Lights, camera, inaction

A long, long time ago. In a pub far away from here*. Two men spoke of great things.

"What would you say to the chance to write a screenplay?" asked the younger one.

"I'd say, 'Hello, Chance to Write a Screenplay,' because that would be the polite thing to do," replied the older one. He was a bit of an arse, truth be told.

Long months passed. That bamboo clump in the older man's back garden got more unruly. Firefox 3.0.8 came and went. Bounty kitchen roll got re-named 'Plenty'. They were crazy times.

And yet the screenplay had not progressed very much. It was about six pages long. Not so much a screenplay, more of a Haiku in motion. Sheer brilliance, but only six pages, nevertheless. The older man seemed to prefer writing little 400-word entries on his blog. Then he discovered Twitter and the passing of time became even more of an illusion. The younger man remained largely patient.

The two knew a third man. In the same twelve months, the third man had come up with an idea, written a full screenplay, cast it, sought out locations, got hold of a crew and started filming. The first two men, the younger patient one and the older procrastinator were involved in this new film's first day of filming. It was a great day.

The younger man was very good about it; he didn't hector or harangue his older friend about the lack of a script. Instead he allowed it all to soak in.

"I should just knuckle down and do this, shouldn't I?" said the currently-failed screenplay author.

"That would be nice," said his younger friend, "just get on with it. And no blogging about how you still haven't delivered the script."

Oh bugger.

*(Well, about ten minutes, really. But it's not an easy walk. Especially on the way back.)