Someone's looking at me

In fact more people are looking at me than have looked at me before, and I have no idea who they are.

It's not even paranoia, it's just a fact.

I have a profile on the Shooting People website, and it tracks how many people have looked at the profile in the last week. I usually average 30 per week (though I did go through a period of 70/week).

But now it's up to 103. Trouble is there's no way of knowing where they are from. Though admittedly I do actually have some clue: I'm on the Circalit Gold List and also the Industrial Scripts "this-was-a-good-script" list.

So I'm guessing that's the reason. Which means Important People are looking at me.

Which is nice.

Edit (now 104): And that may need further explanation. Both those lists are only viewable by agents, producers and such like in the industry. It's a form of pre-screening so they can take a gander at the work of unproduced writers that has already been assessed as being "quite good, actually", thus not having to worry about working their way through a zillion tons of slush pile to find the pretty things.

I suppose you really want to know how I got on them: Well for Circalit I was recommended by someone already in the industry, and for Industrial Scripts I sent them a damned good script.

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What's on the turntable? "So Deep Within You" by "The Moody Blues" from "Threshold of a Dream"

You're going to think I'm just rambling but...

...I have a plan, and it's cunning.

Six days to the meeting with the agent.

Bring ideas they said. "What else you got?" I have ideas, quite a few. (And twelve original ideas for Hustle plots.) How about two kids series from the 70s that could be "re-imagined" for Saturday evening. A naughty $200m blockbuster book adaptation without permission (my excuse? Kate Leys told me to just write it - and, to be honest, I had to get it out of my head). And some original stuff.

Bit like the perennial question that established writers get: "Where do you get your ideas from?" The correct answer is, of course, everywhere.

I like to use ScriptFrenzy to knock out feature scripts, it's a handy deadline to write a script in a month. But this year I was thinking, hm, I've got no feature script idea, and I have a rewrite on Winter to do. And we're halfway through March. (Mind you, the last two years I've done the scripts in two weeks rather than the permitted four.) So maybe I'll skip it this year.

Timeline is a fairly poo movie that was on TV this evening. I read the book first, that was a bit poo too, and read like a movie treatment, which I guess it was. It should have been a better movie, but it wasn't.

But that's not the point.

I was watching the end of it (nothing would make me watch all of it again - well, nothing except money, or love, or cake. Especially cake.) and a scientific question formed in my mind. Something about the technology being used for the time travel. And this scientific question begat another question (also in my mind). And the second question begat a "what if"* ... and suddenly I had a plot for a feature**.

So I'll need to knock that into some sort of structural shape before April 1st, and knock the whole thing out in a couple of weeks because that's how I roll. (Unlike some I don't roll by turning over and over - that's just so last millennium.)

And that's another idea I can present to the agent.

Easy as falling off a log. (And, as someone who has fallen off a log or two in his long log-standing career, I can confirm that it really is that easy. And often as painful.)

Right. That's enough garbage for one evening. Night-night.

* In my mind.

** Guess where - though I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget.

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What's on the turntable? "In the Gallery" by Dire Straits from "Dire Straits"

The Quality of Dirty Laundry

Hop over to the BBC iPlayer here and listen to the wondrous Alan Bennett introducing his Talking Heads monologues.

More than an introduction, he discusses the process of writing them, how monologues differ from playwriting, something about creating characters - and writers finding themselves with dirty underwear in their suitcases.

Quality stuff - and then you can listen to the Talking Heads themselves and marvel at how he generates scenes with conflict with just a single voice.

We are not worthy.

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What's on the turntable? "Deckard & Roy's Duel" by Vangelis from "Bladerunner Trilogy" Disc 2

You deserve an update

It's been a fairly pressured few weeks - the day job, my contract at that time, was in a very bad location for travel, had an appalling work schedule in relation to my travel, and was improperly specced which meant I ended up working all hours to finish it. Even though I wasn't getting paid for those additional hours.

Harrumph.

Just as well it was a short contract. My new contract is in a better location for travel, has a better work schedule and while my time will be filled getting the job done I will only have to work during work time.

Which is much better.

Ooh, while I'm here let me just say the commentary track on J.J.Abrams "Star Trek" is excellent, we watched it again last night and I loved it again. So I thought I'd listen to the commentary while ironing (I do 99% of the ironing) and it was definitely worth it.

On the writing front

Once I finished that contract, I got back into my rewrite of Running which is going pretty well. Had a few sticky moments but I realised that with all the changes I'd been making - as a result of this - there was one further technique I needed to apply in order to smooth out the story and ensure the whole thing flowed logically.

I needed to plan it backwards, this is another Jeff Kitchen technique and it goes like this:

Your story needs to have a logical flow. Each element of the story must be a logical progression from the previous element. You can achieve that by writing the story backwards: Goldilocks jumps out the window and runs away; Because she is scared by the Three Bears; Because she's woken up suddenly by the Three Bears; Because she ate all of Little Bear's porridge; Because she broke into their house while they were away.

Like that. You start with your ending and work back to the beginning. If you can't, you have a problem with your story: it's not logical.

So I did that with Running and smoothed out the plot and now, as I write it, I'm marking off each because.

Good news ... or not?

Back here I was a naughty tease, but I will now reveal that a good scriptwriting agency (as opposed to a web developer agency, which I also use) has read several of my scripts and concluded that they would like to have a meeting. I have tried not to get too excited as there is many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.

Hopefully I'll be able to arrange this in the next few weeks. It is quite stressful being so close, and it being so likely that nothing will come of it.

Importantly they put in writing that they consider that I can write.

Which is nice.*

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What's on the turntable? "Aristillus" by Camel from "Moonmadness"


*No irony intended - we need all the affirmation we can get.

The Undeserving

No one deserves success.

I'm not saying that because I'm upset, or received a rejection, or been pipped at the post by some other writer. (I love it when others gain success - I used to watch Blind Date, not for the angry break-ups or hate-filled diatribes, but for those precious and rare times when people liked each other.)

"I deserve it" is for those X-Idol-Got-No-Talent no-hopers.

The harder you work the luckier you get.

So why are you wasting time reading this?

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What's on the turntable? "Bouncing Metal" by Laurent Garnier from "Shot in the Dark"