Today was a blur of questions and answers. Costume wanted final fittings from the actors, camera crew wanted a definitive list of shots (to which I reply in the manner of Scooby Doo, "I-dwont-row") and Becca my 1st AD seemed to pull a coherent schedule out of thin air by overhearing what we were saying and making sense of it.

Simon came in again and sorted us out. Kinda makesme feel like a blundering amateur standing next to someone like Simon who has real professional filmmaking experience. I think of myself as a professional, but that's only really in the creative sense, not really the technical sense. I'm a producer and director not a lighting or camera technician. Fortunately, what's really going to make this happen is the people I have around me, "The Skeleton Crew", so called because while few in number they all of them do the work of ten people. I love them all and I want to adopt them.

More of that later.

Another day another dollar. Went into work again, but this timeI did some work prepping the shoot next week. Or rather my crewledby the inestimable Simon Ridge prepped the shoot and I just kinda stood there like a lemon. Cori our production designer came in and showed me some wicked boards, paintings of rooms into which we are going to put our characters.

Simon walked me through the pages we were doing, and we realised immediately that we weren't going to able to do the first 11 pages, more like the first 5-7. That's more manageable anyway, and I'm happy with that.

Left exhausted, but feeling that everyone else did a lot of work. Go figure.

Back to work. The weekend went swimmingly. That is to say we stayed in bed practically the whole time. (Wipe that grin off your face, nothing happened. As far as you know.)

Coming in to work this morning I felt oddly relaxed, almost as if, well I hate to say it, I actually WAS relaxed. I'll check with my doctor but I'm pretty sure that I'm actually relaxed. Or I'm having a stroke, not sure which.

Oh god, speaking of strokes which I really shouldn't be joking about right now, an old friend of mine emailed me over the weekend and told me that his wife suffered an unexpected brain bleed (sub-arachnoid) and fell into a coma which she is not expected to wake up from. The poor guy has four small kids. I mean, what a tragedy. They were one of the happiest most successful couples I knew, lovely children, idyllic lifestyle... all trashed in an instant for no good reason. Thinking about it, the guy actually nearly died himself a couple of years ago through some similar medical catastrophy.

I hope this is something I can take with me into life. At any second, for no apparent reason, your life can end. Not your fault. Bam. You're dead. What are you doing with your life? What legacy can you leave? Who will remember you? Who will miss you? Will it be a live well lived full of love and happiness? Or is it a life spent waiting for the big score, the lucky break, the time when you can finally relax and get on with your life.

I'm guilty of that. Waiting for my problems to be solved before I start living. I should really stop doing that. Life is for living not just surviving.

This isn't a rehersal. This is the show. And you're on...