Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writers' routine. This week we're with Guy

Jenkin, a multi-bafter and Emmy award-winning writer and director who has published his first novel.

It's called Murder Most Foul.

Guy is one of the brains behind the sitcom Outnumbered, looking at chaotic family life in suburban London.

Now, many people think it's all improvised, so probably wonder, well, what does a writer do on it?

It turns out quite a bit.

Well, outnumbered is perhaps slightly less improvised than people think.

I mean, those moments where kids put things in their own words or go off on a conversation with each other or their parents are sort of brilliant and give it a great individuality.

But, you know, the majority of it was tightly plotted.

And we would leave a space for the improvisations that, you know, always have some sort of jokes or moments up our sleeve in case they didn't work.

And after all that sitcom success, you can hear how Guy finally learned to write a novel.

I feel I can bring to it plot and character and dialogue.

But just how you actually put words onto paper, how you choose the prose, is something new for me and something, I mean, I find quite exciting

so learning something new late in life.

It's all on the way with Guy Jenkins in a brand new writer's routine.

Yes. Welcome along to the show. My name is Dan Simpson. This is writer's routine. It's where we take a look inside an author's working day. We see when, where, and what they do to give themselves the best chance of publishing the novel and the big W.

Why?

Why do they bother in the first place?

What is it that's driving them to do it?

This week, we're with Guy Jenkin.

Now, along with Andy Hamilton, he wrote, uh, drop the dead donkey and outnumbered to picking up many BAFTAs and Emmys along the way,

also worked on the films what we did on our holiday and the sleeping dictionary.

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