Essentials

After a long day in my kitchen sitting at the laptop rewriting a screenplay, I needed to get out.

A wander up town led me to Cafe Rouge, a regular venue for meeting other writers, actors, producers, etc. It's by no means my favourite Edinburgh cafe... it's just handy and there's usually plenty space. A glass of red wine, my phone, a notebook and my very nice but unreliable Cross fountain pen in its fancy leather case were laid out in front of me and seemed emblematic of how I spend most of my time.

I think Moleskine notebooks are overpriced for what they are, but happily I seem to regularly receive these as a Christmas or birthday regular gift. The one pictured is the storyboarding version which I just use as a diary/notebook. My efforts at storyboarding are usually greeted with hoots of derisive laughter. But that's fair enough... I freely admit I'm rubbish at drawing.

I'm hoping my little Panasonic Lumix will save me from ever having to do any more humiliatingly bad drawings.