Screenwriting - a collaborative endeavour

'As I write, it is 5.30pm on a wet Wednesday afternoon, and so far today I have talked once, to my wife, about which of us is going to take our youngest son to football training. I appreciate how lucky I am in my work. I am able to support myself and my family through my writing. I can watch as many YouTube clips as I want. My lunch hour is when my stomach tells me it should be. But on a normal working day, things are very, very quiet around here...

I am not naturally solitary. I enjoy the company of other people. I have ended up writing because it's the only thing I'm any good at, not because I want to sit in a dark room wearing pyjamas, eating custard creams and spying on the neighbours. I decided that at least part of my working life needed to be collaborative, and screenwriting was the one branch of the game that required collaboration...'

Much later: 'Good films and TV shows are an unfathomable miracle of compromise, luck, timing, harmony, the right people doing the right things at the right time. If you're a writer, however, there's only one right place - and it's always a long way from everyone else.'

Nick Hornby, author of About a Boy and Funny Girl, in the Sunday Times magazine