Writus Interruptus or The Person From Porlock.

I thought of the phrase Writus Interruptus my very own self, then discovered that about a zillion others had thought of it already. Oh well...goodbye to original thoughts everywhere.

I love the story of Samuel Taylor Coleridge who, after an opium-induced dream in which lines of verse came to him, began to write the poem Kubla Khan only to be interrupted by 'a person from Porlock' who spoiled his train of thought so the poem was never completed, he claimed.(It looks pretty complete to me!)

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea..."








Well, yesterday afternoon, (NOT after an opium-induced dream, I hasten to add!) I was merrily writing away when the doorbell rang and my 'person from Porlock' arrived. Drat and double drat!

Only, she wasn't from Porlock, but from Uckfield - a very dear friend who had forgotten my birthday and had bought me a HUGE bunch of flowers to say sorry.

I could hardly say 'Actually, just go away, will you? I'm in the middle of writing a Very Significant Scene and I don't want to be disturbed.'

So - we had a cup of tea, a piece of cake and an hour-long natter.

Friends are so very much more important than writing screenplays.






How many pages did I write? 4⅛. That's a lot, for me.

I've just realised that I'll have to stop broadcasting my page count. My screenplay is meant to be anonymous until after judging. You wouldn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to identify a script that was exactly 97⅝ pages long, now would you?

Well...

Until the next person from Porlock arrives...