Writing about writing is not fascinating. But that's what I do most of the time, and I am going to force myself to hand over this draft to George on Thursday night. I've been having fun with it. In The Principles Of Lust I was arguing that perverse people and extreme experiences can bring you to life again, and it's possible that all the trauma of terrible reviews kick-started me in a way. So mostly I spend the week on my knees - I have one of those weird seats which are supposed to be good for your back.

On Wednesday I went to Channel 4 in the evening - they have bought various pieces of contemporary art and threw a big party. I had arranged to meet Jan Younghusband who commissioned The Death Of Klinghoffer. She told me she thought I was writing "too small" for myself and that Klinghoffer had proved I could direct epic things in big open spaces.

"I FIND BIG SCENES EASIER TO DIRECT"

I think this is true, but it's difficult to write big outside pieces for this country (maybe Scotland or Wales). It's tiny and overcrowded and the light is terrible. The liberation of shooting somewhere with this beautiful golden light where all the colours shone and you could see further than just across the road! I find big scenes easier to direct than small ones, I always have. When there's a lot going on and the action drives it, you always have somewhere to go. Two people in a room. That's hard.

Jan and I discussed The Margate Exodus, which I am doing for Michael Morris who runs Artangel. (If you don't know who they are, look up their website - it's insanely wonderful!) In the summer of 2006 I want to recreate the book of Exodus as a promenade performance and a film, or series of films - involving as many people as are prepared to play with us. Hundreds or thousands. Asylum seekers are stuck in a big hotel called the Naylands Rock - where TS Eliot wrote The Wasteland. Hotels on the south coast are cheap and empty because nobody goes there on holiday any more. Then there are a lot of unemployed people who resent the asylum seekers and a huge elderly community who are also alienated from the other two.

Exodus starts with the Egyptians complaining about the Jews - "they're taking our jobs, there are too many of them and they have so many children soon there will be more of them than of us". We're going to involve artists working on parts of it and I will need to recruit a lot of help because the whole shoot (from the killing of the first born to the Promised Land via the plagues and battle, the parting of the Red Sea, the burning bush and the ten commandments, manna from heaven and the golden calf) will take place over three days. It's exciting and terrifying, like all the best things. And 2006 will come sooner than I think. Somehow I need to fit these films in before that - and am still on the scripting.

At the weekend I went to Rotterdam to see a stage performance of The Death Of Klinghoffer - four of the singers from my film were in it. It was a strange and interesting experience to see a different mind finding solutions to the same problems I had addressed for so long. It's a dark piece and then the mood changed and we ended up at the end of show party leaping around drinking beers while various sopranos and tenors sang karaoke versions of Like A Virgin and It's Raining Men! Karaoke was very popular on our shoot.

"THEY'RE REALLY TERRIBLE!"

Kelly Hollis (who played Tina in Tina Goes Shopping, etc) played one of the hostages and dragged us all down to a karaoke bar in Malta - nobody else had done it before and I think we were all a bit snootily reluctant at first. Chris Maltman (the baritone who played the Captain) sang Danny Boy and the whole pub went quiet. Yvonne sang Summertime. And then it all went downhill. The absolute worst was me and the three assistant directors shouting an out of tune, totally crap version of Bridge Over Troubled Water. The whole crew and cast were there and stamping and cheering us wildly. Leigh, one of the singers, told me that some people came into the pub thinking something fantastic was happening and asked him, "Why are they applauding these people so much? They're really terrible!"

I have to get back to my script now. I think I'm going to change the title too...