Wish You Weren't Here by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch

Online is more accessible and cheaper but I do miss how weird the spaces would be. I haven’t had many physical writers rooms since the pandemic. Especially if it’s a physical writer’s room and the producer’s brought in sweets. You want a dozen solid gags about Ed Davey’s shoes before lunch? Now that’s the kind of pressure my brain enjoys. Topical shows have the tightest deadlines, and need a ridiculous number of deeply niche jokes. It’s all meetings and shared Google Docs. When I’m booked to write on a show, my day is very different. This sort of nonsense is exactly why I work best with a tight deadline, and luckily, most of my TV and radio writing is just that. I imagine someone reassuring me about this as I watch yet another cat video. Clever people might tell me in kind tones that procrastination is all a part of the creative process. I do all this to a soundtrack of BBC Radio 3, because if I’m going to waste time, I can at least be sophisticated about it. At least this means that I’m at my desk for 9, with several uninterrupted hours in which to write - so obviously if I’m not on a deadline, I’ll waste at least an hour making endless coffees, procrastinating on social media and occasionally staring at work files and sighing. I get up when I have to, which when you have a school run is annoyingly early. If we’re starting my ‘day’ at midnight, you would probably find me writing then, and looking at the clock, going ‘ooh, it’s late, I should go to bed’, and then writing some more anyway. So here I am at 41 with the sleep cycle of a teenager. I have never got out of preferring late nights and late mornings. When I was pregnant with my first child, I used to tell myself that having kids would reset my body clock to be more of a morning person. Gabby Hutchinson Crouch writes an exclusive piece for Female First

Wish You Weren't Here by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch