Opportunity Knocks.

......for those of us old enough to remember Hughie Green and that fab show.
But that's not the opportunity knocks i'm on about.
When you're married to a writer, you have to take charge of all social occasions.
This is mostly because they have no idea of time when they are writing, whether that be time of day or time of year- the latter being decided by;
1- Amount of clothes worn ('Sprouty, how many jumpers have you got on, it must be at least 70 degrees out there!
'No, it's mid December and you missed the whole of Autumn completely...the warmth is the central heating.)
2- The lighting. Lighting is very important to a writer. Most of them are not typists, so bash away at their laptops with amazing speed, but only with two fingers. They need to be able to see where the keys are, as they don't touch-type. Writers seem really suprised when they finally get round to turning lights off, and it's actually mid summer....and they haven't needed artificial light for at least two months.
So- i'm in charge of the calendar. Sy will sometimes tell me if he needs a social life. Most of the time he won;t though, so i end up booking dinner with friends only to find that there is no way he's moving away from his laptop. Our friends are very understanding - these days if we are invited out, they normally supply us with a plate of sandwiches, or a tin of soup, accompanied by a cry of 'Well, we we didn't want to go to any trouble in case at the last minute you couldn't come.'
Sy always seems so disgruntled by this;
'But they asked us to Dinner, Sprouty...!'
'Yes- and you should be bloody grateful for the soup- it never fails to amaze me that we're asked out at all these days, it's you that always pisses everyone about.'

There are many other occasions that are missed by Sy while he's ensconced in his own world. I make sure i trawl the appropriate bookie, publishie, telly writing websites for networking opportunities and chances for him to meet others like him ( i make him sound like some sort of unusual pet or alien.....to a point he is.)
One such opportunity happened last week- Sy went off up to Brum to a debate on the state of television drama today.
Rather fab actually, because it was between two people that Sy used to work with- Hilary Salmon at the BBC and Tony Garnett who wrote the totally unforgetable and groundbreaking 'Cathy Come Home' back in the sixties.
Sy had a whale of time, got a chance to have a good catch-up with both of them, and has been able to send Hilary some ideas to look at. Sy hasn't written for telly for about ten years, but again, it's all about Opportunities .
And then getting The Writer to make the most of them.

Till next time,
Shakespeare's Housekeeper x