Stormy Tuesday

Okay, this is a whingeing writer paragraph. It's dark, it's gloomy. The wind is howling round the trees outside, and rain is spattering loudly onto the roof window above me. I'm in waiting mode: waiting for notes from my editor on Draft Six of the book (yes, yet another draft...); waiting for a producer to contact me about an idea we're discussing; waiting for another producer to tell me when we're meeting in London to storyline the series we're working on. The telephone is silent. No-one's sent me an email. Not even any local distraction - everyone in the village is huddled indoors, no doubt leading lives far more interesting than mine.

So what am I doing with my time? I'm doing what all writers do when there's a hiatus in their work schedule: I'm worrying about money. Well. No. Not all writers. I doubt J.K. Rowling is at this moment chewing her nails over her bank balance. Nor, I suspect, is Andrew Davies. I'm talking more about your average writer (sacrilege, of course! None of us are average...), I'm talking about a writer like me who veers from large and welcome cheques to absolute penury, punctuated by demands from the tax office for mysteriously vast amounts of money which seem to bear no relation to the pittance usually sitting in my bank account.

I'm supposed to be going to Cuba in March, on a fact-finding mission with a bunch of Norwegian socialists (don't ask). The airfare cost a fortune, because I'm not going on a package deal and I had to do some complicated juggling in order to end up on the same plane as the Norwegians, who are flying into Paris from Stavanger.... So, without actually having a visa for Cuba (I can't, until I know what hotel I'm staying at, which I don't because the Norwegians haven't sorted it yet) I've booked a vast, non-refundable airfare in the vague hope it will all be alright on the night.... Normally this kind of thing wouldn't worry me, but now I'm on the anxiety route, I can't get off. Unless some of the tv bastards who owe me money actually cough up, will I have to cancel Cuba? Can I even afford some of the less extravagent outings I've planned for the next couple of months..?

It makes me furious. If everyone I worked for paid me when my agent invoiced them, I wouldn't be sitting here feeling bleak and bereft. And losing sleep over money is about the least creative activity I can think of. I'm turning this thing off. I'm going downstairs. I'm going to light the fire and watch a DVD. Some days you just have to...

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