80,370 words.
41 chapters with eccentric titles, including “Mama Told Me Not To Come”, “Dial ‘M’” and “Down Corridors Through Automatic Doors”.
956 instances of my protagonist’s name. 580 instances of his partner’s name.
72 “killer”s and 25 “victim”s.
40 “murder”s and 15 “gun”s.
52 “cop”s and 27 “detective”s.
451 “ifs”, 2,538 “and”s and 547 “but”s.
26 “fuck”s and 16 “shit”s.
30 days of heartache and toil and blood sweated.
100% worth it.
NaNoWriMo progresses a-pace – just passed 66,666 words with an adrenaline-fuelled chase sequence through Cardiff back streets. My heart’s pounding just thinking about it.
Today, I was mired in an audit project for the day job and I came across a fantastic reference guide. I realise that to most people this sounds dull as ditchwater, but it’s actually useful. And, I discovered, pretty entertaining.
I was scrolling through looking for a specific reference when I spotted this e-mail citation:
HornblowerH. (h.hornblower@HMS.Renown.uk) Treaty of Luneville. Email to: Pellew C.(c.pellew@HMS.Justinian.uk) 16 Sep 2005.
Wait, what?
And then there’s these presentations:
Yoda M. Code of Ethics for the Jedi: are they outdated? Presented at the Annual Jedi Conference. Coruscant, 2005.
Solo H. Light speed and prevailing problems. Presented at the School of Aeronautics. London. 2003. http://starwars.org.uk (accessed 20 May 2005).
So, for BMJ-style Vancouver referencing and a bit of a nerdy giggle, I recommend a trip to Coruscant, Southampton.
I’ve done well this week.
I’m on 48K of my 80K target for NaNoWriMo, which puts me bang on track. I caught up while working night shifts, despite the upheaval of being abruptly pulled off nights yesterday and thrust back into a day shift today. The neurones don’t fire too good on four hours sleep mid-afternoon.
I’ve also heard back from one of my Speed Pitching contacts from LSF, so I know my script has safely reached the hands of a reputable production company. This gives me butterflies, but We’ll See.
So, tonight, I’m going to kick back and watch Children in Need with an extortionate pizza. Sure, I could eek out another two thousand words of novel, but I have the whole weekend to write and I’ve earned my pizza and my Doctor Who trailer.
When you work a day job, it’s easy to feel pressured to spend all your free time writing. I firmly believe you should write every day, or you should think about your writing and your future writing every day (proper thinking now, not that morning shower contemplation of ‘hmm, what if my hero fought a giant space duster?’).
It is, however, equally important to recharge. Take the evening off. Hell, if you’ve been especially awesome lately and the next deadlines are weeks away, take the whole damn weekend. You can’t write if you’re too tired to hold a pen. You also can’t write if you’re not living life.
This is my anti-guilt letter to myself when I feel bad for taking time out. Let it be yours as well, good writery folk, because we’re nervous types and we need encouragement to let loose now and then.
And who knows? Your relaxed brain may be the perfect nurturing place for that Next Big Thing idea that happens along while you’re doing that living.
I originally started this blog at the end of 2009, when I wanted to write 100,000 words of my Apocalypse novel in two months, Nano-style.
That novel’s word count currently stands at 18,041. That’s because someone pointed out to me that the concept was exactly like ‘Good Omens’. Disheartened, I shelved that novel and moved on to screenplays.
However, I’m still passionate about the novel, and when I got the idea for an agoraphobic, techno-whizz detective and a streetwise ex-con fighting crime, how could I say no?
And, oh look, it’s November. And hey, I’ve won Nano twice before – 2006 (Vivid Images – never edited) and 2007 (Deus Ex Machina – partially edited, one of my favourite stories). So, I think to myself, I can do this 50k thing. Why not make it challenging?
80,000 words. That’ll be a walk in the park.
Yeesh.
I’m only 5k behind schedule, giving me, at this moment, 21,859 words. Which, for those of you who can’t count, is 3,000 words more than that Apocalypse novel.
Meanwhile, it seems every competition under the sun is calling my name. Immersive Writing Lab, Jesting Around, Red Planet Prize, The Sitcom Mission…
I think I need to lie down.
It’s been one week since I journeyed from deepest, darkest Wales to attend the London Screenwriters Festival. I was nervous, I was anxious – what if I forget my loglines? What if I meet proper writers and clam up? What if nobody likes me?
Thankfully, while I did ramble at one poor producer, I did meet proper writers without mishap (they had been drinking) and some people seemed to like me okay, or well enough to chuck their business cards at me.
So, why the grandiose title, London and Screenwriters? Am I being absurd to call LSF vital to the hearbeat of the city and the screenwriting community? No, and I’ll tell you why.
I can honestly say LSF consisted of the three most valuable and positive days of my writing life. I gained practical, insightful advice from writers, producers, agents and readers – from those who attended as speakers and from those who were attendees. I honed my pitch in the sunshine chatting to a group of writers at lunch. While practising in the mirror was a good plan, it was even better to talk to people other than my reflected self.
I participated in Speed Pitching, where I threw down my steampunk assassins feature and my sci fi sit com to three producer types. Despite the aforementioned rambling, I secured two script requests and one man’s useful advice on how to develop my project further. I also learned that pitching is pretty much talking – and Heaven knows I can do that!
I also took advantage of Euroscript’s advice session to talk about my Asylum pilot. We went through my two-page treatment, working out how to reflect a three series plan in a spec script and what plot threads were necessary to set up the series. Amazing experience – and all for the ticket price.
That was all on Friday.
It just got better from there, really. I can’t begin to describe the surprises I had as I learned about my craft and my place in the screenwriting world. If you’re serious about being a screenwriter, you need to be at LSF.
And what about London? Well, guess what, we can make films. We can make damn good films, if that little Oscar hoarder “The King’s Speech” is anything to go by. Film is a big industry and one in which we should take advantage. We have hungry screenwriters, we have a rich oral tradition, we have gorgeous natural sets from mid-Wales to Scottish Highlands to inner city Manchester. London needs the film industry and LSF is just one way we can demonstrate that we’re here and ready to take on the challenge.
Now that I’ve rambled out my manifesto, I will share my top tips gleaned from the sessions I attended at LSF:
1. “If you haven’t written a screenplay, you’re not a writer you’re a fantasist” – Vadim Jean
2. “Write what you know – about the human condition” – Danny Stack
3. “In the end, it’s as basic as ‘do I want to know what happens next? Am I excited?’” – Vadim Jean
4. “If you don’t have that thing in you that makes you love the cinema, stop now” – Martin Gooch
5. “Great endings are inevitable and shouldn’t be predictable while you’re on the journey getting there” – Paul Ashton
6. “Yesterday’s no may be tomorrow’s yes” – Lucas Webb
7. “The script must be able to stand on its own two feet and be sensational” – Lucas Webb
8. “What you can’t fix is someone who doesn’t write well” – Julian Friedmann
9. “If I’m not gripped and impressed within the first two pages, I won’t read anymore” – Julian Friedmann
10. “If I get a feature script that’s 90 pages, I’m impressed. If it’s over 120 pages, I won’t read it” – Julian Friedmann
11. “If you’re blocked, going and writing in someone else’s house is the best thing” – Richard Tierney
12. “People don’t live their lives in satisfactory three-act structures” – Christian Routh re: Biopics
13. “The fear of the the unknown is what drives horror” – Christian Routh
14. “Bring them back to ‘what are the problems?’. Don’t just take their solutions” – Emma Frost re: notes
15. “I always explore a note fully before I turn around to somebody and say ‘I think you’re wrong’” – John Griffin
16. “You’ve got to go down all your blind alleyways and try everything, otherwise you won’t know if you chose the right route” – John Griffin
17. “Telling your story out loud to something is an incredibly valid exercise” – Olivia Hetreed
18. “Drama is about character fighting their way for something” – Kate Leys
19. “Why should I pay attention if you’re not being attentive to what you’re telling me?” – Olivia Hetreed
20. “I’ve found something that I’m passionate about and that I would die for and is commercial!” – Rob Thorogood
21. “The difference between a good writer and a great writer is how to take notes” – Tony Jordan via Rob Thorogood
22. “Survival is the only success you can hope for in series television” – Rob Thorogood
23. “You should never, ever get put off by rejection” – Roland Moore
24. “If you’re a writer, it’s an illness you’ve lived with all your life” – Rob Thorogood
25. “An idea is an idea is an idea – it can be any kind of thing” – Tony Lee re: picking a medium
