As you may have noticed, I spent a lot of time during my law degree being more fascinated by the language of law than the content. Hence some of my favourite phrases from law. Including the concept of "a cooling off period" and an "opt out" clause.

If only those existed in real life situations.

Well, here's a little announcement: Standing There Productions is opting out of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival this year, in so far as writing, producing, directing, designing, auditioning, rehearsing, organising, financing and performing a show of our own goes.

We have so many projects we're working on at the moment that one large-scale project involving such an enormous amount of work in the middle of April is actually distracting from our (sometimes painfully) long-term goals.

It's a bittersweet feeling: no scurvy, but on the other hand no exciting opening night frenzy of excitement. No 2pm breakfasts and 1am dinners, but on the other hand no sitting in the audience as it fills up. No 70-people-in-a-day auditions that last all day in forty degree heat, but on the other hand no hilarious auditions with brilliant people we've never heard of. None of that school camp feeling of we're all in this together, but on the other hand no alcohol poisoning and accidentally offending people in the foyer. It means I don't have to submit an entirely fictional "summary of show" to the festival when I haven't written the show, and it means I don't have to edit together a photograph for the program guide when there aren't any actors yet. It also means I won't be doing the part I love the most: watching other people turn my writing into something far more interesting, merely by moving their faces.

For me, it means I have to knuckle down and write, to make it worth missing out on the festival. It means I will see April in daylight, but not much. It means Stew will celebrate his birthday somewhere other than Trades Hall bar, but I will have to get up earlier in the morning to deserve that piece of cake. It's less terrifying, but more grown-up.

In this way, it is a metaphor. Discuss.