The effectiveness of work increases according to geometric progression if there are no interruptions...

said Andre Maurois, French novelist, who died in 1967...

and therefore knew not the perils of internet surfing, emails and Facebook...

"According to Gloria Mark, a leader in interruption science, the average knowledge worker switches tasks every three minutes, and, once distracted, a worker takes nearly a half-hour to resume the original task."

I am not interrupted that often by anyone other than myself.

That burning need to check my emails...and Facebook...or the compulsion to Google some red herring in the guise of essential research...

...the sudden desire for a cup of tea and a cheese scone...the paranoia that makes me check for errors on my blog - yes THIS blog...and look at my stats to make sure people are reading it...that burning need to check my emails (again - after all, it's been at least five minutes since the last time)...and Facebook...

...and ...and so it goes on.

It's a wonder I produce any work at all really.

5 little known things that could affect your screenwriting

Expert screenwriter Caroline Coxon's tried and tested ways concerning how not to write screenplays.

* Free gift: Bonus advice at the end of this blog, born of many years experience.

1. Spend time writing a blog about procrastination.

This is an excellent way of not writing screenplays because you feel as though you're doing something useful and you can kid yourself that it's just a preliminary writing exercise to get your brain into gear.

2. Write a To-Do List 

An absolutely foolproof way of not writing a screenplay, even if you put that task right at the top of the list, because it helps you to create previously unthought of reasons to explain why you can't get on with writing a screenplay.

3. Sharpen your pencils

This is a particularly useful way not to write screenplays if you have lots of pencils. You can pretend to yourself that you might try writing in longhand even though you always use FinalDraft on a computer. It makes you feel eco-friendly.

4. Check e-mails and Facebook page.

...but so very crucial when you're trying not to write a screenplay. There's always the chance that there might be a message from Steven Spielberg or Christopher Nolan about your last screenplay and then you won't have to bother writing another one..


5. Read through the very few pages of the screenplay that you have already written

This will definitely make you despair and vow never to attempt a feature length screenplay ever again.

Now...*As advertised above

Totally free advice from screenplay expert Caroline Coxon about how to conquer these issues:

JUST STOP IT ...and start writing your screenplay


(It didn't work for me! Why should you be any different?)

I hear YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are merging to form a super Social Media site – YouTwitFace.

Arf, arf, Conan O'Brien, American television host.

Okay, okay, Facebook has its downside. I object to being given a new e-mail address without being consulted at all. That's just one thing. If you were to ask my son Tim, he'd come up with a zillion things that are wrong with Facebook because he's a Google Plus Boy.

The trouble is, Tim, all my FRIENDS are on Facebook. Yes, they ARE friends. Friends in a different sort of way to people I've met in real life and go round to dinner with or off to Tunbridge Wells on a girlie shopping outing. Virtual friends.

Here's an interesting article: Should one attend the funeral of a virtual friend? 

I'm thinking...probably not.

But THIS is the Very Good Bit about Facebook. Thirty eight years ago, (surely not? I'm far too young.) I worked on a farm in the very north of Norway before going to university. About three years ago, in an idle moment, I wondered if I could find any members of the family on Facebook. I found Åsa, I thought, maybe, perhaps, could it be? - the daughter. 

I sent off a tentative hello. In FIVE MINUTES, she had responded.

Yesterday, she and her daughter and two of her friends arrived here to stay with me. THIRTY EIGHT YEARS later.