Why I Write

With the silly season upon us, the incidence of social functions increases astronomically and I find myself looking for new excuses not to go. End-of-year do’s are rife with traps like people you swore you’d run through with any handy pointed instrument the next time you saw them, or small talk that turns to the inevitable question of what one does for a living. The former situation, I can deal with; the latter situation, however, is a challenge:

• If I’m keeping a low profile, I tell them my day job which guarantees a very quick change of topic to current affairs or sport.
• If I’m feeling full of myself assertive, I’m a screenwriter. Which leads immediately to Have I seen your work? and It must be so exciting!, and then sooner or later, the dread Why do you write?

If I had Mr Molloy‘s foresight, I’d merely refer them to a blog like his. But Indelible Freckles isn’t about disclosure – it’s about being confident and self-deprecating, witty and wise, and compulsively employable. Being the professional that I am, my posts are not written with the aid of alcohol or similar chemical stimulants… and year-end functions are thankfully lubricated with said stimulant/s, and my answers to those dread questions depend on my level of inebriation:

• to meet girls – no longer applicable, of course, as I have my own Goddess;
• to be rich and famous – a cute and very naive reason that, after seven years of hard graft, borders on humiliatingly embarrassing;
• to make a decent living – like, Hello? – as a screenwriter? puh-lease.

The more painful and unflinchingly honest answers are likely come as dawn approaches and the alcoholic buzz has given way to proxy Irish philosophising, or, in the words of Alan Moore, [I] am reduced to a blubbering wreck that just slumps in the armchair and whimpers about it has no talent whatsoever and will never write again.

And as a new day rises, and birdsong envelopes me… and The Dog whines at the door to be let in, and The Chickens squawk and complain to be let out of their coop… I can’t wait. I’m excited. I can see the finished product already —

— the only obstacle between me and a finished film/television/theatre project is me —

— and – no pressure, of course – I get cracking.