If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right.

Yeah, Woody Allen!

 So I'm DEFINITELY doing something right!

Today is an exciting day for me. The director of my film Filth is coming down to show me the rushes and bringing possible soundtrack music too. The final product is bound for Cannes next year.

By the way, I wrote Filth a few years ago - LONG before the feature film of the same name came out. So THEY copied ME!

Exciting and also a little nervous-making. What if I HATE it?

Gulp!

Bet I'll love it though.

I'll let you know.

I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones.

For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.

Who said this? I'll tell you shall I? Save you looking it up on Google.

He did! The scarecrow. And to think he also said, "If I only had a brain..." because, even without one, he's quite profound.

I have to confess, I've never seen The Wizard of Oz. And, here go my rather random thought processes; whenever I think about it, I think about Somewhere Over The Rainbow and then I think of my dear departed dog, Quink.

Quink, the stick-meister.

When I had taken him to the vet for the very last time to be put to sleep to end his suffering from liver cancer, I was driving home in pieces and this came on the car radio:

 It seemed just perfect and now, each time I hear it, it makes me smile with happy memories of a lovely dog, chasing sticks in heaven.

To the beautiful Israel Kamakawiwo'ole -unusual and so much worthy of consideration

And to Quink who didn't live and die unnoticed.

Someday is not a day of the week

(Oh - when I looked for a suitable image, all I got was pages of Justin Bieber. I'm sure he's a lovely little chap but not before my first cup of coffee on a Monday morning.)

So here instead:

Anyway - I've spent far too much of my life saying 'someday I will be a writer.'

I AM a writer already, I know that - what I mean is that someday I will do nothing else but write fiction. Someday it will be my life.

It's quite hard to say anything other than someday. Hard to specify a day when the dream will become reality.

I could just declare 'as from this minute IT IS MY LIFE.'

Oh, go on then.

“A quiet secluded life in the country"

 "...with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbour — such is my idea of happiness.”

Me and Leo Tolstoy.

Like that, we are.

Ever since I read War and Peace as an extremely pretentious fourteen year old.

Here's me and Alfie enjoying our quiet secluded life in the country:

How very, very lucky we are!

The rest is up to me.

“It is not light that we need, but fire."

"It is not the gentle shower, but thunder.We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

 So said Frederick Douglass, the great American abolitionist.

 This is my call to action for today. (Yes, pretty pathetic to compare the anti-slavery movement with my own feeble objectives, but hey...)

The thing is, half-measures are simply not enough anymore - and today, half measures are about all I feel like.

The weather's foul, I'm tired, I've got yet another chill coming after my thorough drenching of yesterday, there's far too much to do...

 

Moan groan moan groan.

I really don't like myself very much when I complain. (Me with the countless blessings in my life.)

So here's to fire, thunder, storm, whirlwind and earthquake... not in the meteorological sense, thank you very much, but in my heart and soul,

so I can just

GO FOR IT!

Always do whatever's next.

It's as easy as that, isn't it? George Carlin, thank you!

And here's the perfect image:

Me this morning:

Flap, flap, flap. So many projects. So little time. What shall I do next? I don't know where to start...

Flapping. Hyperventilating even. Crazy! Not only crazy but very ineffective when there's a lot that needs doing.

Flap, flap, flap.

I know, I'll write my blog first...on the subject of 'What Next?'...right, find a suitable quote...

And there, within 30 seconds, was my answer:

And...

BREATHE....

“When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.”

One day, I had to quote from Anthony Robbins. Today is that day.

Yes, I'm grateful, there is abundance...and other weird cosmic things.

It seemed as though the minute I accepted the fact that I DO want to be a full-time creative writer, the universe took that on. Good old universe.

Or, to put it another more worldy way - misquoting Wendy Cope from Serious Concerns - a favourite anthology:

Bloody Film Directors

Bloody film directors are like bloody buses
You wait for about a year
And as soon as one approaches your stop
Two or three others appear.

(By the way, none of the aforementioned film directors are in the slightest bit bloody, either literally or metaphorically!)

SO a week or so ago, my script Filth was produced. The director is coming down next week to show me the rushes and discuss future projects.

AND I received a mail out of the blue from a director in NYC asking to option Caught In The Act. He has also asked me to write a script for him from one of his ideas

AND I received another mail out of the blue from a young film maker wanting to make The Other Side of Silence

AND a good film-making friend of mine wants us to create a film for next year's Raindance Festival.

by Henry J Cowdery

Head.

Mine.

Spinning.