It being Itnernational Talk Like A Pirate Day, this site here has translated one of yesterday's "Standin Thar Productions" diary posts into a more appropriate mode of expression (scroll down for original diary entry):

Th' Sprin' Has Sprung.

Be 't sprin'?

Feels like 't’s sprin'.

Sprin' be an inspirational time fer me. Fer some reason, th' air makes me bounce. Swabbies stroll through parks an' eat lunch in th' sun, dogs swivel midair towards frisbees, coffees avast remindin' me o' cigarettes an' phlegm an' start smellin' clist an' sharp wi' th' promise o' summer…

An' then I get homeport an' reckon that borin' things happen e'en when ye feel like ye ortin' ta be able t' follow th' creative whim o' a sprin' tide.

1. Me laptop has sustained considerable damage thanks t' me nay bein' able t' invent a time machine an' go aft t' jus' before th' moment I dropped 't.

2. Bills. Always bills.

3. Real estate bilge water. What do ye MEAN I signed me name incorrectly on yer lily livered bond claim form? I be havin' signed th' EXACT SAME SIGNATURE ON ERE ELSE FER ME ENTIRE LIFE AN' NOBODY HAS EVER QUESTIONED 'T, INCLUDING TH' POLICE/ VISA SWABBIES/ US SECURITY ETC.

4. Th' thin' I can’t find be definitely here somewhere.

5. Ortin' ta probably do somethin' about that mess.

So look, sprin' be lovely an' all that, but could me creative inspiration PLEASE slot itself into th' relevant sections o' me life (such as when I be starin' at a blank page, desperately searchin' fer an idee).

PS If 'tis nay sprin', please disregard this post.

My favourite bits: reference to "real estate bilge water", use of the expression "swabbies", and "smellin' clist an' sharp".

Why was this way of speaking ever discarded?

Things you see in Fitzroy that are too over-the-top to write into any script for fear of not being taken seriously:

1. A ninety year old Italian woman with no teeth on a bike, wearing no helmet and smoking a cigarette.

2. A woman calling out to her child in the supermarket to "Come here please, Zeppelin".

3. A profusely sweating anxious man in a Collingwood jumper pushing an enormous, shining plasma screen TV down the middle of the road in a supermarket trolley.

No, really. I promise.

Also, for those of you who (like me) think they can spot people from miles away because of the distinctive way they walk, check out this article about "gait DNA" - they're going to have a crack at catching terrorists by tracing how they walk through a crowd. They obviously haven't seen The Usual Suspects. And I bet they don't hang out in Fitzroy.

Is it spring?

Feels like it's spring.

Spring is an inspirational time for me. For some reason, the air makes me bounce. People stroll through parks and eat lunch in the sun, dogs swivel midair towards frisbees, coffees stop reminding me of cigarettes and phlegm and start smelling clean and sharp with the promise of summer...

And then I get home and remember that boring things happen even when you feel like you should be able to follow the creative whim of a spring day.

1. My laptop has sustained considerable damage thanks to me not being able to invent a time machine and go back to just before the moment I dropped it.

2. Bills. Always bills.

3. Real estate crap. What do you MEAN I signed my name incorrectly on your stupid bond claim form? I have signed the EXACT SAME SIGNATURE ON EVERYTHING ELSE FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE AND NOBODY HAS EVER QUESTIONED IT, INCLUDING THE POLICE/ VISA PEOPLE/ US SECURITY ETC.

4. The thing I can't find is definitely here somewhere.

5. Should probably do something about that mess.

So look, spring is lovely and all that, but could my creative inspiration PLEASE slot itself into the relevant sections of my life (such as when I am staring at a blank page, desperately searching for an idea).

PS If it is not spring, please disregard this post.

I know it's Garfield's line, but I hate Mondays.

It doesn't matter how organised, restful or enjoyable my weekend was. It also doesn't matter if I had a dreadful weekend and I'm looking forward to starting afresh. I could have all the best intentions in the world: I will still be ninety percent less efficient on a Monday.

By about midday, usually I have successfully managed to have a cup of coffee and sometimes I can claim to have "researched" headlines like "drunken mooning goes horribly wrong", but there are only so many "idiot sets fire to house after lighting fart" stories that can genuinely provide inspiration for creative projects.

Hopefully, things like that will make it into a play or film at some point, but it does seem kind of unlikely to make it into a children's TV series, which is what I'm supposed to be working on at the moment.

Perhaps I need to watch kids' TV all day on Monday. It might be more productive, and it will probably help with my somewhat remedial mathematics skills.

But, to be fair to myself, I do get more admin done on a Monday. If it weren't for Mondays I would probably never get back to anyone, never hand in anything on time, and never pay any bills.

Sometimes I think about writers like Bryce Courtney, who gets up half an hour before he goes to bed and splits the atom before breakfast and so on. My favourite all time literary couple, Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, don't have the internet at home.

I'm sure there is something deeply suspect about all these people - possibly they are the kind of people who animals instinctively mistrust - but I am yet to see any proof of it.

This gives me hope and simultaneously robs me of geniune satisfaction. Which is only because it's a Monday and I hate Mondays/enjoy lasagne/have a love-hate relationship with the man who feeds me etc. Garfield is such a grump.

I have discussed here many times the perils of describing what it is you do when you're "freelance" and you juggle a few different jobs.

This week, things got a little more transparent for me: I became a proper writer (ie I am on the books somewhere other than the tax department) and, rather surprisingly for those of us who are me, I also became a lawyer.

Apparently, although I had no idea, I have in fact been a lawyer for some time. Apparently, according to my very knowledgeable dinner party host last night (who also cooks a mean roast and forcefeeds her guests chocolate) I have been a lawyer since I graduated from, well, my law degree. You see, technically speaking, according to the Legal Profession Act, "lawyer" means not that you practice law, or that you are trained to be a lawyer, but that you have a law degree. So here I was, laughing at lawyer jokes and insisting that even though I studied law I'm not a lawyer, and I HAVE BEEN A LAWYER ALL ALONG.

As you can imagine, this is quite a shock to the system.

Firstly, it means, according to my reckoning, that I am owed at least nine (possibly ten or eleven) trillion dollars. Think of all the lost revenue! Not ONCE have I charged myself out at $4K just to write a letter. Not once have I sent someone a bill after speaking with them on the telephone for half an hour. I have NEVER been flown to Sydney for a four day drinking binge as part of a "team building excercise", and I have until now never felt qualified to use sentences consisting mostly of acronyms.

Oh, shoosh. I can see all my lawyer friends frowning at me through the internet. As the homophobes say, some of my best friends are... etc.

Although this new professional tag does significant damage to my bohemian identity (I'm a fairly Cool Cat, I don't know if you've heard) it also causes a bit of an internal crisis. When I go to the theatre, should I sit in my black skivvy with my legs crossed peering over my glasses and tick ticking that the "London version was so much better" before having a crafty ciggie in the back lane and glugging the free wine and stealing toilet paper at interval? Or should I turn up in a suit, laugh loudly at the linguistic puns and then fall asleep because I've had three hours sleep since last Thursday?

Next I'll discover I'm a qualified vet on account of once having owned a goldfish.

Seems about as sensible.

And to the thousands of people who guessed the answer to yesterday's post, yes, the For We Are Young And Free flyer was in Kath and Kim on Sunday night. Very exciting claim to fame.

So after a week of reporting NO NEWS WHATSOEVER in this, the official Standing There Productions Diary, I hereby produce a trump card, the likes of which I don't come across too often.

Over the past week, we have received (a) good news and (b) bad news. Receiving any news whatsoever is usually a bit of a coup, but two things at once is extraordinary.

First, the good:

Last Wednesday, Standing There Productions was notified that our kid's TV proposal has received development funding from the Australian Children's Television Foundation, which anyone who grew up in Australia will know as "the little smiley face that comes up at the end of the Australian shows".

Development funding means "funding to write the idea into a script", so don't expect to see our name on the credits of anything in the immediate future, if ever. We're being helped to write a draft of a first episode - known in the biz as a "baby step". We're very excited about it, because we get to work with people who have done this before, including a real life grown-up script editor. It might also make the juggling act between paid work and creative sessions in the library a little easier to handle.

HOWEVER.

The bad news:

I dropped my laptop.

Dropped it. Spectacularly. I have been intending to go in and find out the extent of the damage at the mac place. I almost made it there yesterday but I can't quite face it. I feel like a neglectful mother who dropped her child on its head.

So. The good news is that we have support to write stuff. The bad news is we have nothing to write it on.

Also, if anyone watched Kath and Kim this last Sunday (the 9th), five points for anyone who noticed the Standing There Productions prop.

Anyone?

So I'm on a work trip in Northern Victoria, and my work day is over so I've got nothing to do.

Just like that. I've got nothing to do. Nothing. No expectations, either creative or social. This hasn't happened in years. The working day is done, the laptop is in my hotel room, there's takeaway pizza to be ordered and nobody in the whole town who knows my name, with the possible exception of the person on reception who asked me how I would like my eggs in the morning. (In a big pile).

So, in brief: I'm tired, I'm alone, I've had a big day at work.

I'm a NORMAL PERSON!!!!

Huzzah!

Being a normal person always makes me want to cheat.

I think, "Wow, this is how normal people live. I could just go back to the hotel and watch movies starring a young harrison ford... but I might make the most of it by TOTALLY GOING BACK TO MY HOTEL ROOM AND WRITING A NOVEL!"

Anyway needless to say, that trick almost never works. I found out one of The Most Cool Friends I Never See is in town. This town. The small town in which nobody knows my name except the eggs guy!

How good is life!

So, yeah, I "wasted" my normal night of potential creative genius. The novel will have to wait.

Plus, anyway, Harrison Ford is such a goofball.