That's a wrap (for monsters)

I think Monsters is as good as it's going to get for now so I need to package up my application form for the Red Planet competition and the first ten pages and get them into the post tomorrow.

And then there's the question of what next. Not really much of a question.

"Une Nuit a Paris" gets moved to the front burner from where it's been simmering at the back. Particularly as I just discovered the 8th Sept deadline was the early submission date for BFSC/Kaos and I until Nov 14th. This means I can get some decent feedback as well.

Which is good.

On the day job there was the final demonstration on Friday afternoon - after I had departed for northern parts. (They invited me to attend the demo, I declined. It was also my wife's birthday, not that it would have made any difference even if it hadn't been.)

Nobody got fired. Apparently the Powers-That-Be were satisfied with the progress. Now I just have to make it work fast enough to be useful in the real world.

---

What's on the turntable? "House Carpenter" by Pentangle from "Light Flight".

Head too big for door

I had an "appraisal" at work yesterday. As I've never worked in a huge company before this was a new experience. (The fact that it's not usually done on contractors seems not to bother this company, I'm fine with that.) And it seems I'm exceptional.

Of course I always knew that, but now it's official.

Then I got feedback on my intended BFSC entry "Une Nuit a Paris" which was generally good, needs some work but then it was my first draft. (God, what smart-alec.) To be honest I didn't really know what to do with it which is why I went for the feedback so early. Now I have a better idea. But most important it really is funny. Thank goodness for that. I was terrified that it would fall totally flat.

"Monsters" got feedback too, from two sources, which I then compared and contrasted, popped off a couple of emails to try to clarify some things and got back the clarification I needed. Which is excellent news. Hopefully I can make the changes and get it off to Red Planet.

Yours excellently.

---

What's on the turntable? "Who Wants to Live Forever" by Queen from "A Kind of Magic". Of course, this is the soundtrack music for "Highlander" a film that I love. Though the sequels have never managed to live up to it. (For various reasons.) The TV "Highlander" series (1990s), however, was superb with excellent characters and some powerfully emotional plots. Nowadays the fight scenes in the Highlander film look tame, but in the TV series Adrian Paul plays the immortal, and being a dancer and martial artist his fights were far better. In another bout of Hollywood insanity there is an effort to re-make it.

Writer without a cause

I have been so unproductive in the last few weeks (before and since the SWF) that I've been feeling like I've lost my spark.

I have no cause or, in my case, I have no deadline.

I did ScriptFrenzy, I wrote a couple of treatments one for a real deadline and one for a self-imposed one. The Red Planet competition isn't a deadline because my script is pretty well ready, a bit of fiddling around to do when I get all the coverage and notes back.

So I've fizzled out.

It's not writer's block. I don't get writer's block.

I have no deadline. My job is great, I just got a really tough deadline to get something really important finished as early next week as possible. Lovely. I've never failed to deliver.

But on the writing front. Nada. I wish someone would give me a commission so I could get my teeth into it.

There are competitions, of course, and just today we got the Kaos BFSC any genre but producible for under $2 million. Sounds like a job for "Une Nuit a Paris". The deadline (ahem) is 12 Sept 2008, just ahead of Red Planet. So that's a little squeaky tight - I'm warming to it already.

Eight weeks to go from first draft to something worthwhile? Yup, that's tight enough.

We are the Bunnies of Happiness!

---

What's on the turntable? "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen from "Greatest Hits vol. 1"