Whew!

What a month and a bit it's been!

Busy on several projects, very exciting, very motivating, affirming, hopeful...Who was it that said, "I can deal with the despair; it's the hope that's killing me"?

I've had so many ups and downs that I've learned not to get too excited on the ups, but...

FINGERS CROSSED AND NIPPLES CLAMPED!

....is that just me? You all do the nipple clamp thingy too, right?

And, in other news, we have bunnies. Yes, Mrs P's free-range rabbit evidently responded well to the visit from her lop-eared lover. We don't know how many she had, or how many survived, but one little bunny was seen at tea-time today, hopping along from one corner of the garden and disappearing under the compost-heap. I suppose we will have to tame it and bring it to the vets and find out if there are any bunny siblings.

Exciting times, my Spherical friends.

Script Frenzy

I've signed up for Script Frenzy. Which is a little bit silly, since I also have an essay and a treatment and a couple other things to do as well. Still, I thought I'd give it a go. I have this wacky idea that won't go away, so I thought...why not do it in a frenzy?

CAVEAT: the other projects take priority, so I will only FRENZY if they're going well and I have time to spare. But, 30 days, 100 pages? That's 3 and 1/3 pages a day on average. Easy-peasy. Just need to keep the frenzy in its place. I'll be fine.

The Reading

Yay! The reading went really well. I kept wanting to jump in and say "No, it goes like this..." and correct the way they read the lines, but I restrained myself. The main thing is, it reads well, even by people coming to it cold. Several laughs! A bit of pathos! It was entertaining, I felt.

Went out for a few pints of Guiness afterwards. There was an Irish band playing. I danced and sang. It felt like a celebration. G'night.

Copies, nibbles and drinks

The reading is all set for this Tuesday. The theatre group even advertised it in the local paper, so there might possibly be a small audience turning up. I woke in sweat early Friday morning, when I thought I'd remembered a conflicting meeting at work - me giving a presentation to parents. But it's the following Tuesday.

I'm going to bring along 10 copies of the script. There are six characters; I think the spares might be welcome for anyone who wants to follow along. It's a lot of paper, but I figure I'll probably only tinker with it, so most of it will used for eventual cast copies anyway.

What should I provide, in the way of nibbles and drinks? I heard that salty food makes people happy, so maybe I'll go with crisps and peanuts. But that doesn't really go with tea and coffee. Hm. Biscuits?

Well...

One thing I can blog a bit about is staging my one act play. I've got the performance dates (July 30th, 30st and Aug. 1st) and the date for the initial read-through, and the theatre booked for 12 rehearsals. That's pretty cool. My first production is going to be a reality this summer! Writer-director, ME!

Okay, it's am-dram, so doesn't really count in some quarters. That doesn't bother me at this point in my career. The audience is real. They really pay for their tickets, and will really want to be entertained. I look forward to finding a dark place to sit and watch, not the play so much as the audience's reaction. If they're entertained, I'll know. If they're bored, I'll know. That's the point of the exercise: entertain an audience with 30 minutes of my words, through the medium of amateur, but hopefully passionate and committed actors.

Another thing to blog: I'm waiting to hear back on a submission I made to the Exeter Pheonix, along with a friend of mine. If successful, we'll get a budget of a few hundred pounds, use of cameras and other kit, as well as advice, mentoring and post-production facilities. This is for a short film script set here in Teignmouth, on the river to be precise. So, fingers crossed on that.

Tomorrow night, I'll have the first tutorial on my TV episode for the MA at Bournemouth. Looking forward to that, as once again, I have a really good tutor. I'm happy with the outline I've submitted and look forward to writing the treatment.

Also have a couple of spec projects on the go, new-writing-wise, but really can't blog about them.

Is that better?

PS: Caught a typo: "entertainted." What was my subconscious do there? I wonder.

A Blog Post

This is a blog post. Andy is still alive and writing, busy on several promising but secretive projects. He hopes to be in a position to post details soon.

Snow Day!

To Whom It May Concern,

I regret to inform you that the the only roads in or out of town are closed. That means I...CAN'T GET TO WORK!!! Even if I could get there, the school's officially closed for the day.

I have done the right thing, and left a message, offering my services to the nearest school, just on the off chance it's open. There may be a grit shortage in this area, but it's not a shortage of true grit, I assure you.

However, in the absence of my phone ringing... I'm not sure how to put this. What about...WOO HOO!!

Buzz

I have to do everything and do it all right now.

Off To Bournemouth

Lots of rushing around to do, shopping tidying, packing, before I kiss the wife and kids goodbye and head off to Bournemouth for the third residential. This one will cover writing for television, and more about t'industry.

Looks like grim travelling conditions. An icy easterly wind's blowing up a huge surf here in Teignmouth. I can see the spray from waves hitting the sea-wall from here. Yikes, I'd better leave earlier, rather than later. Don't really want to be driving after dark if I can help it.

30 minute drama now completed. Not 100% happy with it, but will stop fussing and send it out for some peer review. Well, after I've fussed with it just a little more.

My whole trouble with this one is the mismatch between the great promise of the characters and the weakish delivery of the story. Very frustrating to see it spark into life in places, but not as a whole.

But Bournemouth! Yay. Got a cheap deal at a posh seafront hotel. I can pretend I'm at the Hotel Magnificent in Roald Dahl's The Witches. That's set in Bournemouth, isn't it? Look at me, pretending I don't know The Witches backwards and forwards, from reading it aloud at least five times.

Now there's a good ending.

SPOILERS! BELOW! READ NO FURTHER!

The ending of the Witches:



It's touching when the boy realises he's been permanently turned into a mouse, and will probably live only a few years more. Mice have short lives, and even mouse-boys can't expect many summers. But he finds comfort in the knowledge that Grandma, at her age, and with her cigar habit, probably has about the same time left. They will be together. One will not have to live long without the other. They will spend their remaining time on the planet battling witches and stealing their treasure.

Roald Dahl may sell more than his share, but for this book, and Matilda, and a couple others, he is justly celebrated as a national treasure.

Arc-y Breaky Heart

In the words of Charlie Brown, ug. I've given the script a bit of a rest, taken a break from writing, or thinking about writing, for a few days, which has been kind of fun. Taken a fresh look, and seen my script still has basic problems, especially character arc. I'm going to try and start my character off at a different point and see if that works. She's also not active enough. There's a whole sequence that just sort of happens to her. Got to sort that.

So, here we go again. Change the beginning a bit, to start her off a bit tougher. I've realised that's one thing I usually respond to, and a part of my developing voice: tough, hard "bad" characters with good hearts, who come good under pressure. So I need more of that going on, if I want to tug at the old heartstrings. And then, redo the passive/reactive sequence, and get my character driving things on.

It's hard, but this does represent progress. As I said before, not long ago, I'd have called it good and sent it out. No more. Writing script reports, especially, has forced me to be a much tougher, keener critic of my own work.

Onwards.

Got it

Found an ending I like. I wrote a provisional scene; it turned into something good so I went with it. Need a new draft, a few chops and changes, but now have a coherent, hopefully moving story. One week to tighten it up, leave it a couple days, brush it up, then out for feedback.

I was thinking about the Adrian Mead power of three thing. It's quite exacting, as I heard him tell it a couple years ago in London. You write a script, polish it, make it as good as it can get. Then you send it to three people for feedback. You rewrite according to any common threads. Then you polish that draft. You let it rest a few days and give it another pass. Then out for the second round. Rewrite, polish, rest, another pass. Then, you send it to three more readers. Write the final draft. Polish it, send it out.

I'm on the first rewrite with this one. I think it has the potential to be good, so I'm going to go through the whole three rounds, if I have to.

Hurry!

So painfully close to being finished with this one. I'm stuck for that one little twist at the end. I don't mean a plotty reversal, more of an emotional twist, just that little dash of whatever it needs to put it over the top, make it come totally alive. I've got a binful of rejected ideas, five, (count-em) rewrites, a clear outline and about five pages to work with. AAARRGGHHH!

Stuck. A year, or even a few months ago, I wouldn't have been stuck. I would have just finished the thing, called it good enough and started seeking advice. But now I've written, read, and done reports on more scripts, I know what I would say about this one - promising, but needs development. That's a good thing, in a way. I have awoken my inner critic, and he stands there, like a sweary chef, tipping my half-baked omelets into the bin. But on the other hand, I really want to be done with this one and move on to the next dish, a bit of a romantic thriller comedy with a great female lead.

Come on, brain!

Bits and bobs

Nearly finished with the next draft of the coming-of-age drama. Last night, I made a new copy and named it All the Kings Horses Draft. That's because this will be the one where I put it all back together again. We shall see. Funny thing is, I'll have my notes back from my tutor on Wednesday. I'll have rewritten it by then. It will be interesting to see if my own thinking ties in with her impressions.

I was feeling a bit stuck last night, not quite sure where I was going with a sequence. So I wrote a few notes in my spiral notebook instead of typing into Final Draft. These templates are great, but sometimes they kind of put on the pressure. You feel like your imagination is onstage. And sure, that's just where it wants to be, most of the time. But stepping back, and taking a more relaxed approach, just telling yourself to make a few notes, can get you going. After a few minutes, I found myself writing out action and dialogue by hand, which is silly, so I went back to ye olde lapetoppe and was soon merrily typing away. Thinking and imagining - it's all very complex, multifaceted brain-stuff. Sometimes you have to walk around, jotting notes, before you can full-on write.

Anyway, I'm pleased with how it's going. It's still going to need another draft, at least, before I send it out, but I might get some feedback on it first.

Looking back, looking forward

2008 was a year of almosts for me. My thirty minute script made the second round of BBC Sharps, and drew very positive feedback from the readers, as well as encouragement to send my next script to Writer’s Room. I had an informal meeting with a film producer, who liked the premise of a feature script of mine, but didn’t take it further. I was one of twenty writers, out of a couple hundred applicants, to come along and pitch my idea at Channel 4, for Stellar Network’s Pitch Up event. One of the panel, a development executive and executive producer, liked it well enough to contact me with a view to taking it on. It came to naught in the end, but only as a result of circumstances beyond my control. One other almost worth mentioning was last summer, when I was one of five writers, out of how many hopefuls I don’t know, who were considered for a small independent film set in Bulgaria.

Those almosts are not enough, in themselves, to keep me going. Nor is the positive feedback I’ve had on my screenwriting course in Bournemouth. It’s important, lets me know I’m not purely kidding myself about my talent and abilities. However, I have to be honest about the fact that ‘almost’ can also mean ‘not good enough.’

Still, I’m not about to give up yet. I have too much to do first. First, there’s the slate of projects I want to write this year. I’m excited about the ideas and outlines I’ve done on them. They’re what really keep me going: the stories. There’s something in me that drives me to make up characters and stories. Can’t imagine not writing them, polishing them, getting them out for people to read, and hopefully, make into films. Then, there’s the Bournemouth course, which has, without question, already improved my writing. I look forward to completing the upcoming units, writing script reports and doing a study of industry practice.

I’ve always said that I wouldn’t keep going without some kind of success. However, giving up now would just be silly. So 2009 will be a year of upping my game, making contacts, and learning all I can. If I haven’t moved on in the next twelve months, I’ll reconsider. But for now, it’s full-speed ahead.

Goals for 2009:
1. Finish rewrites on one hour coming of age drama and send it to BBC.
2. Write feature, now in rough outline form, and move on to complete two other projects I’m excited about.
3. Stage my 30-minute comedy.
4. Enter any schemes or contests that seem worthwhile.
5. Develop my understanding of the industry, by completing the coursework for Bournemouth, and possibly doing a summer internship with a production company, or media outlet.
6. Move another step up the ladder. This could mean optioning a script, or getting onto a development or training scheme.
7. Study up on radio plays, and have a go writing one.