Work

The other day my wife, Ros, noted that I don’t write for myself much anymore. When she met me I would always be scribbling down notes, poems, jokes and anecdotes. Then real life got in the way, and these days I spend most of my time writing for other people.

It makes sense. The other people pay better than me, and sometimes it’s tough to devote time to creative writing without the certainty of it seeing the light of day. This kind of writing can be seen as an act of selfishness – devoting time to yourself, to please yourself – or an act of faith.

I prefer the faith angle. Okay, not all the bits and pieces that I write will reach a vast audience. But I keep working, sure that some of it (the best of it) will get through.

With my flibbertigibbet mind I usually find myself working on a few projects at once. At the moment the most concrete of these include Cat City, the third and final Julius Kyle novel; a screenplay for an action movie with a working title of Unit; a World War I movie called Men of War and my regular factual pieces for newspapers and magazines.

Those flights of fancy are squeezed in between directing Liberty, prepping my next feature and raising Sam. He’s turning into a real movie brat, hanging out on set and charming the cast and crew. No doubt he’ll take up a very uncreative profession when he grows up, just to be different from his dad. I’m hoping he’ll be a chemical engineer.