update

Sorry, been neglecting the old blog recently.

Monday I’m going job hunting. For those of you that haven’t been here from the start, I was made redundant 2 years ago, and I‘ve been writing full time ever since and living off the pay off. But now that’s starting to run out, and I‘ve got to look for a proper job. Scary.

Hopefully longer term I can get some work script reading. I’m back in The Smoke on Tuesday for the final part of the Script Factory Script Reading course. The first part was excellent, and I’ll blog a bit about what I’ve learned later in the week. I’m actually quite enjoying reading and analysing at the moment (I know, I know it won’t last!) - Still keeping up the strict script a day regime - I’ve joined Trigger St, done a few reviews for them, as well as power of threes, my SF homework (I‘m paying people to give me homework!), and reading produced screenplays (Including a couple of Dennis Potter plays, a couple of Frasier’s, Chinatown, Dirty Pretty Things, Sense and Sensibility, and Natural Born Killers.)

Still toiling away at the Digital Shorts proposals. Quite happy with the scripts at the moment, so working at the proposals - I’ve even got the very wonderful and talented Paul C Watts to do some visual materials to support it. I’m stuck on what to do next though. I’ve decided to go for Metalab, thanks to The Dragon L… sorry Lucy ;) but I’m a bit stuck on what to send them.

Thing is, I’ve got quite a few Specs at various stages of development, and dozens of ideas, but none of them are THE ONE - the killer spec that‘ll get me noticed. I’ve written a couple of half decent short scripts, but the only feature script that’s any good (and more importantly, that I‘ve managed to keep the passion for) is a blockbuster comic fantasy epic about Dragons and Magic and True Love and other wildly improbable things. It needs (at least) another rewrite, so I’m going to keep working on that.

As I blogged before, I’m looking now for an idea that’s at bit more realisable - something low budget but commercial - a 28 Days Later, a Reservoir Dogs, a London to Brighton, a Scenes of a Sexual Nature, or a Hard Candy, exactly what Metalab are looking for. So just 3 weeks to think of that then!

And I really need to focus on writing that Spec - I’ve been a bit of what Adrian Mead calls an amoeba. Focusing on particular deadlines for Make your Mark, or The BSSC, or Digital Shorts - which is all good, but I need to spend the winter writing a proper feature Spec. And working for a living!