New comedy television script: 'Aftermaths'
I've completed another
television comedy script. This one's about four male
teenagers who wake up in their school library to find
that something strange and terrible has happened,
leaving everyone else in the world either unconscious
or missing. Unlike more traditional disaster movies,
they're not thinking about how they can rebuild
society, help other survivors and find a cure for
what's happened. Their main questions are 'have any
attractive females survived?' and 'if they haven't
survived and have become un-dead instead, is it okay
to get off with one?'
Here's the script. I've sent a copy and an
episode synopsis to Dominic Lord at the JFL agency
who asked to read any new scripts I created. Last
year's script, 'just the two of us', hasn't yet
been commissioned but it's early days yet. I've
also added 'aftermaths' to my scripts page.
Self publishing in the UK - my progress so far
I'm in the process of self-publishing my non-fiction
book, The Golden Web. I'm
following the self-publishing route for the book
because the standard non-fiction publishing route
isn't really available to me. Since I'm not a
television presenter or senior scientist or
academic, it's unlikely a publishing house would
want to commit funds to try and sell my book. I
also don't have any personal connections in the UK
publishing industry so I can't call on any favours
or phone any ex-school publisher friends asking
them to add The Golden Web to their list. That's
okay though, because you don't have to be well
known person to get a non-fiction book published
and sold nowadays. Hooray!
A new 15 minute stage play called 'stuck'
This was very much a 'chase the deadline' piece of work. I knew the deadline for the competition was looming and I hadn't been able to come up with something. Friday morning was my last chance. Fortunately, with the pressure of that deadline, I wrote 'Stuck' between 10am and noon. It's a simple setup; a man and a woman are stuck in a lift. Read More...
Just the two of us - TV comedy script
My writing mistakes - volume 1
I thought it would be
good to write about all the writing mistakes I’ve
made. When writing is done well, it looks simple and
effortless. Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ is a good
example, along with anything by John Steinbeck. The
problem is that a fledgling writer can easily think
that excellent prose is simple to do because it looks
simple. I made that mistake. In fact, I made so many
mistakes that I’ve lost track of all of them. Writing
good prose is like having a slim, fit body. A lucky
few can develop one with even seeming to try. For the
rest of us, it’s an endless effort to keep off the
flab.
Here is a list of my most memorable mistakes. If
you’ve read about them in an earlier blog of mine, I
apologise. I also mistakenly repeat
things.
Feedback from Cornerhouse theatre
I've got some feedback from the Cornerhouse theatre in Surbiton about the play I sent them entitled 'Can't see, won't see'. You can read it here: Can't see, won't see. Unfortunately, they won't be putting it on. This isn't much of a surprise since I only spotted at the last minute before submission that they were after family friendly plays!
Read More...Writing advice
Write a lot: If you haven't written a lot of prose before, you'll need to write a hundred thousand words of prose and get that prose regularly assessed before you even start writing the prose for the novel! I know that sounds terrible, but that's what I effectively did in the end - write 100k of text and then write the whole thing again. Read More...
Copper Book just keeps on developing
A one act play: 'Can't see, won't see'
Click here to download the play: Can't see, won't see
p.s. don't read the summary on the first page if you want to be surprised! It is one big plot spoiler.
Jonathan Cape Graphic Short Story competition
Here's what I produced: Read More...
It's catch up time... (with fun pics!)
The first entry that springs to mind is from the 18th September. I had booked to go on an Arvon Writing week (http://www.arvonfoundation.org/). The subject of the week was Graphic Novels and the tutors were Bryan Talbot and Hannah Berry. Since the week would be about creating stories with both text and images, I thought it would be good to get down and do some drawing. I had done drawing and painting before, but I'd only produced a few illustrations. I decided to dedicate the whole week to producing some fun black and white illustrations for Copper Book. In the end, I only got about three days of work done, but I did produce work I was very pleased with. Here's what I came up with: Read More...
My journey to work
First off, it's into Bushy Park through Hampton gate. Read More...