I Like Miraclepod Best But Let's See Which If Any Takes Off - Tumblr Posts

The thing I get most in my head about, reliably, is asking people for things. More especially asking people to do things for me.

It'll be an annoyance.

Even if it's nothing major. Even if it's something they've happily done a hundred times before.

It'll be an imposition.

Even if I know they love me. Even if it would make me happy if they asked the same thing of me.

It's kind of exploitation if you think about it.

Even if it's a work thing, and they're being paid to do it and I'm being paid to ask them to do it.

I can anticipate the spiral, and I build in time to navigate the spiral before the thing needs doing, and I can reliably break out of the spiral once I'm in it, but the spiral still always happens.

I think that's why I wrote I Need A Miracle.

It wasn't an intention I set out with consciously: to get into character as a variety of people who want and who find it in themselves to ask, even when the things they want are vast and life-changing; when they are, unquestioningly, imposing. But looking back at the finished scripts now, as casting gets under way and I start to think about how I launch and talk about the show later this year, I can see more clearly why, out of all the possibilities, this was the concept that bubbled to the top and demanded to be written first.

Every character in I Need A Miracle does nothing but want. That's the concept: every episode is a prayer, a plea to a higher power for divine intervention. We never hear anything beyond these pleas, these prayers. Anyone who doesn't want anything won't pray for anything, so we'll never hear their voice.

There's an idea that all characters in drama must want something. Here, though, the wanting is front and centre. It's not just what's driving their decisions and actions. It's the reason they're speaking to us. They're all forced to articulate what they want – and not only that but justify why they deserve to get it, because not all prayers are granted.

That ought to have been hard to write, for someone like me who's embarrassed to want things, and who's shy about making those desires someone else's problem or responsibility.

But it wasn't hard. When it's someone else's desire, it's easy! Of course they deserve it. It's not even that big an ask. Anyone would be happy to oblige.

That's the quickest, most effective way I've found to break out of the spiral. Think: if someone else asked this of me, would I think it was rude, or an imposition, or overstepping the mark? Nine times out of ten the answer is: no, I'd actually be stoked to be asked.