:)

"2009 BlueCat Screenplay Competition Semi-Finalists

We are very happy to announce our 2009 BlueCat Semi-Finalists.
This list represents approximately the top 1 percent of over 3200 submissions received this year.

Congratulations to this very select and talented group of writers. What incredible work we received from all entrants this year.

Finalists will be posted on July 23rd.

Warmly,
Gordy and Heather"

Writing Full Time in Your Spare Time Pt 1

Before I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to be a fighter pilot.* Which is a round about way of saying it’s been a long time (baby) - I’ve probably wanted to be a writer since I was 11, 12, so over fifteen years (Alright, no sniggering at the back, well over 15 years.) I don’t remember when I decided this, or even why. All I remember is that, like a lot of people, I wanted to write for Doctor Who. Probably wouldn’t say no now if the Moff called.

For a long time, there was one slight flaw in this masterplan: I didn’t actually do any actual writing. Then in my last year at uni I slipped a disc, and I was on the sick for a year after I left. I was bored, poor and immobile, so I started to write. I had an op, the DSS said I was fit for work (bastards!) so I got a summer job as a live in pot scrubber in an activity centre.

That was, er, an experience, ** so I wrote a script about it. It was my first vaguely - and I mean vaguely - coherent script. Then the DSS said I had to get a job (fascists!) So for the next 10 years I worked full time (In Littlewoods, then Index.)

I sort of vaguely planned to start writing in my holidays. I even occasionally dug out some of the scripts I’d written and thought hey, these are pretty good. (I was wrong.) I thought about writing, about being a writer, I even imagined I was a writer, but I never got round to any actual serious writing.

Then in 2005, I got made redundant. I was Management by then, I ’d been there ages, and I’d just got a raise, so I got a pretty decent redundancy settlement. Bottom line was, if I was careful with the money, I could get away with not working for 2 years. Good times, as the young people say.

This was my big opportunity. If I didn’t write now, then I was never going to. So I started to write. I built it up until I was regularly writing 45-50 hours a week. More if I had a deadline. People were impressed when I told them this, but I figured if I was capable of working silly hours for a company that would, frankly, sell me off for body parts if they could get away with, it then I could do it for myself.

Eventually, the bank decided that I didn’t have any money left (of course, we all know about there accounting practices now.) So I had to *shockhorror* get a job in the real world. I’d have to write, like most of us spec monkeys in my spare time.

So how’s that working out? Well I’ve already gone on too long, and as I worked till 4 AM last night I’m gonna do a little bit of proper writing then go for a nap. Part 2 to follow soon. Soon-ish.
Later

*I also wanted to design the planes - I used to do elaborate drawings of made up planes with cool names like the Phantom and Lightning. These may be the names of actual planes, I’m a bit out of touch with the whole fighter plane scene. I used to have loads of model aeroplanes suspended from the ceiling (I know you‘re not supposed to, but I was a kid, sue me.) I used to spend hours making them with my Dad.
Then one day, I decided I was too old for model aeroplanes. So, rather than pack them up and put them in the loft, I chucked them out the window, one by one, to see them smash. For some reason, the memory of this really upsets me. It almost feels like my teenage self was smashing up little me’s toys, and makes me want to go back and give the skinny (!) little bastard a clip round the ear. (And while I’m at it, tell him to stop sulking and learn how to talk to girls.) Sorry, wandered a bit off topic there.
** don’t ask okay? Just don’t

Yet more competition news!

I've reached the Quarter Finals of the Page International Screenplay awards, which is the top 10% (or so they claim - it's actually one of 553 scripts remaining out 4394 submitted, which is 12.6% if you want to be pedantic.)

2009 Screenwriters' Festival - Preliminary schedule

Scratching your head, wondering roughly what will be going on at SWF'09? Well wonder no more: The Preliminary schedule is here!

More competition news

Second Round! Page International Screenplay Competition! (Top 25%!!) Too tired proper sentences to write!

Night Night.

Why don't you...?

I’ve been watching Mad Men Season 1 on DVD, and it inspired me to post. Not about the intelligence and subtly of the scripts*; nor the depth and perception of the characterisation, or the sheer quality of the acting; not even the breathtaking beauty of the design and photography. No, what I wanted, need to say was about… the blurb on the sleeve.

Specifically this quote, from Metro: “AS NEAR TO GENIUS AS TV GETS”

As near to genius as TV gets. As near to genius as the dumb, humble, upstart medium that has given us The Wire, The Sopranos, Shameless, I Claudius, Buffy, The Singing Detective, Fawlty Towers, Cracker, Dexter, Doctor Who, Band of Brothers, Edge of Darkness, Boys from The Blackstuff, Blackadder, The Simpsons, Hustle, The West Wing, Twin Peaks, The Twlight Zone, Generation Kill and The Clangers gets?**

Paxman recently called the public a "bunch of barbarians" because watching TV is our favourite leisure activity, which David Mitchell brilliantly dealt with here evoking the memory of Why Don’t You (Just Switch Off Your TV And Do Something Less Boring Instead?) There’s an ad that crop up occasionally on the BBC encouraging people to read that perfectly sums up this snobbery. It shows celebs reading aloud - not just poetry and literature, but trashy romances and and celeb gossip magazines. The message from Auntie to the proles is clear: TV bad. Reading good. In other words, you’re better off reading Mills and Boon than watching, say, The Wire or the Beeb’s searing Iraq drama Occupation

Of course there’s a lot of crap on the telly. But guess what? 90% of everything is crap (It’s called Sturgeon's law) You could even argue that TV is the most exciting medium at the moment, certainly in America.*** Can you name a body of work in any medium as entertaining, as exciting, as innovative, as insightful as the output of subscription cable TV networks like HBO and Showtime? (The Sopranos, The Wire, Dexter, Mad Men etc.) Because if you can, I’d love to read/watch/listen to it.****

*although if I was I’d certainly include this key line from the Pilot “So we’re supposed to believe that people are all living one way but secretly thinking the exact opposite? That’s ridiculous,” spoken by repressed homosexual Salvatore Romano that prefectly captures the tension between appearence and reality that is arguably the shows dominant theme. But I'm not going to.

**and of course Blake’s 7

***British TV struggles to match it despite the occasionally Red Riding, The Devil’s Whore, the aforementioned Occupation, but doesn’t have the budgets to (and/or the will??) to do it as consistently.

****Film Animation is the only example I can think of - the mighty works of Pixar and Dreamworks.

Purrr!

Just found out I've got to the quarter finals of the Bluecat screenplay competition (along with over 600 others. It's the top 20% of 3200, but it's a start.)

Later.