Am I an optimist? I hope so.

But yes, a week has passed and I am feeling somewhat more enthusiastic about the whole being-a-writer thing. Seven rejection-free days did help, it has to be said.

As did, in no small part, the completion of the aforementioned stage play 'Writing For Brahms', a comedy drama about four 'artistes' all looking for one small thing...to be loved and revered by the world.
The rewrite was finally finished yesterday (pancakes helped a lot, thank you Taste Food Company South William Street) after a six-day-marathon effort and at 5.28pm, I was standing in line at the post of office (very 'of-the-people' of me, I know) to dispatch it the Soho Theatre in London for their Verity Bargate Award competition.

And now...breathe.

Today's chipperness can also be attributed to meeting up with my 'international' writers group last night. Well, international-ish...Eva-in-Berlin-soon-heading-to-Munich, Maria-in-Monkstown-soon-heading-to-Finland..and me, Paul-in-Dublin-not-quite-managing-to-move-to-London. Group also consists of Alena but as she now lives in Melbourne, her attendance at the meetings has dropped off slightly (she didn't even bother showing up last night, the cheek). But, as ever, it was a highly funny, creative and inspirational get-together - I even came up with a fabulous title for a future novel. Gotta love brainstorming, really.

Speaking of which, I do now have the enviable task of deciding what my next masterpiece will be. Fellow writer and blogger MSD did point out that, of everything I've written over the years, my favourites seem to be things in which people aren't actually gruesomely murdered. (And as she's pretty much read everything I've written since Burning Matches - and patiently listened as I waxed lyrical about each and every one - her opinion's got to count for something.) But come on, I love killing off my characters! I'm only human!

So...what? A lighthearted comedy drama about two people who meet up once a year on St. Swithin's Day? No, that's been done. A TV drama about the goings-on in a Dublin restaurant? That one sounds vaguely familiar too.

Or maybe I'll take a few days off and play Xbox. Those zombies won't chop themselves up with chainsaws.

I wonder where I get the inspiration to kill off all my characters?