Not Enough Hours In The Day

It’s always the case that there are more plans than there is time to work through them; my to-do list is constantly full of projects to be completed “at some point”. I realise that’s not the best way to construct a to-do list but it’s nice to have one eye on future plans and where else am I going to keep that stuff?

At present, I’m working about 12-15 hours a day, six days a week; with the precise make-up of my working day varying wildly. Sometimes it’s all local politics; sometimes it’s a mix of local politics and work on my business. Sometimes it’s making a film, sometimes it’s making comics. It’s a rare day when it’s all four (because that stuff takes a lot of time) but it has happened in the past.

I’ve spoken on the vlog about old projects that had to be dropped, or at the least put far into the future, because of the lack of time to complete them. Things like my “History of Japan” and “History of Britain” documentary YouTube series probably won’t see the light of day for at least five years, simply because of the amount of research that has to go into them before they can even come remotely close to being ready. There was a planned sci-fi web serial that I was putting together with some fellow film makers but that collapsed when they ran out of time to work on it. One day maybe that will come together again, albeit likely with a different cast and crew because those time constraints don’t look like they are going anywhere.

These are all planned for review, providing I can get the time to script them.

The picture to the right represents my current plans. I have a new series of book reviews coming up (mostly Star Wars related, since that’s the series I’ve been reading the most lately) and instead of having it as an ongoing series as I originally planned, I’m going to put it together as a short series of between six and eight episodes; all of which will be scripted before I start recording them. This is because the show fell apart when I tried to keep it running as an ongoing feature.

Then there’s the game reviews. I really, really want to get this running again as a weekly thing. I have the time to do one ongoing weekly project on top of everything else and I want it to be the game reviews, because that fits in with another set of very-long-term goals (i.e. the gaming museum), so it makes sense to keep it running. Also, I really like gaming and that helps to keep my interest up in a project.

So what about the films? Well here’s the thing: I’ve always loved films, it runs in the family. My Dad is a massive film buff and it rubbed off on me. I have a rather large collection of films and TV shows – not as large as the gaming library (or the book library, now I think about it) but large enough that I could review one film a week and not get done for a good few years. When the series of book reviews finishes, I want to run a short series of film reviews. It’ll run when the book reviews aren’t running, and it will get filmed only when the six-to-eight review scripts are all completed.

I’ve already picked out a name for the series and it will work in a similar format to GameHammer: part comedy, part review. The two DVDs in the photo above are part of the set of films that will be reviewed; with the rest being in a similar vein (all except one – I’m going to review my absolute favourite film, Twelve Angry Men, as well as weird comedy-horror stuff). Once the film reviews are done, it will be back to book reviews and then I’ll cycle the two shows, because I don’t have time to do both if they are running concurrently. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

I think it’s the only way to work this. Film reviews are something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time and I think it’s obvious that if I don’t plan it all out well in advance, as is the plan here, then it simply won’t get done. I realise that I’ve had just about every project that I’ve ever “announced” like this fall apart but work has already started on these reviews, I’ve already got the time scheduled and for once I’m not beholden on other peoples’ schedules meshing with mine, so I think this could work. Fingers crossed anyway.