Friday, November 30, 2007

Writing For Malkovich

Something interesting that might catch your fancy. John Malkovich is running a little competition which you can find here.

And here's the link to my website where I go into more detail about it. It's definitely worth a look, mainly because it's free and won't take up a lot of your time.

Update: Danny Stack also mentions it on his site too.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

No Unsolicited Material Welcome

I've got scripts to send out. Scripts which have been waiting for the latest versions of the Writers Handbook and Writer & Artist's Yearbook to be released. Bought them, started going through the production company listings, found one sentence just kept jumping out at me.

"No unsolicited material welcome."

You fucking what??? Why has everyone shut their doors all of a sudden?

Personally I blame the seemingly thousands of BA and MA screenwriting courses popping up all over the place. When I started my BA at Bournemouth it was one of only two in the country, now every university or sixth form college seems to have one on their curriculum. Good news you might think, bad news I say. For two reasons.

Firstly it's creating a huge amount of competition out there for new writers the majority of whom are going to end up being disappointed. People like myself who were starting to get noticed and were beginning to think they were getting somewhere, are now finding themselves being edged out again. The quality of the slush piles are growing and you are now having to write gold plated scripts just to get in through the door.

Secondly, you would think with all these emerging new writers, enthusiastically clutching their MA's as they march into producer's offices, that more of their work should be finding its way onto our screens? Not the case as far as I can see. One or two might make it, write the odd episode of some soap or other before they slip off the radar. It just seems to be the same old writers all the time.

Last year I found out one of my fellow graduates was working as a story liner for Hollyoaks. "Great," I thought, "I'll be able to get a trail script no problems." I got turned down flat! Maybe it was because I tried to knob her when I was drunk at uni (her and the other 6000 or so women there at the time), or maybe at 38 I'm way too old to be writing about the sex lives of glamorous teenagers?

So I'm going to solicit myself, ring the buggers up and MAKE them read my scripts.
"Have you got an agent?"
"No I fucking haven't... you're still going to read my script though... right? Hello? Hello? Fuck it!!!!"

Monday, November 19, 2007

Here's Dommy!

After my four week time out I'm back covered in baby puke and dribble, ready to get down to some serious writing...HELL YEAH!!!!!!

Did you miss me?

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Red Planet

Nearly 3/4 the way through my month off and I'm waiting with bated breath to find out if I've made it through to the next round of the Red Planet Prize.

Has anyone else heard anything, been contacted, etc?

Do tell?