On writing screenplays: There's nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay.

Okay, Richard Attenborough, I'll let you out now. You have just been conferred God-like status for saying that.

Well...let me look at my calendar. Hmmmmm. I have precisely 41 days to complete a screenplay of which I've only written ten pages. I know the ending. It's the 90-odd pages before that I'm unsure of.

Here's another quote about writing screenplays, this time from John Irving:

" I don't begin a novel or a screenplay until I know the ending. And I don't mean only that I have to know what happens. I mean that I have to hear the actual sentences. I have to know what atmosphere the words convey."

41 days...taking out the days when I'm working my socks off, the days when I have family staying, the days when I'm coaching on a Self-Expression and Leadership seminar up in London...

So, LESS than 41 days then.

This is what I am saying to myself: If it was a project for work, I wouldn't even blink. I'd be working crazy hours like I was for the last two weeks. SO, all I have to do is apply the same sort of pressure to myself over the screenplay deadline.

Easy!

Yeah, right...