Writing is fun!

Continuing my enthusiastic return to the world of writing for fun, I did, in fact, write up what I said I was going to write up last night, and also read back over the start to the novel that I wrote sometime last year. Surprisingly, I'm quite pleased with this initial chapter, although I will say that in my haste to get things out of my brain and onto the computer I sometimes tend to rush them and they end up a lot shorter than they actually should be. Hence the reason that that my first chapter is about a side and a half of A4.

But hell, that's what re-writing is for, huh? The only downside is that, historically, I hate re-writing my own text. Although as I've had to re-write and edit text I've written quite a lot in recent months at work (to fit the page, not because it was crap), maybe I've grown a bit more accustomed to it. We'll have to wait and see post-February, I suppose.

And in related news, I spontaneously signed up to ComicSpace last night (link over there - in the, um, link bar-thingy). As if you couldn't guess, this site is like MySpace - but for comics! They're promising that you'll soon be able to host your own comics on the site, which is great, and yet another incentive to throw myself back into the writing like Dawn French throwing herself into a ball-pit full of Terry's chocolate oranges.

So, still looking and sounding chipper on the writing front - tomorrow's lunchtime will be spent beginning to plot a coherent roadmap of the narrative, so that come February 1st I can just dive right in like the aforementioned Ms French. Paint me excited!

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Today also marks exactly eight days since I remarked that I hadn't been ill at all in 2006, and exactly a week since I was struck down by the evil ailment I'm still suffering from now. Fortunately, it also seems that I've turned the corner and am feeling much better, and am getting some quality snot action going.

Of course, there are several downsides to being ill, not least the fact that when you live on your own there's no one to complain to in order to get some quality sympathy. Texting your mum 'Dnt feel well bttr nt come round l8r' doesn't generate quite the same response as actually standing in front of her in all your shivering, snotty glory and asking for a hug. And posting about it on the blog doesn't quite work either, because no matter which font I use (even if it is in italics) you couldn't tell that I'd lost my voice.

It's not all doom and gloom though; while I may not have had the chance to get out for any post Christmas/New Year exercise, the constant coughing is proving to be quite the workout for my abdominal muscles.

Abs of steel!

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Why don't they rename E4 the Friends channel? I'm sure they finished showing the final season last week, and yet they now appear to be showing them ALL OVER AGAIN. Can't they show 15 episodes of Scrubs per day instead?

Don't get me wrong, I used to love Friends. But now it's kind of lost its appeal; the early episodes look horrifically dated, and I'm growing to loathe the characters. Monica? Obsessive-compulsive wench. Chandler? Unfunny. Ross? Annoying, ya-huh?

And if any of my neighbours just strolled into my home and raided the fridge while dispensing a carefully-scripted witicism I'd subject them to my punch-punch, overhead kick combo.

I always prefered Frasier, anyway...

Marcosy and I were chatting about sitcoms the other week, and he made the controversial statement that the traditional sitcom is dead. And truth be told, he's probably right. Look at something like My Name is Earl. It's shot like a normal drama, and dispenses with the hackneyed laughter track that's blighted sitcoms since one caveman bopped another one on the head with a club.

That's not to say that a traditional sitcom is doomed to fail these days - it's just that the game has moved on a bit.

And as if to prove Marcosy's theory, some Hollywood exec mirrored his comments in the paper at the weekend. Quick - someone ask him this week's lottery numbers!