When I say "Oh dear"...

I realise my empty last posting needs some explanation. I mean I could delete it but where would the fun be in that?

Fun? Not feeling very fun-ny today I must admit. This is not because anything bad is happening in my life, it isn't. Just had a bad night a combination of the weather suddenly turning hot and humid (just for a couple of hours), people just down the way having friends round and making just enough noise to prevent sleep, cats deciding to take objection to other cats, and our dog taking exception to the cats taking exception to each other.

Very sad. So I'm tired, hence the unfunny feeling.

The "Oh dear" was because I was going to make a comment about how I had completely failed to make any further posting about the London Screenwriters Festival. But the inter-tubes in the place I'm staying decided to behave badly and that was as far as I got. Except I managed to post it.

Not very exciting at all.

London Screenwriters Festival

I went to others of the sessions of course, nothing truly major stuck in my mind. Ellin Stein's session on editing down scripts was interesting enough; and the one on a new way of analysing scripts was passingly interesting, though the speaker was primarily selling his products - and his clientele is directors rather than writers.

I can sum up what he said: The key moments of a script are when a character perceives something different in their environment.

I think, on the whole, it's a valid tool for directors, is it a valid tool for writers? No idea. I'll have to try it out.

I had a go at the Pitch Factor on Saturday evening. It was fun and I was rubbish - but considering I wrote the pitch on the back a cigarette packet half a  minute before speaking that comes as no surprise. (I'm lying professionally here. It was a note pad, and I wrote it half an hour before.)

I also had a Speed Pitch session booked, which was also a bit poo. But I was similarly unprepared. No surprise there then.

I went to the Writing Fantastical TV session which had a good panel and the overwhelming advice was - smuggle it in. Of course, as I read elsewhere, it's ludicrous if TV commissioners say "oh that last SF TV series really bombed we won't do any more of those". After all, do they, when a cop show bombs, say "We won't do any more cop shows?" No, they don't.

There was also the Writing for Comics, another good panel and something I knew nothing about, so I was suitably enlightened. Interesting.

And, of course, I met new people and generally had a good time. So I'll no doubt do it again.

Family Drama

So, the Boy has been doing exams (his school push them through early GCSEs) so it's been a bit a stressful time for him. But he has come out the other side safely.

For the drama exam (part of English Language) they had to write their own 5min script based on Saving Private Ryan. Scripts is something we know something about so he got the job in his groups. (Actually it makes no sense, this is a drama exam so he gets nothing for the writing - surely they should just give them a script?)

Anyway, without going into detail, there was much to-ing and fro-ing with this script. He wasn't sure what to do, so we discussed conflict in scenes. His first version barely made 90 seconds. Then he got something sorted that was long enough. Then he found that his part was too short so had to add a completely new sequence into the scene, but we discussed what could be done and came up with something he liked and he wrote it.

I'm currently working away from home during the week so the Teacher (okay, that's potentially confusing - when I say "the Teacher" I mean my wife, not his schoolteacher) helped him clean up the spelling and grammar. And then she wanted to put some additional instructions into the action lines and the Boy says "No, mum, you can't do that, that's director stuff."

There humour. (For the sake of completeness, yes, I know, in stage work the writer is god, so "director stuff" would be fine - but that wouldn't be funny.)

Anyway it all went off well and he got the equivalent of an A grade for the drama part - I'd have given him the same for the writing, but I'm a bit biased.

Winter Blog

I am also instigating yet another blog - just a sucker for punishment - this one is specifically about writing the web series Winter which is going very nicely and I have some observations to make (well, I think they're interesting - others may differ.)

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What's on the turntable? "The Third Hoorah" by Jethro Tull from "Warchild"

What's happening, you know, like socially?

It's been nearly a month since I last blogged, which is a rather long time for me, and writing did not form much of the reason why I've been quiet.

I've just been very very busy. And still am. But I thought I'd write a summary of what's happening in my universe. Just so you know I'm still alive. But where to start...

In the past few weeks I've started to use Twitter (@adaddinsane) I spent several weeks just researching it, reading everything I could about it - before I even created my account. I thought this would be wise, no point blundering in and making more of a fool of myself than I already do.

So that went off fairly smoothly, I don't tweet much and as suggested by the things I've read I certainly don't mention what I'm eating or bodily functions.

It's an interesting medium and the important thing to realise is: you will miss stuff. It doesn't matter. My main purpose in getting an account was to see how useful it would be as a promotional tool. I concluded it would be very useful indeed.

Then I got a Google+ account (you can only get one by being invited currently, it's still in beta, only has a few million users). And then I got a G+ plug-in (SGPlus) which allows me to read and post to both Facebook and Twitter just from G+. So I do.

G+ is different again from either Facebook or Twitter. It's more solid and its controls for privacy are far more intuitive than either FB or Twitter. Soon SGPlus will allow me to access my LinkedIn account as well. G+ also integrates with all your other Google products, like GMail, PicasaWeb and so on.

But again, I'm looking at these things from the viewpoint of promotional tools when we start to promote our steampunk Voidships project. Which is all very exciting.

On a personal note the Daughter has been to Bolivia and returned alive. You can see some of the pictures on her  Bolivia page on Facebook. She worked in two places, the first did not involve animals directly but they were building holding pens - hard manual labour, in high temperatures, in the jungle.

The second stage did involve animals, and she worked with an ocelot called Ob (oh-bee, ocelot b). The ocelot has to be walked every day, but will never be released back into the wild as she was rescued from being someone's (extremely inappropriate and dangerous) pet. A bit bigger than a domestic cat, behaves like a domestic cat until she decides to take a piece out of your arm.

It may have been said elsewhere, the Daughter would like to be a professional actor - and has done quite a bit of stage (and some TV) in the past. Well she has finally got an agent, a proper one (hurrah!). Plus, though 20, she looks 14 so can work without the legal restrictions imposed on under 16s.

We went to the Edinburgh Festival and saw many many performances, some good, some less so, and some completely off the wall.

Having an affinity for Japanese culture (our whole family) we had to see "Samurai Grandma" if you read the reviews on the referenced page you'll see there was audience participation. There were less than 10 people in the audience when we saw it. Guess who ended up on stage ... twice. Luckily I revel in playing the fool in public. Gave the family a good laugh.

All I can say is: Watch out for that devilish Kitchen Penguin!

The Boy is a musician, he plays the tenor horn in a brass band, saxophone (most recently in Bugsy Malone, where he was also on stage) and so we visited an educational show called "Blues!" covering the highlights of the history of blues music in one hour. We were blown away. So blown away that we went to see it again.

We also went to see comedy rock band Axis of Awesome who were excellent live - reminded me of Morecambe and Wise: so well rehearsed it looked improvised. It's the Boy's birthday and tomorrow we buy him an electric guitar. He'd like a drumkit too ... maybe next year, after we sound-proof the cellar.

The Teacher has been working with early years for the past few years, but she's moving to Year 2 which has meant a lot of work. But she's so sorted she sat down to do some work, and then realised she's already done it.

Today is the last day of my current contract, I start the next one on Tuesday, in Bristol for a week and then back home for the rest. I could get used to this working from home lark.

And that's about it. Now I have to do more paying work.

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What's on the turntable? "Drifting" by Clannad from "Atlantic Realm"

Busy week

The day job continues unabated. I have the rest of the month to complete it then, who knows, I might have to get a new contract or this one may get extended.

Had a good conference with Chris the Director about our Steampunk project - all about promotion, marketing and the direction we're going with it. Plus talking about the first actual film project associated with it, Winter. A real business meeting - hardly talked creative at all.

I've been working on the back story of the characters in Winter in lots of loving detail - I came to the conclusion that I didn't know enough about them so they came out a bit flat, and the story did not come from them, they were merely fitting into the story.

This is where the big lie comes in: Story is Character. Which is quite true, of course, no doubt about it. But it's just as valid creating the characters to make the story, as the other way around.

Tomorrow the Daughter heads off to Bolivia for 6 weeks. Coincidentally a new talent agency has contacted her to see if she'd like representation (don't worry people, I have thoroughly checked them, they are kosher). When she returns from looking after dangerous animals she will meet with us at the Edinburgh Festival - my first time there, though the rest of the family has been before. I shall be using this trip as research for my script Running.

The TV Drama - Writer's Festival is taking place in Leeds on Wednesday and Thursday, and I shall be there along with many from the scribosphere. I've ordered new business cards which should arrive today - my only business cards were too "production" oriented as opposed to "writer" oriented.

I can only say good things about Vistaprint's business card service, their online design-your-card system is excellent, especially if you have a clue about design (and though I'm no designer, I do understand what I'm doing). And even if you don't it's still easy to use and hand-holds all the way through.

Being a smart-ass I put a QR-code on the back of the business card which links directly through to the scripts on the blog here. This one. (Where did I get it from? bit.ly - more on that another time.)

Also, on Thursday, it's the Boy's appearance in Bugsy Malone. As previously mentioned he doesn't have a big part but he's also playing saxophone in the band. And now has been given several solos - because he's cool. I've not previously mentioned but, when it comes to clothes, he's one of those people that has a natural knack for picking the right combinations and looks good in almost anything. (Jealous, moi?) In a 30s suit complete with trilby and a saxophone, he looks perfect - hopefully we'll have a picture.

Friday? Just work, catching up on the day job with the time I've lost.

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What's on the turntable? "And the Mouse Police never sleeps" by Jethro Tull from "Heavy Horses"

Bringing it into focus

On the writing front I am getting feedback on Running some of which is causing me pain, but in a good way.

I am in the process of talking to producers about a script or two and I have succeeded in getting onto the BBC's TV Drama - The Writers Festival in Leeds in July - on the very flimsiest of commission history, but I was completely honest. Which means if you have flimsy commissions you might be able to get on it as well.

I failed to get on Something for the Kids however, they are fully booked.

So this is all good writing stuff.

Oooh, what else? OMG - it happened to me, another writer wrote the pilot for a TV series that I was going to write - almost exactly the same premise as I had planned. The only difference was he made his setting rural where I would have made it urban. I've read it and it's jolly good.

After a quiet low-numbers period during the holiday my Shooting People profile numbers have shot up again, now at 145 views per week. But why does nobody actually contact me...?

In other news

The Daughter is still set fair for Bolivia in a couple of months - she'll be traveling along the most dangerous road in the world. Though maybe they'll use the alternative route. Then she'll be looking after the big cats (and other endangered species - but mostly the big cats - and snakes - and big moggies). She likes dangerous things.

I mentioned almost exactly two years ago that the Boy would be appearing as Fat Sam in a school production  of Bugsy Malone. Well that production is finally happening but there're problems: the Boy got a lot taller - and it was decided that the production would only involve the drama students at the school. Which the Boy isn't.

But he is a saxophonist. So he's in the band instead - a band composed mostly of teachers. He gets all the solos, and his adjustments to the supplied have been greeted with approval.

And then they lost Laughing Boy from Dandy Dan's mob. And the Boy got cast, so now has to run from stage to pit and back through the production. Which is slightly problematic as the saxophone reed dries between times. Such are the trials of success.

The Teacher continues to teach, and has applied for a Deputy Head position.

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What's on the turntable? "A Passion Play (part 2)" by Jethro Tull from "A Passion Play" - specifically "The Hare who had lost his Spectacles"

Rumours of my demise

The day job has been very busy - I'm responsible for the redesign, rebuild and relaunch of a major UK website, next Thursday.

Lots of writing things have been going on in the background which I am not in a position to discuss at present. As with much writing stuff it may not even happen.

There have been some personal events which have been damned inconvenient.

But one maintains a jovial outlook and provides a rock for all others to cling to. (A pompous way of saying I don't let the bastards grind me down.)

The Boy is gearing up for Christmas - as a member of a brass band he's got lots of gigs. The Daughter is finishing her first term at Uni - there have been highs and lows. And The Teacher soldiers on - anyone who thinks it's easy being a teacher is living in cloud-cuckoo land. If only I could tell you what she tells me...

And if anyone thinks Amazon Studios is a good idea - try reading the small print. They make a big fuss about how bad Hollywood is, but they are a hundred times worse and are tied in the Warner Brothers anyway, so duh? If you believe your script is worth something, don't sign it away forever, which is what you will be doing by merely uploading it to Amazon Studios. And I do mean forever.

EDIT: Okay, not forever. But 18 months, during which time you get nothing.

You can't crowdsource creativity.

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What's on the turntable? "Rhayader goes to Town" by Camel from "The Snow Goose"

A question of stakes

Not talking about fencing today though we may discuss Tae-Kwon Do. (I'm feeling in a frivolously twisted mood.)

The other day I was thinking about stakes - you know, why it's important the protagonist succeeds in their goal. There are things that have to be true about the stakes - we have to believe in them. That's the most important thing, believe that they really are important. Otherwise there's no point.

And then I thought about that utterly frivolous* film "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" - which I love, can't deny it, it's on my list of films that I will watch again, and again, and again (etc).

So what about the stakes? The future of the world. Doesn't get much bigger. And yes it's a silly film, but within its own framework the stakes make perfect sense. Bill and Ted must pass their History presentation because without the music of Wyld Stallyns the world is doomed.

What about one of my other fave films? The Fugitive. Stakes? Protagonist accused of a crime he didn't commit - but it's all to do with a pharmaceutical company faking results from their drug trials, so the result would have a huge impact on society. (On a serious note let me draw your attention to this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11521873 .)

Of course the stakes aren't always global but if there are any bad consequences to the protagonist's failure make them as big as you can.

In other news

The Daughter is firmly ensconced at University and loving it. She says the lectures are good too. She's a Jujitus black belt but had also had some fun with TKD in the past, but the teacher wasn't very good. She's joined a TKD dojo at University and finds the teacher is part of the England squad and very good. Wouldn't surprise me if she's wondering whether she can qualify for 2012... she's not competitive, oh no, not at all.

The Boy has started his GCSE work at school, he's taken Music as an option and is getting the kind of teaching I wish I'd had: How to play Blues - you could just melt into that sax playing.

* Two frivoli in one blog. Lucky you.

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What's on the turntable? "Morph the Cat" by Steely Dan (Donald Fagen) from Morph the Cat

In case you hadn't heard...

Red Planet prize is go...

Two months to the deadline - which is good for focussing the mind, I'll need to zap through a page 1 rewrite of Tec which was my original plan.

Got my second set of feedback on Running from BlueCat which was interesting. If you resubmit you can choose whether to use the same or a different reader, I chose a different one - the more viewpoints the better in my opinion.

The differences in emphasis are worth mentioning: The first reader commented a lot more on structure and balance of characters; while the second, who's clearly an action movie fan, was more about balance of action (comparing it to District 13 which is good since that's the target market) - though mentioned the lack of character development, which was fair comment.

Anyway it gives me something to work with - I doubt very much I'll make even the semis for this BlueCat competition, Running needs a lot of work.

In other news...

The Daughter has arrived in New Zealand, and in another day she'll have reached the place where she'll be doing volunteer work - still no idea what she's actually doing. We received regular text updates as she crossed the world. We're planning on making an Earth sandwich at some point.

The Boy took part in the Saddleworth Whit Friday Band Contest last Friday - being (almost) a teenager he expressed a complete lack of enthusiasm but had a great time. Even had a taste of beer apparently.

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What's on the turntable? "Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel. Quality.

Travel

The Daughter took a year off before going to University. The original plan was to spend six weeks volunteering with the orangutans in Borneo. Unfortunately that ended up being too expensive.

So instead she's heading to the Antipodes - four weeks of volunteer work in New Zealand followed by some time in Australia with family.

She has paid for a lot of it herself - she found several jobs including waitressing, before/after school club assistant, and most recently cricket scorer for a local team. (Having a daughter who's a cricket scorer is slightly surreal since, as a family, we have little interest in team sports and only a slight interest in individual sports.)

Add to that the Boy is heading to France for a week and needs to know how to ride a bike. Which he doesn't. Belatedly (because he says he's got the hang of it and just needs practice) I looked up learning to ride a bike on the Inner-Tubes, um ... Inter-Tubes.

This site is good http://www.whycycle.co.uk/learning_to_ride_a_bike/

This one is okay http://www.sheldonbrown.com/teachride.html

I have not, and will not, be travelling much this year. Except to Birmingham from time to time, but I may be going to the big US of A next year.

The Boy has been choosing his GCSE options: Being a star pupil he didn't get all the choices he wanted, apart from sciences and maths, he's doing music - he's very excited about the composition part - he plays three instruments and in three bands. But, unsurprisingly in our family, he's chosen History. We do tend to shove it down both kids throats - those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it - but they don't seem to mind (the Daughter did Classical Civilisations which she loved). The Boy has a particular interest in WWII and that's what he'll be covering, so he's happy.

On the writing front...

The super secret project has been confirmed as dead (but at least it's confirmed), and I didn't get through the Big Finish new writers thingy. So those can be crossed off. It means I will definitely be using my detective script Tec for the Red Planet Prize, but that needs a page one rewrite.

I did enter the Blue Cat competition with Running and that gets announced some time in June.

I have been working through the page one rewrite of Winter definitely some good stuff there.

Meanwhile I'm also working on three website projects - and now have contributed to the Open Source software project called Drupal (means: water droplet) and my page is here it won't mean a lot to non-programmers but you can see my pseudonym there.

Gosh.

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What's on the turntable? "Heartsong" by Gordon Giltrap from "Visionary" (This was used as the theme tune to the BBC's long-running "Holiday" TV programme. So is appropriate for this post.)

Week off - sorta

Here I am in Birmingham (the original, not Alabama) for the week. I like Birmingham and it's got some very nice people in it. Some of them are my friends :-)

The crime writer Roger Ellory (one of those friends) mentions, in his latest blog, working with his bass player - who it just so happens I was talking to this afternoon. One of said player's current jobs is working with a big Queen tribute band and he's getting to globe trot and play to big audiences.

There's nothing like being on stage. Brilliant.

Speaking of music - the Boy has been developing his instrumental skills and now, apart from tenor horn and saxophone, he's learning guitar. All he needs now is drums and he can be the entire band.

The Daughter had to give up on her plan to go to Borneo and look after Orang-utans. Instead she's off to New Zealand for a month doing voluntary work followed by a family trip to Australia.

Lucky for some.

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What's on the turntable? Nuffink.

Priorities

This week I have mostly been listening to Icelandic music - somebody's blog (dammit I read so many) mentioned Sigur Ros and, as I use Spotify, I began to listen and diversify - Amiina, Olafur Arnalds, Jónsi & Alex - all brilliant stuff (and I've always liked Bjork). Being a huge Mike Oldfield fan (though not his ambient albums, like Light and Shade) as well as 70s Prog Rock this all fitted very nicely.

Which has nothing to do with priorities.

I have a lot on at the moment: the immediate pressure of the Monsters pick-ups next week, the location is still a bit of an issue though I have some ideas. Trouble is we're shooting on Saturday and most industrial estates, even the lovely run-down ones around here, still have things going on on Saturdays.

Then there's the re-write of the web series Winter, as Chris said on his blog the need to stand out is very important so we're playing to our techie strengths: extravagant imaginations and (hopefully) the technology to fulfill that imagination. One of the comments from the feedback on it was " a bit too Terminator" - the rewrite, which involves a complete change of universe, will kick that into touch.

I'm using one of Bill Martell's approaches on this rewrite: just write out, on cards, all the scenes you can think of that could happen based on those characters (in no particular order). And when you're done, re-arrange them into plot order (discarding those you don't need). I'm at the re-arrangement stage and filling in the gaps. (Although I use the card system built into Celtx rather than actual card cards.)

Then there's the web project. Which has been taking a backseat for the last couple of weeks.

Then there's the other new writing: Tec being the main one. It occurred to me that I haven't finished anything new in a year (except Unit X and Running both of which are in desperate need of re-writing).

So I have to prioritise.

Which is one reason why this blog has been ignored. But I am planning the next Application of Drama (to role-playing games) in my head. The game I was running has now finished and it worked out quite well using the principles of drama.

So the order of play currently:

1. Monsters picks-up (script and location, plus no dropping balls in other departments)
2. Web project
3. Winter re-write
4. Tec

Oh, and we're going to see Avatar tomorrow, it's unfair on the Boy not to, and it has to be seen on the big screen in 3D otherwise there's really no point. The Teacher and I could let it pass but we'll do it for him.

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What's on the turntable? "Lori" by Amiina from "Kurr"

Nearly three weeks...

...since I last blogged. A record.

It's not that my life has been operating at absolute zero - no energy - quite the contrary, I've been doing all sorts of stuff but it's all been a bit unfocused. So I've had nothing really concrete to say.

I'll sum up:

I've been working on my new web project which will be revealed presently - it's nearly in a working condition although there's still loads to do.

I've done some re-working of the Winter project and sent it for some professional feedback. I know a lot of things that are wrong with it but, again, it's a bit unfocussed so I need some focussing.

I wrote and delivered a pitch for Big Finish in their New Writers initiative. What I thought was a nice little Fifth Doctor & Nyssa story. I have a friend who's a complete DW geek, so was able to confirm that my Earth-historical had never been done in any of the books, audio stories or in TV in the entire history of DW. Conename: Boots, just in case it goes anywhere.

Still doing the contract day job, part of my unfocusedness was due to the contract being finished and having to spend time looking for a new contract. As it turns out the current company decided they had enough money for another two months and want me to create a fairly radical piece of work. Should be very interesting.

Went to see Sherlock Holmes - what a lot of fun that film is, certainly too much fun to nit-pick. Interestingly enough I actually pitched for that job as well. Don't believe me? Well, 18 months ago a message came up on the Shooting People screenwriters bulletin offering the opportunity to pitch for a big industry movie. The producers thought it might be interesting because they might come up with something new. And it was a Sherlock Holmes story. I may have pitched but I screwed it up anyway, by not reading the brief carefully enough. Though my story featured Irene Adler as well.

The Boy was on TV again: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qhq51/BAMZOOKi_Series_Four_Episode_12/ and it's a nail-biting finish.

I've also been pumping my existing stuff out to various screenwriting competitions.

So that's about it really. My main focus right now is to complete the web project up to a point where my partner on this project can start creating content. Oh, perhaps I should say at this point that the project is relevant to screenwriting but it's new*.

So until the next time: au revoir.

* I rewrote that line half a dozen times but every time I came across like some ignorant pleb thinking he's going to create a copy of ebay, Facebook, Shooting People, Zoetrope - or anything like that - and make a million (some people really do ask web designers for that - "I've got £500 make me the new ebay"). It isn't any one of those.

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What's on the turntable? "One Vision" by Queen from "A Kind of Magic"

Boy on TV

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pkyq6/BAMZOOKi_Series_Four_Episode_8/ (as of this posting it's not on the site yet, but should be soon).

It was just on, he's the team leader for Skorper Tank 225.

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What's on the turntable? "Taschenrechner" by Kraftwerk from "Minimum-Maximum"

Boy on TV

Yesterday the new series of Bamzooki started - the show that the Boy is in, having auditioned over a period of a year. He wasn't on yesterday's show, we're not sure when he's going to be on.

Apart from being hosted by Barney - who is much better on TV than he ever was on radio (Radio 4's "Go For It" kids show) but that's not saying a lot. It's not too bad, though they've even managed to dumb this down in comparison to the original series. (The original Zook Doctor was the commentator giving genuine advice on how to make zooks better, now it's just stupid "humour".)

On the other hand, it's technically very clever.

If you want to (and are in the UK) you can force yourself to watch it on iPlayer, but don't expect too much.

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What's on the turntable? "Idolizing" - Bix Biederbecke's Greatest hits

Nothing important

Yesterday was my birthday (thinks: I shall have to update the profile).

I have a cousin who is exactly three days older than me (I also have a friend who's exactly 1 day older but that's not important here) and when I was younger it seemed the important parties were always hers. She lived nearer to the majority of our relatives so our birthdays were combined and took place at the familial epicentre.

This probably isn't actually true but that was the perception.

We had a joint 18th birthday but it was family and her friends mostly - then again I didn't really have a lot of close friends. (See I'm trying to be fair.)

When it came to my 21st I did have a group of friends and we partied away the evening in a large Victorian mansion somewhere in London which was also a recording studio and I spent the evening spinning the discs in a back room. On my own.

Tragic.

Then again I'm not one for big parties. My 30th passed unnoted, we were amused by my 40th, last year my 50th was pretty quiet and for various reasons I was unable to go my cousin's 50th.

The Teacher has a birthday a little over a week before me (she's younger and I'm not giving away the details) but the kids and I managed to make that one quite successful. Best organised one for years. She loves the Biederbecke trilogy and I got it on DVD for her (it's an Alan Plater masterpiece).

So yesterday was my 51st. To be honest we had decided that since we were both running around madly over the weekend (me shooting Monsters and she with the Boy at the BBC) we would defer even our meagre celebrations until next week - I'm to have an official birthday next Saturday.

Honestly I don't know what happened yesterday but it was one of the worst days that I and the Teacher have had in years.

Not on a personal level between ourselves, though it's true we were both tired, but the kids!

We have two of the best kids anyone could possibly want, not only can we take them to places, we can take them back and not to apologise. They are both decent and thoughtful. We almost never have to raise our voices, they never have tantrums (really), they like us and we like them.

But not yesterday.

I'm not going into detail but yesterday they turned into satanic abominations. The Daughter needed kid gloves and the boy needed the Riot Act.

Must be something in the water.

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What's on the turntable? "I am the Law" by The Human League from "Dare" - not that I'm a massive Human League fan, but when it's free on Spotify...

Breaking lose

The launch of the day-job website went off fairly painlessly on Wednesday evening - so much so that they didn't require my presence at work through the evening - though I was on-call. You can look at it at http://www.diploma-support.org/ - I created the "My Support" section and the consortium select system.

We're already off and running on development for the next major release in six weeks.

You'd think with that off my plate the stress levels would be going down - but no.

Obviously we're gearing up for the Monsters shoot tomorrow and Sunday. We lost all our schoolroom extras on Wednesday! And several of the Daughter's production team suddenly found they have things they're doing.

These things are sent to try us.

The Boy got back from Pinewood Studios yesterday and we found out that he and his team had made it through the first two rounds of the new Bamzooki - which means he is in the semi-finals and has to go back for filming on Saturday (tomorrow!).

But the BBC lost one of their chaperones to family problems, and had no one available to bring the kids. So the Teacher has to do it, and they're travelling down again tonight because the day starts too early to travel in the morning. (And what would the Beeb have done if it had been impossible for anyone to bring these semi-finalists?)

On the positive side the Boy was also inteviewed for Blue Peter with his team.

It's all go...

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What's on the turntable? "Summit" by Vangelis from "China" (courtesy of Spotify)

This week...

... I have mostly been devising stories.

Takes about an hour to work through a character and, with the help of the 36 dramatic situations, devise (hopefully) interesting and unusual story plotlines for the Traitor project. Only one more to do for the end of the month deadline.

Shooting for Monsters this weekend. Eeek.

I've booked the accommodation for the Screenwriters festival for self and daughter.

Met with collaborator on the Clones project, mostly happy with the skeletal treatment, just a few modifications required and I'll get that knocked out next week, I think.

Then I can start to think about re-writing Tec.

The Boy went off down south this morning and, as I write, he'll be in the Bamzooki studio, according to the schedule. He's filming this afternoon and tomorrow morning then back in the afternoon. Depending on the outcome he may, or may not, be back there again soon.

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What's on the turntable? "Human behaviour" by Bjork from "Debut"

Thumbs up

The trouble with stress is that, due to one thing and another, one tends to make mistakes and have accidents. It's the how things are.

And I am in pain.

Last Wednesday I had an argument with our dog. I'm not blaming him, he was confused and upset, and I made the mistake of putting my right hand near a mouthful of a canine's canines.

As a writer I'm always on the look-out for new experiences - for example, exactly how painful is it to have one's hand (and thumb mostly) chewed by a dog?

And now I know the answer. I managed to hold it together while we got the poor puppy sorted out and under control so he didn't disgrace himself again. However I was dripping blood all over the carpet for a while. Then this poor old body of mine went into shock which was quite interesting. The Teacher is a dab hand with the first aid (fully trained and regularly re-certified) so she patched me up.

The thumb came off worst with a 2cm gash crosswise just below the last joint - this has been very inconvenient as I lost the advantage of an opposable digit for a couple of days. It's getting better now but occasional I bend the joint too much and that is quite painful so I end up uttering an "ow" which generally surprises the people around me.

I probably should have had stitches but the prospect of hours in A&E (as a non-urgent case) was not my idea of a good night out. I'll have an interesting scar.

I have finally got around to moving my computer and my nice chair (which I bought when I was working in Reading) to the office so that I can work without interruption. And I need to because I'm falling behind.

Yesterday we auditioned the kids for the Monsters trailer, we needed two girls for important roles, one for a less important role (but a few lines of dialogue), and one boy for three words. The casting call specified 16 or over but we were, of course, deluged with 15 year olds wanting to audition. We couldn't take them, because then we'd have to mess about with licences and that's just horrible.

Did I mention we have a new producer? Unfortunately Kate decided she couldn't do the project justice, but suggested Tiffany who has real TV producer experience, and she's great. We're also having a change of DoP, because the shoot date has been decided (the only weekend all the actors are available) and the current one couldn't do that weekend. We're shooting on the 19th and 20th of this month.

Only two weeks.

And there's so much to do ... and I really don't have to do much, which is hard.

In other news...

The Teacher is now the "Assistant Headteacher" but I'll still call her the Teacher in the blog because it's shorter. The Boy has the dates for going down to shoot Bamzooki for CBBC. No new news for the Daughter as yet, but she's working hard as Production Designer for the Monsters shoot.

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What's on the turntable? "Overture" by Bjork from "Vespertine Live" (courtesy of Spotify)

Square eyes

I've been watching TV. A lot of TV. In the last week about 40 hours of the series with the characters I'm supposed to be pitching stories for. I could only fit it in by watching at 1.4X.

The Teacher was not impressed. When I told her I'd finished she made some comment about getting her husband back - perhaps that wasn't a good moment to mention there was still another season to go. It should arrive tomorrow or Wednesday.

Still, the show was reasonable, though I think I would have gone insane with the tedium of 1970s pacing if I'd had to continue watching at normal speed. Honestly, the pacing seemed so right at 1.4X, occasionally I had to check I wasn't on normal.

I'm beginning to get some stirrings of ideas for the pitches, which is good.

In other news

The Daughter has been offered representation by the agency that contacted her through Spotlight - subject to meeting up this week. It's a London-based agency but about 50% of their clients are from the Manchester area. I would be suspicious (no, I am suspicious) but looks like a reasonable company, not too big, their clients seem to be working quite regularly - a good sign - and no mention of any fees so far (as there certainly shouldn't be).

Only a couple of weeks before the Boy heads down to London to film the CBBC Bamzooki show - exciting.

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What's on the turntable? "School" by Supertramp from "Crime of the Century"

In the spotlight

I've been doing some character work on Tec along with planning crimes and clues as I think somebody mentioned in their blog recently (I can't find the reference), it's not the easiest thing in the world.

But no actual writing yesterday - it was the Boy's 12th birthday so we had birthday things to do.

Plus the Daughter got her A Level results - A in English, B in Biology and C in Chemistry - which is enough to get into Nottingham for the course she wants, after her year out. Meanwhile she got a call from Spotlight because an agency have got in touch, so she'll be sending them her CV today.

All in all, a good day.

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What's on the turntable? "Every day" by Steve Hackett from "Spectral Mornings" (courtesy of Spotify.com)