Christmas script (part 2)

Well, after my little rant on Tuesday - which I still feel was entirely justified as I had wasted a majority of the day and thrown away the many pages of extensive notes which had taken many a spare moment to write, I decided to get a grip. Thing is; there was absolutely no way I was going to cancel the Christmas show because certain people (actors, mostly) are looking forward to it - for them alone I couldn't pull out, but I was feeling flat and bored of my own writing. Anyway, a good solid lunch hour of writing yesterday tipped things roughly back into shape - and then an intense writing session from 6.30pm - 12.30am finished the piece. It was one of those glorious moments where I just hit my stride and remembered why I am doing this. The key I think was that a) I had developed a better understanding of the characters (I'd consequently changed the lead of Sophie from being a shouty bitch to a misunderstood control freak) and b) I was actually starting to enjoy myself again. Christmas is amazing - and once I remembered that, courtesy of my 'It's Christmas Time' album there was no stopping me. During the course of that last minute, six hour writing session I drank 2 litres of Pepsi and ate 8 bars of Tescos mint chocolate thingys and a pizza. Today at lunch I tightened things up a bit, and this evening we had the first read through. Yes, that was how late I'd left things. Excitedly reading the script in the corner of The Tram Depot pub in Cambridge, my outstanding cast; Izzy, Kev, Elisa, Steve and 'Vaughan Claus' thrilled me by bringing these characters to life. The beautiful thing is, they want to be in this, they want it to work, and yet tonight the read-through was effortless, they just fell into the characters. The tempo of the piece felt spot on, it times roughly around 50 minutes leaving a nice gap for a live band, everyone likes each other, the cast chuckled as they heard the jokes for the first time and rehearsal dates are in the diary. 'Three Elves, A Snowman And A Funeral' -written in a day and a half, stressed me out a great deal, but is probably one of my best scripts yet.