THE YEAR THAT WAS AND THE YEAR THAT WILL BE

2016 was a roller coaster of a year. There were ups and downs, twists and turns and at a couple of points I felt so sick I wanted to get off. I didn't though, I stayed on board until the bitter end. I'm glad I did, because late November early December everything flipped upside down.

But before I get to that, let me tell you more about my 2016.

THE LOWS - Every writer experiences them, even the well known and well paid ones. That brilliant idea you love gets rejected by everyone you send it to even though they love it, the promise of work never materialises and you constantly find yourself butting your head against dead ends.

I had a couple of really big slumps during the year and found myself questioning whether I should quit and go and find something more stable to do instead. I didn't of course, I never do, it's just not in may nature to walk away when things get tough. Successful writers are resilient buggers and besides, the highs would be nothing without the lows. So after each slump I sulked for a couple of hours, took a week off to do wonderful non writing related stuff and then went back to things refreshed, with a renewed optimism and enthusiasm.

Disappointment is inevitable, so if you want to be successful make sure you brush it aside as quickly as you can and carry on. You just never know what's waiting around the corner for you.


THE HIGHS - They fell in to three categories; 'Well That Was Nice', 'Flippin' 'Eck That's Awesome' and 'Mind Blowingly Epic'!

Here are just a few of the 'Well That Was Nice' and 'Flippin' 'Eck That's Awesome' highs that happened over 2016 - I finally found the time to finish two spec features I'd been tinkering with on and off for a couple of years. I made it into the quarter-finals of several screenwriting competitions, including with the two new features and I even made the semi-finals of one competition. A feature I wrote with one of my writing partners in just twelve days made the quarter-finals of every competition we entered it into. I had several general meetings and I was invited to the BBC TV Drama Writers' Festival, went to LSWF 2016. Over the year I was lucky to meet many wonderful directors, producers, script editors and of course fellow writers

It was the 'Mind Blowingly Epics' that really rocked my world though - The feature written in twelve days made it down to the final ten of the FINAL DRAFT BIG BREAK SCREENWRITING COMPETITION. I think if we had entered it in another category it could well have gone further. My spec TV drama pilot WONDERLAND made it through to the final ten of Idris Elba's Green Door, Green Light Initiative. It didn't make the final three and it didn't matter, just knowing Idris himself was reading my screenplay was enough. I'm on his radar now! But best of all something truly amazing and unexpected happened, a real boost to my career. It's really fantastic when all your hard work is recognised and rewarded. So what is this mind blowingly epic thing..?

Well... all I'm going to say is things are looking up on the TV front.

So for 2017 I already have two big meetings set for January and I'm looking forward to telling you all about them and what I get up to for the rest of 2017, this time next year.

Happy New Writing Year!