I loved writing because I could get involved in the stories I created. Doyle was my hero and I realised I could spend more time with my curly haired hero if I wrote my own stories about him.

I went from writing about TV characters to inventing my own, and wrote a couple of fantasy novels as a teenager because I had crushes on sword-wielding thieves rather than the blokes in Duran Duran or Aha.

The only career I wanted was one where I could dream up stories for a living, I was unusually confident about this working out, so I left school at sixteen and took part-time jobs to write novels and TV scripts. I had just enough encouragement  from agents and BBC people to keep going, but when I saw an advert for a new degree at Bournemouth University in Scriptwriting for Film and TV I knew this was a great opportunity to leave home to learn the writer’s trade.

It almost worked out, my screenplays were well liked, and before I’d even left University I was heading to the BBC to meet producers and work on a one-off drama script. I was offered an option deal for a comedy about crisps (yes, crisps) I even co-wrote a screenplay for an independent filmmaker.

But deep down I wasn’t happy with my work, I knew my projects were flawed, there was always something missing. Maybe the structure wasn’t up to much, maybe the characters were weak? I had imagination, I knew I could write, but somehow I could never deliver a story that worked from the first page to the last.

I had a daughter, I learned to play poker and was good at the game, I got my first proper full-time job, then  I split up with a long-term partner and some big life stuff happened… I had a career, friends, all the stuff I’d only ever written about before. Now it was all happening to me, and I was changing.

But the writing thing didn’t go away. I wrote my blogs, in an obsessive, caring-too-much-about it way. Blogs that changed my life as it happens.

My first blog was Ace High, a blog I used to talk myself into leaving my partner, it took a while before I risked a life as a single mum, daring to leave a wealthy boyfriend who was still my best friend.

Happy, silly, (magic) fun stuff, was a blog about my new life as a single mum, a life of adventure as a hero of Tooting Bec, where I found magic in nothing-special things, and made a challenge of sticking stickers on tube station posters.

I finished writing this blog when I found myself unexpectedly pregnant. I moved to Whitstable when my baby was just a week old, and missed work and London. I’ve struggled to settle here, truth be told. So I started writing ‘not writing’. A sad little blog where I miserably claimed I was writing about not writing.

And here we are now.

I had a bee in my bonnet about bees, remember that? And as I started to write screenplays again, after a decade away from this first love, I realised what the silly bee thing was all about.

It probably sounds like nonsense to most, but my favourite screenwriting book had a passage about bees flying at windows while there was an unnoticed open window just a few inches away.

When I wrote screenplays years ago, I never quite got the story right. Now I think I know what stories mean, all the best screenwriting books (including the bee one) tell you that a story is about a hero changing. I think I might be better at the story writing lark these days, because I get that, and I feel it. I’ve lived through kids, careers, break-ups, magic tube stations, bees in my bonnet… I’ve changed, and come back stronger.

So I’m a bee flying out of the open window, writing screenplays and loving it.

I’m hoping this third act as a screenwriter is a success, but it doesn’t really matter if it’s not because I know how lucky I am to have found something I enjoy. It’s rather nice to close this blog by saying ‘ I am writing’.

I may start a new blog about my adventures as a would-be screenwriter, I’d like to call it ‘The cat and the bee’. The cat because of my new favourite screenwriting book, and the bee… Well you know that one.

It might be nice to write a first post that mentions that I’m longlisted in the BBC Drama Writer’s Academy, and shortlisted in the Euroscript Screen Story competition.

It’s been a good week for my writing, and I’m happy. So goodbye ’not writing’ and hello to the cat and the bee.

It was given as a gift, with a note that read, “To my little poker star.”

I’d played at PokerStars and won a poker tournament, the gift arrived a few days later and the message was a reminder of my success.

A few months later I wore my silver star necklace at an interview for a customer support job in the new London office of PokerStars. I met a young bearded man and a quiet older Israeli  in a hotel in Mayfair.

I told them I liked writing and loved poker, I was confident I could do an excellent job writing support emails to PokerStars players. I liked the people I met and thought they’d be good people to work for. The older guy seemed stern but fair, while his bearded son  was kindly and helped me out when I struggled with an interview question.

I wore my poker star to many poker tournaments and won a few. The star became my talisman, it wasn’t lucky, but it gave me confidence. I was proud of my new job at PokerStars and surprised to be good at it, my necklace reminded me of doing well at things.

I’d tried to be a writer for many years, taking part-time jobs to write novels and screenplays and letters to production companies… which they replied to with ‘not for us, good luck.’ My  job for PokerStars was my first ever office job. I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much, but I loved the challenge of investigating collusion, I made friends with some great colleagues, I entertained myself by collecting funny emails from players. Most of all I respected the company, they were a good company to work for and I worked hard. That stern but fair boss and his kindly son ran a good business, and that business grew.

I wonder now whether my commitment to that full-time job had something to do with my relationship ending? I split up with my boyfriend not long after I took my PokerStars job. I started to write a blog about my life as a single mum, I wrote about stickers on tube station posters, and Tooting Bec magic things, and about my silly crush on poker playing comedian Richard Herring, and my crush on my bearded billionaire boss. I called my boss the BBB, an amusing theme to play with, along with the stickers and magic stuff.

One day my bearded boss called me into his office and asked if I’d like to write about a tournament in Barcelona. I was a support email answerer so I was surprised to be asked, but I still had writing dreams, they weren’t quite forgotten despite the excitement of my new career, and so of course I said yes.

The World Cup of Poker wasn’t as grand as its name suggested, but I had a great time on my writing assignment in Spain. I treasure a photo of myself wearing a red PokerStars top, standing with the gang of happy young Poles who had just won the World Cup of Poker. I was wearing my silver star necklace. Of course I was wearing my silver star necklace.

I sometimes wondered how my bearded boss knew I could write, to give me that proud moment as a PokerStars blogger. It was many years later that someone mentioned that he sometimes read my blog. I hope he knew that BBB crush was a big dollop of artistic licence.

I went on a few more writing trips for PokerStars blog, but if I’m honest tournament reporting wasn’t my thing. I write best about my life or made-up stuff, not about poker pro or a flush beating two pair. But this was the only writing work in the company and I would have enjoyed the opportunity to learn that trade. But it wasn’t to be, a travelling reporter’s life doesn’t fit with having kids.

So I suggested PokerStars create a blog for its play money players, and I wore my silver poker star necklace when I went to the BBB’s office to discuss the idea. I prattled on about community and loyalty, and how I’d started out as a play money player long ago. I was thrilled when he said yes. I don’t think it had anything to do with wearing that silver star necklace, but who knows?

I could write play money blog posts without leaving the country, all while being a good mum to my daughter, and I could play with ideas, and try to create a community, and… Then I got pregnant.

I spent a year away from PokerStars, and had little need to wear my silver star necklace as a mum of a new baby. Things were very different when I returned to work, PokerStars had grown fast, the London office was in someplace new, and I worked from home as a Support Shift Leader. The necklace stayed in my jewellery box.

I next wore my silver star necklace when I tried to persuade my company to use Twitter. I don’t know if the necklace had lost some of it’s power through lack of use, it was sterling silver and maybe I’d forgotten to give it a polish. It took a while to get the Twitter thing set up, I wasn’t even wearing the necklace months later when I got an email saying I could tweet for PokerStars.

I was wearing the silver star necklace six months later when I met the new head of Social Media. The meeting went well, times had changed, companies everywhere were getting serious about tweets and Facebook posts. My work became more official, and I was quite relieved it wasn’t just me tweeting each day.

I next wore my silver star necklace at EPT London. I met PokerStars female marketing manager,  she was taking maternity leave and needed someone to cover for her. It was a great opportunity and it came out of the blue. I wondered if my silver star necklace was lucky after all.

Of course I said yes, and I took my star necklace to Madrid, to wear it on the first day of my first ever ladies tournament, organised by me the female marketing person.

It was a long day, and a hard one. I met poker stars Liv Boeree and Vicky Coren, and the tournament was a success.

I finished the night chatting to poker bloggers in the casino bar. They were a good crowd, and it seemed like a different world from my team-of-one blogging at the World Cup of Poker long ago.

I had a few beers, went to bed late, and it wasn’t until the morning that I realised I’d lost my poker star necklace.

I searched my room, I asked at the casino, but my necklace didn’t show up.

Tiffany still make my silver poker star necklace. I found out it’s a starfish. I never thought of it like that, and it’s amusing because in the poker world a ‘fish’ means an inexperienced or bad player.

I told you I felt a guilty pleasure for loving my little star necklace, and I should explain why this is. It was given to me, years ago, by someone who had no need to give me presents as he wasn’t my boyfriend.

So I loved my necklace and all it meant, and the poker star meaning I’d assigned it, but it was a bittersweet feeling, the necklace reminded me of mistakes, it was tinged with regret. Although I felt like a poker star when I wore it, there was something fake about it, it wasn’t quite as it should be. Maybe it was because it was a poker starfish?

I miss my necklace, but I don’t think I’ll replace it.

The day after my necklace was lost I learned my maternity leave cover job will end. I trust my company to find me a suitable role in October. It will just be strange going to an interview without my poker star necklace.

If you convince yourself there’s some item you need then the occasion will take on a fine sense of purpose, the buying of  said item will trigger a sense of fulfillment, so the day will pass muster as a happy one. Unless (like me) you dissect the day and decide it was wasted time, spent among loathsome crowds throwing money at  barely needed stuff.

No matter, two weeks later we’ll be back at Bluewater,  and I’ll be relieved to find a plan for an empty Saturday when my boyfriend decides he needs a new shaving mirror or tie pin. Or maybe the sun will smile on us and a picnic on the beach will be purpose enough for everyone.

My boyfriend and I went to Bluewater with our three-year old son on Saturday, while my daughter saw the stars at Greenwich Observatory with her London dad.

The middle classes leave London for blue skies and a better life in Kent,  I wonder if they know that when the blue skies desert them the only plan will be Bluewater shopping?

Our three-year old can be persuaded to like Bluewater if we buy him enough comics and Yo Sushi. His Yo Sushi habit could well pay for the price difference between a Kent three bed and a London. He’s old enough to know his colours. Unfortunately he likes red.

I work from home these days, usually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Long ago I worked in the London office and I’d spend lunch hours in Selfridges or John Lewis buying pretty things to wear for work.  

I’m visiting the office next week to meet my boss - but I don’t want to wear jeans and a T-shirt. Our Saturday Bluewater trip was inspired by my desire for pretty things to wear to the office.

My mission was accomplished and I was briefly happy. I loved my new dress. They hadn’t had a small, but it was a great dress so I decided a medium would do.

 I got my dress home and tried it on, of course  medium wouldn’t do. It didn’t fit.

A frosty Sunday, and my boyfriend left first thing for Copenhagen. He was facing work and frostier climates than Whitstable, I was facing Sunday on my own with the boy, with no plan.

I suggested a trip to the library to return overdue books. He declined, I didn’t argue. He  played with a plastic She Ra that had been dad’s before he developed automatonophobia, while I settled to my laptop.  Another popular Kent pastime is online shopping.

Coffee was enjoyed, a dress purchased, along with shoes and a green cardigan.

I didn’t take up my boy’s offer to play with his plastic figures, instead I logged into eBay and typed ‘bee.’

I found a Victorian 2 colour gold bee brooch for £110. It was beautiful.

I like old things. I liked this bee. The bee had  lobsided orange enamel eyes, its imperfection reminded me of my sticker drawings; orange is my favourite colour.

I loved that the bee was so tiny, you could wear this brooch and no one would even notice.

I’m not a brooch sort of person. I’m certainly not a £110 brooch sort of person.

I could imagine wearing this secret bee on occasions when I wanted to be reminded of   happy bee things, like magic, dreams and  inspiration.

Maybe I could wear it to  the office with the smart new dress and shoes?

I never wear brooches.  I never buy £110 jewellry. But this week I’d had a £890 tax rebate. It was  also our 5th anniversary and we hadn’t decided what to do about presents. Plus my boyfriend  had said  I should buy myself something as a reward for starting a new job.

Maybe I could justify  spending £110 on a magic secret weapon eBay bee?

 Or was this just another dull Kent weekend purchase? Would it really cheer me up or just be another thing to mark the day? Did I really need a  gold bee to remind me of dreams and inspiration and magic? Wasn’t all this a part of me, so why did I need an expensive symbol to wear?

My boyfriend emailed, mentioning news of a friend finding difficulties buying his house. It reminded me of our struggle to save up for a deposit, plus the added complication that I wanted a move  to expensive London. £110 bees wouldn’t help our plans.

It was, after all, just a thing.

It was a lovely thing… A thing that I would treasure forever, and wear regularly, and even want to be buried in (yes, I saw an eBay brooch and decided this.) This little bee would always remind me of my dreams and hope and inspiration.

I made a decision. I would find money for a deposit, the house in London, and the bee too.

I would fund this bees purchase by selling on eBay all the  crap I’d bought at Bluewater this winter.

The eBay bee had no bids, which was hardly surprising, Victorian insect brooches are not  fashionable. There was a strange fad for Victorian ladies to cover themselves in flies, spiders and bejewelled bugs, but this craze hadn’t lasted. In any case this bee was an expensive example. I’d checked eBayVictorian gold brooches and realised I could have my pick of gold brooches for around that price.

I only wanted this bee.

 The auction ended just after my boy’s bedtime.  I liked the timing. It meant that as my hard day of stay at home mothering was ending, as I transformed from bored Mum into a screenwriter with 75 pages under her belt, the moment would be marked with the purchase of a symbolic bee. It no longer  mattered that this symbolic (possibly magical) bee was £110  expensive.

As I finished putting my son to bed my iPhone pinged with an ‘eBay auction ending’ notice.

 4 minutes to go, 0 bids.

A bid of £110 would be enough to win this.

I typed £115, smiling because 5 is my favourite number.

I headed downstairs  to my laptop, ready to log into PayPal and pay. I decided the bee  might arrive by Wednesday if I was lucky, in time to wear to the office on Thursday.

I’d been outbid. The bee had sold for £117.

It was all over.

Of course I still have  magic, inspiration, dreams and all that.

The only real change is that I’m writing this blog post tonight instead of page 76 of my screenplay. 

I just don’t have this thing. This beautiful thing.

I sent distracted texts of sympathy, while feeling very fed up checking Heathrow and BA.com arrivals. I was working on my screenplay.

I’m halfway there.

I still don’t know whether I’ll manage to write this screenplay in a month. It’s the 17th and I’m on 47 pages. That only works as halfway to a screenplay if it’s around a ninety minute film* but I tell myself I prefer a shorter movie.

It’s a bittersweet feeling knowing my boyfriend is home for six days. That means six days of not writing my script, because work, kids, and soaking up his company, mean I won’t find the time to push more words to the page. I write mainly in the evenings when he’s away because the evenings are empty, but I am looking forward to six nights off and some blessed company.

I always mean to hire a babysitter and find a life while he’s away. This time it turned out most of my mum friends were busy nursing kids with chicken pox. There’s also the  issue of,  ’Life – Whitstable!?’ (I long for casino poker or an art house movie.)

I’m pretty sure our three-year old is heading for a dose of chicken pox too. He’s off his food and tired, but it’s never quite enough to keep him from the childminder. I need him to go to her as the new job involves time pressures. So if he is halfway to getting ill, he has to time it right and get the pox in the six days my boyfriend’s around for childcare support.

My new job is going pretty well, it means learning loads of new stuff, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I like having a clear goal to aim for (percentages – up) and I have many ideas to try to achieve this.

So I’ll be writing again on Monday 24th, while my boyfriend is… Where is it this time? Oh yes. Deauville, France.

He must be halfway  home now, the flight from Miami worked out. I can’t wait to see him, it means home being whole once more..

Whole is much better than half of anything.

Whole screenplay, whole family, whole life… Imagine that!

* In some strangely easy maths a page of screenplay equates to a minute on the screen.

I love it when the music, look and story come together to create a perfect piece of film making, and especially when it all fits the product so perfectly.*

Here we have an ethereal beauty, dressed in some outfit she threw together (after weeks of obsessive eBaying) browsing a neighbourhood music store. At the exact moment she plays a note on the piano some shabby-handsome guy plays the exact same note on the guitar…

I won’t spoil it  – just watch. I promise there’s a happy ending.

As they share a look they realise they’re a match, and my heart is all aflutter with the joy of that finding-someone-special moment.

If I wasn’t already happily sorted I’d be straight on Match.com typing ‘I like Godfather 3′  hoping it worked the same way for me.

It’s a brilliant ad.

Or is that just me?

*What the heck, I do work in marketing now.

I’m one of those reserved people who has to drink X pints, and hear X music before I let go and head for the dance floor. I used to request the Breeders ‘Cannonball’  or Blur or dEUS, and if the DJ ignored me then I’d wait for Nirvana. They played Teen Spirit most weeks, that would do. 

I loved it.

In my final year I hooked up with a boyfriend and we moved in together. We always meant to go to the Hothouse on a Thursday night… Our friends encouraged us to go to the Hothouse on a Thursday night…  I missed the Hothouse on a Thursday night…. And the long walk home with french bread sandwiches from the 24 hour garage. But we rarely made it to out of the flat, we were desperately in love and in the reclusive phase of the relationship.

I rarely danced in the years following the Hothouse. Maybe a wedding or two, but when you have kids you rarely go to clubs. There wasn’t much opportunity for dancing, until the office Christmas Party came along.

They didn’t play the Breeders or Nirvana. I think if you drink X much more it doesn’t matter, anything will do.

I drank X pints and danced to X music, but after the party something bad happened.

When you have kids you rarely go to clubs or parties, I’ve had neither opportunity or inclination to dance since that night.

My boyfriend goes abroad to work and there are parties every time, and of course there is dancing too.

I didn’t know he was the dancing type. I’ve never seen him dance, we’ve been together four years and there hasn’t been a dancing opportunity. Blame kids. So no dancing, unless you count something with puppets on cBeebies.

But yes, he does dance. I’ve never seen him do this, and I’ve no particular desire to see it! He visits clubs occasionally with  friends. I imagine he will drink X amount of whatever and head to the dance floor, a reserved type like me, who will need alcohol’s assistance. I hope he enjoys it as much as I enjoyed those Hothouse days.

On one level I hope that, but it’s not as simple as that. Today he told me he’d been clubbing and I didn’t like it. It made no sense to fall out about it. We had one of those rows there is no point to, like all rows between couples who love each other. So what if he dances when he goes away? Does it matter that I’ve never seen him dance before? So he likes musicals when home, but has a night of club hits, so what?

The row dragged on, all while I had a busy day at work  learning useful stuff about my new job in marketing. It took a long time but I finally realised what would work. I told him I don’t need to know about his X pints, or his X music, or his dancing experiences.

X happened one a night after a good night on the dance floor, I’m happier not thinking about that. I told him to dance the night away, have fun, but I don’t need to know about any of  it.

So what else from my world this week? 

Hmm, my screenplay. I’m writing most days but my new job is a big deal and time-consuming. I’m going to take it easy on myself and extend the NaJoFilmo deadline, probably by another month, not much more.

I mentioned my boyfriend likes musicals? Here is a link he sent me. It’s from a film we enjoyed as a family this Christmas. Our three-year old likes to sing, ‘What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a happening.’

January is a hell of a month to be honest, but everything’s alright. Yes, everything’s alright.

It’s quite different with my poker film, I can’t wait to write the scenes. I wonder if the character sometimes take over my laptop and do the job for me? When I look up the words are there on the page.

I love that screenwriting is a perfect blend of hard work and ideas. The structure of a film is like the bricks and mortar of building a house. You might use a check-list to build your house, add mortar to bricks, stick bricks together, insert the windows, that kind of thing. Screenwriting could have a check-list too and I enjoy working out plot points, character arcs and act breaks.

I’m a good bricky who’ll work hard at this film structure puzzle until it’s just right, but without design a house wouldn’t be worth living in - an architect has to create rooms the right size and windows with a great view. You couldn’t stick any old window in your house, nor would you use any old character for your hero. I’ve never struggled with the ideas side of writing, so having a framework for my imaginings seems to suit me.

I do mean to start a screenwriting blog, it would be a better place to discuss the pros and cons of Amazon Studio and the finer points of writing a log line.

We had a good family Christmas, although a bereavement made it a sad one at the same time. There will be a lot of changes in the New Year, my boyfriend’s away for three weeks in January* and I start a new job that means extra hours, a bit of evening work, and the assistance of a lumpy babysitter with a nose stud.

I’m looking forward to the new position, although I wonder if I should have asked for Marketing for Dummies for Christmas? Instead I received Chanel no.5 perfume, a signed copy of a Syd Field book, and an Up in the Air screenplay. What brilliant presents!

Despite the January stresses I’ve set myself a NaJoFilMo challenge for the month. (No, NaJoFilMo is not a real word.) I completed NaNoWriMo once, writing a novel in a month, now I’m going to try to finish my screenplay in January. It should be possible because I get a lot done in evenings when I’m on my own, plus I have a head-start with the work I’ve already done. In NaNoWriMo a head-start would be called cheating, but I invent the rules of NaJoFilMo. I have a screenwriting workshop booked for February and will stick bees at tube stations all the way there.

My three-year old is still obsessed with Star Wars. We bought him Wampa Cave Lego for achieving his first toilet poo and Santa provided the Battle of Endor in 890 pieces. The Battle of Endor took us four hours to assemble on Christmas Day  and was Lego shrapnel by Boxing Day.

I realise there’s a one-hand theme going on in Star Wars. The Wampa loses a hand, Luke loses a hand, all these one handed things… Not to mention Han(d) Solo.

We have lots of Lego Star Wars characters with one hand. Some even have no heads and no arms and no hands. 

I’m a bit worried about being a single-handed parent for my stressful January, but I think the force is strong in me.

*Eek.

It’s funny to look back and read my thoughts from so long ago, even then I was thinking of giving up blogging and writing fiction. I wrote about sticking a bee sticker in my favourite place in the world. 

A sticker for my special Plan Bee. For a new start. For being happy.

I wrote about sticking those bees on the way to work, I wrote about the strange feeling that bees had a message for me. I’ve finally realised what this bee thing was all about. No dramatic revelation, no bees flying through the window to whisper messages in my ear. Just a passage from a book I like.

Whenever I’ve been stuck writing a screenplay, okay, whenever I write a screenplay (I always get stuck) I reach for Syd Field’s Screenwriter’s Workbook, which will have a trick for getting things moving, it regularly helps me turn some idea into a script on the page.

I read the book cover to cover once more than a decade ago, but since then I’ve only dipped in to it to follow the exercises and refine my film’s structure. I haven’t had much call to look at this book for years, but I’ve been screenwriting for a few months and been glad to use it.

There are bits that seem to help and bits that I always ignore. I would never write the first ten pages before I’ve planned the whole story on index cards. I often try to write the four page treatment, but I prefer scrawled notes on a structure sheet. I’m a huge Syd Field fan but I’m not a blind follower of his ideas.

So, I enjoyed a wonderful holiday day today, no work, the kids at school or childminder, I used the whole day to write. I was looking at the Syd Field book for something and I noticed a page about a bee in his bathroom. This was an odd few paragraphs of philosophy in a book that  mainly deals with the nuts and bolts of screenwriting.

Mr.Field said he was taking a bath and there was a bee stuck in the bathroom and slamming into the window again and again. The window was open a few inches away, so all the bee had to do was  notice the fresh air and find escape.

I laughed at myself when I read this passage because I realised what I’d done. I’d taken Syd Field’s bathroom moment of bee magic and half remembered this, I’d passed it off as my special bee thing.

This bee kept bashing away at the window and Syd Field  realised something about his life, he said he’d done the same thing many times. The bee was trying to make something work that just wasn’t working, it was pursuing it’s cause  intently, holding on to life, resisting change. Mr.Field said he’d done this in work and in his writing

I suppose it’s a human thing. Everyone bashes into windows sometimes. The bee, Syd Field, and me.

Syd wrote, “I thought… Bee, just stop what you’re doing. It’s not working. Admit it, face it, confront it, deal with it…  Angry, I focused on the bee. Like magic, the bee stopped, resting on the glass. Silence. I held my breath, afraid to move. Then the bee arched back, felt the stream of fresh air through the open window, and was gone.”

Syd Field goes on to describe this profound moment. I think those paragraphs, read long ago, must have hung around in the dusty corners of my mind.

Now they inspire me to want to fly out of the window and write screenplays. I’m toying with stockpiling my holiday days, maybe even taking a month of unpaid leave in the summer. Doing whatever I can to find fresh air in the garden.

I’m planning a poker film right now (along with another project) and I think I’ve found the magic of  an online poker film with  a big story. It would be brilliant if my poker film was made as that would fulfill my dream and might also do great things for the company I love.

So yes, my moment of life inspiration comes courtesy of this man.

In the bath.

*     *     *

I turned into our road on the way home from a research trip to the library and I saw a shiny silver balloon. It drifted around on the road, the helium must have been running out and the weight of the string seemed enough to hold it to the ground. Then a gust of wind caught the balloon and it flew into the air, higher and higher until it was out of sight.

Shiny silver balloons were the other thing I stuck on tube station posters on the way to work.

I know I can always find time to write in my spare time, I know I shouldn’t take this dream too seriously… I know  selling a screenplay is about as likely as a bee flying to the moon.

I know that and I want to give the bee a space helmet.

I feel like a fool these days. ‘What was I doing?’ I wonder. It’s almost, ‘Where did I go?’

I love screenwriting. So why has it taken me so long to find the thing that’s most me? I left school, conned my mum into letting me skip a proper education to write scripts, joined the Enterprise Allowance Scheme as a writer then gathered a pile of rejection slips as I wrote every day of my life. I was offered a place at university on the only screenwriting degree course in the country, learned my craft, and learned to stop writing to fit in (and that’s another story) then when I left university and had minor success working with producers and agents on projects. And then what? I found online poker, had kids, got a job… I stopped writing.

Where does that fit into a decent story structure?

I’m wondering what happened. Was it being a mum, or taking a full-time job (for a company I loved) discovering blogging? I don’t know… A bit of each I suppose, and trying too hard at each. Is this why it has taken me so long to find the thing I love doing most in the world?

Movies are about characters with a big dream and big challenges, and they always end with a neat resolution. When you work with a three act structure you kind of want life to work that way too, but of course it doesn’t work like that at all.

I had my big dream, then I lost it for years, and I didn’t even know where or why. Now I have it again at the worst possible time. I want to be writing but I spent most of today, my day off, working on a new job that hasn’t even started yet. This is because I’m the sort of person who doesn’t do things by halves. I will give my new job my all,  I want to be the best I can be at it. I will give it everything because I won’t be able to help myself. So where does that leave my newly recovered dream?

I hope to finish my screenplay before my new role starts, but I know that isn’t realistic.

Third act: Comitted marketing manager gives her all to her work, her family, and also sells a screenplay.

Does that work for you?

Of course I’m aware that this blog title is mocking. My blog is called, ‘Not writing’  and that’s not true these days. I am writing every second I can get. This blog’s title was almost certainly my ‘call to adventure’. See Christopher Vogler.

I’m not complaining, I’ve found my adventure. Whatever happens I know I’m the lucky one to have that.