The story so far...

Back here I outlined what I felt my goals were for this year.

1. Get a writing commission.
2. Complete my current works in progress

The WIPs then were: Air, Unit X, Une Nuit a Paris, and Winter.

So how's it gone?

No commissions, I have the collaboration offered to me specifically because the Producer liked my style. I have the other potential commission still waiting.

Air was completed to a good result.

Unit X was completed to a poor result, but I know what's wrong with it.

However some time later I re-evaluated my projects on the basis of how they could forward my career, though I can't find the post. This threw Une Nuit a Paris out of the running, as was Unit X, both need too much work. But I did finish the first draft of Unit X.

Winter was a potential commission from the BBC but wasn't accepted. It got canned by me because it's far too complicated to write as a spec, it could never even work as a spec for reasons I won't go into.

Okay, I will go into it: Imagine you had to write a script but at every major decision point you had to branch off and write the rest of the script. But you've taken one branch, now you have another decision point, the story can go two further ways, you have write both. And so on.

That's a lot of writing for a spec.

Instead I've nearly completed Tec, I wrote Which? my fun Torchwood/Being Human crossover, and experiment in writing in other people's character's voices. Tec exists to show I can write non-SF/non-Fantasy. Oh and I wrote the feature script Running as well from scratch in April.

So what's next?

1. Work on the collaboration thing which we'll call Clones.
2. Work on a spec for an existing TV show, which is Noise.
   
3. Work on a second spec script for an existing TV show ... hm, that'll be called Wildlife.
4. And work on new drafts of Running
   
5. and of Tec - which will be my entry for the next Red Planet.
   

Might not hear much about Noise and Wildlife for a while, but you never know.

Good enough.

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What's on the turntable? It's quiet here on the train. I'm not in the Quiet Carriage, because people there always make loads of noise. Seriously.

Resumption of Normal Service

Aha! Google appear to have fixed the Blogger bug so now I can post blogs without all the Word shenanigans. Huzzah!

Had my meeting with the producer today. It seemed to go well though it wasn't quite what I thought it was - I imagined we were going for a web series, but no, it's a TV series, however it's all spec and no-pay collaboration. Turning his ideas into solid script - but I'm allowed to have my own ideas too. I shall have to think of a code word to describe this project.

However there was plenty of discussion of other projects both mine and his. I swapped my leave-behinds for his take-aways so we'll both be having a read.

Nice chap - very young* - but enthusiastic. His (and his business partner's) company have done a bunch of shorts that have done well and they even received money for one of them. (Wow.) So they're looking to take the next step.

As I've pretty much finished Tec I'll probably re-schedule things and see how it all comes out.

As my day job affects my writing I shall also mention that I have an interview for a job in Sheffield. Which means two things if I get it (the animal entrails bode well): (a) I'll be living at home; (b) commute time goes up again.

Both of these are damaging to my writing time as my wife pointed out - much as I would love to be at home more. On the other hand I'd be earning considerably more in the penny department, which we could really do with.

On balance Sheffield would be good. I'll need to buy a cute little eee pc to write on - my laptop is a heavy beast - and be much stricter with myself. But that can't be a bad thing.

Next blog will be a look back at how I'm doing on the year's writing goals and what the next six months may bring.

* In comparison to me.

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What's on the turntable? "Awakening" by Gordon Giltrap from "Visionary" (I'm in Giltrap mode again - just can't stop listening to it.)

Pitch in

So whenever I try to create a blog in Blogger itself I get a bX-xovb7t error (this is happening to a large chunk of people and has been going on for at least 5 days so far). But it turns out that I can edit existing blogs. I sorted out Word so that I could post a blog from there but I hate it, it's just so awkward and ugly.

My solution is to create and post the initial blog then come back to Blogger to actually write the thing.

It's not perfect but it works.

I've had a bit of a problematic week, the Teacher was ill at the weekend - even though we still had to head down to my sister's 40th birthday bash, which went okay. But due to the illness my sleep can be better described as a lack of it.

So the heat coupled with lack of sleep has been the worst thing. The office has been reasonably cool (though there's no air-con) but as previously mentioned the room I have in the B+B is in the roof and south-facing. It bakes. So for three evenings I have done virtually nothing.

Though I have managed to scribble out a few more pages of Tec which is good.

This Saturday I have the meeting with the Producer in Manchester. So this evening I must sort out all my bits and pieces that I'll be taking along, all the pitches and scripts that he's asked for. Of course it's not a formal "stand there and pitch" for which I am grateful, but I still need to know my stuff so I can hit him with the throughlines with some confidence.

As we're six months through the year various bloggers have done a "how we are doing on the targets?" posting. I shall do this also in the next exciting instalment.

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What's on the turntable? "Lucifer's Cage" by Gordon Giltrap from "Visionary" (This is the first time I've had my music on all week - feel like things are getting back to normal.)

Searchamafaction #4

One of the nice things about Google Analytics is that it keeps all your information and you can examine your sites stats over whatever period you choose. I thought I'd see how I've been doing over the last year, on a monthly basis, and I find that the visits to the site had been increasing steadily up to a little over 1000 per month in January then held steady for two further months and then went into a slight decline … but climbed again through May, with June being the highest ever.

I have to report that my visits are now 80% from other sites and a mere 7.5% from search engines. I find that a little upsetting but it's a (mainly) Google thing. Google tracks when you go to a site from one of its searches – and if you come back almost immediately. If you do then it assumes the site does not fill the search requirements as much as it thought it did and so you get downgraded for that type of search. I have a pathetic 83% bounce rate – people leaving without going to another page, although I suspect that has something to do with the way the blogs are organised.

So to business, what are the best search terms for the last two months? I didn't do a Searchamafaction last month.

1. Merlin (16)

2. Imagination cubed (15)

2. My body is my tool (15)

4. Progress bar (8)

5. Inktip (7)

6. CBBC competition (3)

6. Jeff Kitchen (3)

8. Audition Bristol Old Vic 2

9. Bamzooki 2

9. Celtx 2

With oddest search term being: casanova "fake death".

Until the next time.

Testing 1-2-3

I can't use Blogger to post currently, it just gives me an error and has been since Sunday. There is no estimate on how long that will take to fix – I get an error when I try to report the error.

However I am trying this alternative, posting via Word. Looks like it works.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.