"Channel X has something very similar in development"

Not an actual Channel X, of course, although there probably is one. But if you've handed a script in to a producer, and this is the beginning of their response, the rest of the conversation could go a number of different ways, depending on the way they say this first bit.

1. PRODUCER (sympathetically, head tilted on one side): Channel X has something very similar in development.

TRANSLATION: "Russell T. Davies has just pitched the exact same idea for a cornish werewolf biker epic to BBC2. Bad luck."

2. PRODUCER (eyes sparkling with mischief) : Hmmm, Channel X has something very similar in development....

TRANSLATION: "Our rival channel has been looking for a cornish werewolf biker epic for some time, and have just commissioned a hugely expensive pilot script by a big name british actor who has had to move back to the UK after a hushed-up sex scandal and is looking for a change of career. My nephew's girlfriend who worked for three days as a temp in the office stole a copy of the script for me, and it is the biggest shit sandwich yet to have been sighted upon these shores. If we crack on now, we could force Channel X into an arms race which would surely lead to the sacking of Channel X Station Head, who I have hated ever since we were at school together and he made me clean out the toilets with my favourite Beanie Baby (the seal one)."

There is, of course, a third alternative.

3. PRODUCER (kindly) : Channel X has something very similar in development.

TRANSLATION: "Your script is, frankly, mental. You have shown not the slightest understanding of character, structure or pace, but far far worse than that, it is a clear ripoff of the popular graphic novel 'Cornish Werewolf Biker Epic', which you, not giving me the slightest credit, assumed I would never have read, whereas in fact I have the entire series run catalogued in plastic bags under my bed. However, unlikely though it may seem, I didn't get into this job to actively destroy people's hopes and dreams, so although there is not something similar in development with Channel X, I am trying to spare your feelings, in the hope that one day in the long distant future, you will come up with a script that is actually filmable. Now let us never speak of this again."

Currently, I have three commissioned scripts at various stages of completion. Two of them are on Top Chief Commissioning Editors' desks right now, waiting to see if Top Chief Commissioning Editors commission a whole series, the last is about to undergo the final phase before it heads out into what we fey, starry-eyed writers call 'the marketplace'. One of them I am fairly sure bears no resemblance to anything else out there, one has had two 'similar projects' raise their fat ugly heads while I was writing, and the last one has seen a massive resurgence in its chosen genre between the first and second drafts that will either bear my pages aloft on golden wings, or burn out massively and lead to the firing of any executive who even considers paying good money for a film script with a superhero in it.

I have absolutely no idea what will happen next. On the other hand, HAHAHAHA YOU'VE PAID ME MONEY TO WRITE SCRIPTS YOU IDIOTS! IT'S TOO LATE TO ASK FOR YOUR MONEY BACK NOW etc.