Year Ago".

This, apparantly, should stand alone in the script and if it wasnt obvious already, it means that on the screen you see the words "1 Year Ago" somewhere, somehow.

And this got me thinking, how much have I done in the past year?

1 year ago didn't even think I wanted to write films. I wanted to be a film director, I still do, not a screenwriter. But now the latter is not such a bad option - perhaps being a writer/director is for me.

1 year ago I hadn't made, or directed, any films. I've made a couple now, with the help of a professional cinematographer. But have I really gone the right way? I'm making my own films, not getting onto sets doing the shit jobs that the runners all have to do. All the time I was being told to do as much of my own stuff as possible, but then a film-production-graduate-turned-office-worker told me that I should be getting onto sets, not making my own stuff.

This past year has made me realise just how much I don't understand this industry.

I've started, so I'll finish.

Or so the astute quizmaster and presenter John Humphreys would say.

I on the other hand, rarely finish anything. Just today I tried to do a little coursework but I didn't get too far with that. I tried to have a sandwich, but alas, there was no bread. Hell, I tried to go to the park for a game of football, but naturally, half way there, I turned around and came home because it was raining.

This, apparantly, is a problem many young screenwriters like me have. Perhaps not to the extent where we can't eat, but at least to the extent where we try writing a new blockbuster, and stop after 4 and a half pages of, frankly, a load of crap. In fact, it's a problem that a lot of screenwriters, stage writers, authors and poets have, full stop. Well, perhaps not poets - I mean, lets face it, how hard is a bit of poetry compared to a 120 page film?

My computer has a lot of unfinished scripts sitting on it. Most of them might be pretty good, who knows. Lets hope I get round to finishing them. I've started this blog, lets hope I manage to finish this! (If you can, truly, finish a blog?)

Oh, and devout poets, I'm sorry. Poetry is a beautiful expression of one's emotions and it is not at all easy. I take back what I said.