BBC CALLING

Today I'm off up to London for the annual BBC TV WRITERS' FESTIVAL organised by the BBC Writersroom. The line up this year is as always breathtaking and includes festival regular and multi-award winning Jed Mercurio and the legend that is Steven Moffat. I can't wait!

The BBC Writersroom is a great resource one often overlooked by writers. They have offered some great opportunities of late including chances of paid training with the Doctor Who script department, the Holby City, Casualty, Eastenders and Doctors shadow schemes, their drama and comedy windows and all the fantastic opportunities they offer on their webpage. I can never understand it when writers moan that the BBC ignore new writers and it's just the same old names that pop up on the credits week in week out. This isn't true.

Let's face facts when you start out as a writer you hope your work will be snatched up or you get work on existing TV shows and it can often be frustrating when it doesn't. The bottom line is, shows are looking for great writers whose work is not only at a certain level but who are also willing to collaborate and learn. Because of the tight production deadlines, producers don't have time to hand-hold inexperienced writers the work needs to be completed quickly and reliably. The reason most new writers don't get their work picked up or get work on existing shows is that their work isn't up to scratch and producers aren't confident that the writer won't struggle.

The best advice I can give is to get your head down, work hard at your writing, always seek to improve it and your screenwriting knowledge and make use of all the opportunities available to you. This way you stand the best possible chance of being picked up for a show or if you're fortunate, get a show greenlit.

So keep the BBC Writersroom open on your desktop and remember to check in every day. You don't want to miss out after all.

I'll report back on the festival next week.

Happy writing!