INT. JASON ARNOPP'S BRAIN - DAY/NIGHT

How Big Brother Gives Us Drama Fuel

2012-01-05T18:38:00.008Z

An hour ago, I learned that Celebrity Big Brother starts tonight on Five at 9pm. This is worrying, since I'm a fan and had no idea. What chance does the casual viewer have, eh? Now that's stealth programming.

Anyway, I wanted to share a thought which I've long held about Big Brother, in terms of how it can help us dramatists. So before you unreservedly sneer at the show and perpetuate the idea that it's the sworn arch enemy of TV drama, consider this for starters:

Big Brother is jam-packed with people saying the exact opposite of what they mean.

This is gold-dust for we writers. It helps remind us that our characters should rarely speak their brains in a direct, on-the-nose fashion ("Daphne, I love you but I also feel insecure!"). It can be devastatingly effective when they occasionally do (Pat Butcher's recent heartbreaking last words in EastEnders spring to mind: "I'm scared") - but these sudden outbursts of unexpurgated truth are all the more powerful because they momentarily deactivate the filters through which most of us - and especially characters in drama - speak.

Great thing is, people inside the Big Brother goldfish bowl - whether celebrities or extroverted members of the public - can't help but crank those filters right up. The amount of mistruth in their speech is heightened - just as it is in scripts and prose.

Take this as an example: Tammy from Tamworth has been nominated for eviction, but absolutely doesn't care and in fact she can't wait to get out! To the point where, when she does get evicted, she goes so far as to shout "Yes! Thank you!" and jump for joy, just to show how incredibly fine she is with the nation booting her sorry, if shapely, ass out the door. Or she might announce she's prematurely leaving mid-week, because she's bored of the whole experience and has achieved what she came here to achieve... as opposed to simply being scared shitless of rejection. You won't get a better example of people saying the exact opposite of what they mean and how they really feel. Drama fuel, right there.

People in Big Brother are also trapped with each other for weeks, so they will generally only explode into direct conflict when either absolutely cornered or they simply can't take any more. So there's more passive aggression going on than you could shake a tweet at. There's also a whole host of bubbling, brooding tension, often conveyed solely by the look on one housemate's face when another leaves the room. Good scripts thrive on this kind of Purely Visual Information and Big Brother is shrewdly to pile in as much as possible. All this stuff may very well reflect the tension in the family you're writing a kitchen sink drama about - or your sitcom set anywhere, since the vast majority of sitcoms are all about people being trapped.

Then there's the fact that, in almost every Big Brother contestants' head, they are the star of the show. In fiction, even Scene 43a's hotel doorman should come across as a real, rounded person with hopes, fears, personality and a past - even if none of those specifics actually make the page. That doorman in your script shouldn't think of himself as a bit-part with two lines: in his head, he's the centre of the universe. Thinking this way may well help us write smaller characters who manage to transcend that ghetto of fictional people who act as if they only blip into existence when the protagonist is around.

Yes, yes, of course, I know - Big Brother is absolutely awash with ludicrous artifice. It's as fake as a unicorn's wig and shallower than an ant's paddling pool. And as much as I still love it, there's now inevitably far too much second-guessing among housemates as to how the public will perceive them. What I'm saying, is that some of that very fakery can be used to your advantage, as a writer. The tension, passive aggression and all those bare-faced lies about emotions and feelings may well fill a small tank in your brain, ready to be siphoned off later into your fiction. Reality TV can often be way more real than most give it credit for.

Oh, and one last theory, which may or may not relate to drama: in Big Brother, even though it's undoubtedly on a very subliminal level, the housemates equate eviction with death. Whenever someone gets evicted, they're in floods of tears as if they'll never see them again. It's seriously like the end. Eviction is inevitable in the Big Brother house - it picks those housemates off, one by one, like the scythe-wielding Reaper himself.

Could it really be a coincidence that Big Brother evictees ascend a staircase on their way out?

***

My Amazon-acclaimed non-fiction ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de. You can also get a Triple Pack of files (PDF, ePub, Kindle/mobi) direct from me. Full details here, you splendid individual.

What's Your 60-Second Story?

2012-01-04T12:08:00.006Z

This post contains spoilers for The Evil Dead and John Carpenter's The Thing. Albeit mainly via the medium of clay.

Hello! I've only just caught up with Lee Hardcastle's remarkable claymation videos - in particular his web series which presents 60-second versions of horror classics. I've enjoyed them on two levels: namely, being greatly entertained, and having a subsequent think about story-related matters.

If you haven't seen it already, give Lee's take on The Evil Dead a spin, then come back to me, further down the page. I'll make a cup of tea while you do so.

Great, isn't it? As I say, it's also got me thinking about the tentpoles of plot. The pillars which hold your story up - each of which topples forward to knock the next pillar over, like dominoes.

Obviously, to a certain extent, these 60 seconds are sped up for comic effect and you could argue that it does omit key information/moments. But actually, there really aren't that many. It certainly leaves out the group arriving at the remote log cabin, but if we're talking essential stuff, then the story can be enjoyed without it.

It also skips most of the third act, rejoining the story for the final splattery confrontation by the fireplace. And why does it do that? Because much of the first half of that third act is a great big run-around between Ash and his undead love, Susan. She gets possessed, they fight, she seems to die, he buries her, good lord she's alive again, he decapitates her. This stuff is tremendous fun to watch onscreen, but 'stuff' is exactly what it is: flesh and muscle in between the bones of the actual plot.

If you've got a story in your head and you're wanting to get it down somewhere, it might be a worthwhile technique to ask yourself what the 60-second version of this story would be. It might well help you boil everything down in your head to the main events. You could even write a single page of script - which roughly equates to 60 seconds onscreen - for just such a 60-second version. Picturing it frenziedly acted out with clay is optional.

If you've written a script and it's over-long, the 60-Second Story technique could also be of use. Again, write out the key moments which would fit into one single minute. These may well differ from the bullet points of your outline, but provided it does so in a good way, that's all right. The 60-Second Story technique will hopefully help you identify the flab - the stuff, the flesh - which you may regrettably have to hack out because there's just too much of it.

Lee Hardcastle's latest video, a Pingu remake of John Carpenter's 1982 classic The Thing, is not only very funny and entertaining, but perhaps even more instructive than The Evil Dead. Take a look:

Brilliant, yes? Now, then: this one's more thought-provoking than The Evil Dead because there's no dialogue at all, save the odd squawk from comedy penguins. The story's told completely visually, but even in this hyper-fast, exposition-free deliveryof the tale, you get the general idea. A dog arrives at an icy outpost and spreads itself around like a virus. The key set-pieces - the ones which move the story and the threat on - are here, intact.

1) The dog arrives.

2) The dog transformation scene introduces the threat to the crew.

3) The open-chest scene hammers home that any penguin here could be The Thing (or The Thingu).

4) The blood-test scene determines who is who.

5) The dynamite scene sees the crew seemingly destroy The Thing.

6) ... or have they?

So those are, very basically, the story's six plot pillars. Pretty much everything else in the film itself is the fleshy stuff - the way the humans react to their plight, with rising paranoia, dwindling trust and a whole load of shouting. There's also wonderful suspense, misdirection and all the rest of Carpenter's tools in this, his true masterpiece.

You've got to have the flesh on those bones - of course you do. Flesh is good. Flesh is the stuff which makes that story organic and alive - more than just a cold framework of domino-toppling causality. Besides, without it, your movie would be far closer to 60 seconds than 90 minutes. Yet these videos remind us that it's vital to know your flesh from your bones.

Once you know your pillars, you can have immense fun with the stuff which happens in between them.

***

2011: How It Was For Me, Darling

2011-12-30T19:49:00.013Z

Now, then. Having tidied and sorted my office, which had rather begun to take on a life of its own, I’m in a good position to sit down and sum up my 2011 for you. If you like. (Your continued reading of these sentences and paragraphs will be taken to signify interest in this proposition. Possibly in a court of law.)

Globally, 2011 was clearly an extraordinary year of unrest, whether natural or social. You'll be relieved to hear I won't be writing an incisive essay about these seismic worldly events: this is purely about my year in the altogether more comforting world of fiction. And on that front, 2011 was great. Sure, there was some bad stuff, but there always is - and this year, that stuff was solely confined to utterly tedious business matters which almost certainly won't interest you.

Smug pointing at London's Leicester Squar Empire cinema

STORMHOUSE

My debut feature film, Stormhouse, which I wrote and executive-produced, certainly made the most of 2011. We threw a BAFTA test-screening, combined with a cast-and-crew screening, which very much taught me the value of test-screenings. We made some really significant changes to the film, based on our audience's questions afterwards, which improved it tenfold. Director Dan Turner created a whole new edit and it was good to spend a day with him at Elstree Studios, helping to tweak and overview what we had. That's another thing I learned: removing even so much as a single frame in a horror movie's 'jump' scene can have a dramatic effect. It was also a valuable lesson in terms of how much you can cut out of a film without losing the basics you need.

The finished film played festivals around the UK and indeed world. We couldn’t have had a better world premiere, playing two nights at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. I'll be forever grateful to Edinburgh's fine organisers for approaching us, having seen a Berlin screening of Stormhouse, to ask whether they could screen the film. Oh yes, that was a good day.

Over the August Bank Holiday weekend, we played the UK's biggest and best horror festival, the Film4 FrightFest at London's Leicester Square Empire, which was a real honour too. Amazing stuff. After that, Stormhouse was screened at the Birmingham Comic Con, the Chichester International Film Festival (as part of a Best Of FrightFest bill - honour upon honour!) and finally Los Angeles' excellent Screamfest - an event which I'd attended twice before, but typically couldn't make this year.

Stormhouse is now scheduled for a Lionsgate DVD release on February 7, 2012. Very exciting - as is the trailer which Lionsgate cut together, which is definitely one of my favourite things of the year:

A UK release will also happen in 2012 - we're just waiting to hear when the distributor plans to release. And of course, it will be issued in other territories too. More news to come.

DOCTOR WHO

Wonderful 'classic DVD' mock-up of The Gemini Contagion

I had great fun in Whosville this year, getting to write for the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) three times. Firstly, for a Doctor Who Adventures comic story called Earworm (which you can read in its entirety by clicking the Comics tab at the top of this very page), also featuring TV companions Amy and Rory. I was really happy with how that one turned out and it seemed to be received well.

Next came a BBC audiobook, Doctor Who: The Gemini Contagion. Read by the excellent Meera Syal, The Gemini Contagion was a whole load of fun to write, concerning a futuristic anti-viral handwash which turns out to contain a virus (oh, good lord, the irony!) which overloads the language centres of the brain. That one also featured Amy, who's obviously great to write for.

My third Eleventh Doctor Thing this year was a piece of fiction for the BBC's Brilliant Book Of Doctor Who 2012. I had an irresistible brief from editor Clayton Hickman - fill in the blanks between TV episodes The Impossible Astronaut and Day Of The Moon! Surely you can't ask for more fun than that. I had a brilliant time, writing an intro from the Doctor, then Amy, Rory and River Song's diary entries as they traipse around a late-'60s USA, feeling the presence of an unseen enemy, while the tally-marks on their limbs mysteriously multiplied...

The Brilliant Book gave me another fun highlight of the year: appearing among the book's various authors, to sign at London's Forbidden Planet venue. The signing, and drinks after, were as much fun as you'd expect. And I've noticed recently that an attendee uploaded their brief video of the event to the YouTubes. Here it is:

I've had a couple of Doctor Who releases via Big Finish in 2011. My short Fifth Doctor audio story The Lions Of Trafalgar featured on the company's Doctor Who: Short Trips Vol IV collection (a lovely reading by Peter Davison); and my full-cast Eighth Doctor four-parter Doctor Who: Army Of Death was released in December 2011, starring Paul McGann, Julie Cox, David Harewood, Carolyn Pickles, Eva Pope, Mitch Benn... a really nice cast, that. I received my copies of the Army Of Death CD just before Christmas and haven't had a chance to spin them yet, but I'm hearing good things.

It was also announced this year that 2012 will see the release of Big Finish's Doctor Who - UNIT: Dominion. This is a four-hour Seventh Doctor mini series which I've written with the splendid Nicholas Briggs - a hoot!

OTHER WORLDS

Among all the Doctor Who and Stormhouse stuff, I was toiling away on projects of my own, or those brought to me by other people.

I script-edited The Man Inside, the film which Dan Turner shot in Newcastle this Summer, starring Ashley 'Bashy' Thomas, Peter Mullan, Michelle Ryan, David Harewood, Jason Maza and other fine thespians. That one should be out in 2012 and it was nice to be involved with a non-horror feature project.

I was delighted to be invited to quack at the Cambridge School Of Art and the London Screenwriters' Festival 2011 this year. Felt like those events went well. I also signed various audiobooks at the Big Finish Day in Barking, where one of my favourite things of the year happened - a guy called Mick handed me a homemade card, which visually gathered together a couple of different things I'd worked on. You can see the card here, below right. It was, and remains, so touching - the idea that someone might actually be aware of, or even care about, your work as a whole. Thanks, Mick - and Happy New Year!

I wrote the short prose story The Screams Next Door for charity flash fiction e-anthology Voices From The Past, which you can still buy here at the mad prices of £0.99 or £2.99. I also wrote the seven-page comic story Consumed for the zombie anthology Dead Roots (site here), which I'm very much looking forward to seeing brought to life on the page. Oh, and I published my first non-fiction ebook, How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else, which draws on my journalistic past to tell readers everything I know about interviewing people.

Mick's splendid card

2011 has been my first year with an agent, the excellent Matthew Dench at The Dench Arnold Agency, and we've been building up various specs for film and TV. One handy thing an agent can do, is 'package' you together with other people under his agency roof. Matthew did that during 2011 - a welcome move which will hopefully result in a new feature film during 2012/13. I now have three or four feature scripts in various stages of development now, so will continue to write/push those next year. Needless to say, I'll also be looking to make my way into TV - things seem to be moving in that department, which is encouraging.

While Twitter continues to be the place where I spend most of my social media time, it feels like I've blogged more during 2011 than I have in the last couple of years. Why, I even wrote posts across five consecutive days! The most-read post here, over the last 12 months, was The Magic Of Draft Zero, which seemed to strike some kind of chord, while the one which generated the most comments and discussion, was the recent Eight Ways To Annoy People Whose Help You Want.

While I very much intend to be even more focused on the all-important writing during 2012, I'll try to keep up the bloggery-pokery. Hope you'll join me! I also hope you've had a tremendous Christmas and will have a magnificent New Year.

If you're a writer, what is your writing-related resolution for 2012? Please tell us all in the Comments below. (My resolution will be stricter time management. In particular, not checking e-mail every ten minutes and definitely not replying to e-mail straight away. That way lies distraction and sheer, screeching, wall-eyed madness.)

And now you've told us all about your resolution, why not check out my script-mates' own end-of-year posts, hmmm? Good DAY to you.

James Moran: 2011 In Words & Pictures

Phill Barron: 2011

Dan Turner: 2011, Review Of The Year

David Bishop: My Report Card For 2011, Part One and Part Two

William Gallagher: So Where Was I?

Ken Armstrong: Happy New Microcosm

Helen Smith: Lovely Things, 2011

***

My Amazon-acclaimed ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de. You can also get a Triple Pack of files (PDF, ePub, Kindle/mobi) direct from me. Full details here, you splendid individual.

Eight Ways To Annoy People Whose Help You Want

2011-12-15T13:07:00.016Z

Hello you! No big intro here - just wanted to write a few tough-love pointers about approaching people in the scriptwriting, TV, film, prose and generally creative industries. Specifically, via e-mail. I'm sure this won't apply to you, because you're lovely and you know better. But it might. And that being the case, you may find this useful. Here then, are Eight Ways To Annoy People Whose Help You Want...

1) Appear in someone's inbox, out of the blue, and immediately ask if they'll read your script.
If you really must do this - although you shouldn't - at least put some effort into that e-mail and a little finesse. A pro script-friend of mine recently described receiving a really abrupt e-mail from a complete stranger, asking if he'd read their script. The e-mail barely introduced the sender and didn't even end with a sign-off line. That's a great way to make a terrible first impression.

When you've written and finished a script that you like, it's easy to build up a head of zealous steam, to the point where you assume the world is waiting to read it. Take a deep breath and calm yourself. Approach your contact-to-be politely, lightly and in a personalised way which doesn't make them think they're Number 227 in your Xeroxed Introductory E-Mail campaign. As I said, ideally don't ask them to read your script in this opening salvo. You wouldn't do this during an opening exchange at a party, so why do it in Cyberworld? And Good God...

2) Attach your script to your introductory e-mail
Don't do this, ever. It's rude, even though it might not seem that way to you. It's the equivalent of striding up to someone at a scriptwriters' festival, saying hello and shoving a hard-copy of your script into their bag. Bear in mind that most writers - me included, sadly - can't read other writers' scripts, for two reasons: lack of time to read anyone else's work and legality (if a writer reads your script, then has a similar idea down the line, or is already working on a similar idea, you might turn out to be paranoid and insane and all, like, "You stole my idea! I sue you! I appear in your garden at 3am, harming myself and shrieking!"). So when you send someone a script right off the bat, that seemingly innocuous PDF of yours could well be violating the recipient's personal, professional and legal boundaries. Once someone receives a PDF, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to prove they haven't read it, if things should turn all weird and litigious later on. So don't put them in that position.

3) Attach your script to your introductory e-mail, because the recipient's colleague/boss/whoever has suggested you send it
This is still rude. I know, because a good few years back, I did it myself. A TV show's producer suggested I send a script to his script editor. With a head full of zealous steam (beware, oh beware, the zealous steam), I rattled off an e-mail to the script editor and attached the script. Never heard back from that script editor, and quite rightly so. I still regularly wince at the very thought of it and groan at the fact that I'm possibly forever filed away in that guy's head under "Presumptuous Amateurs". Even if someone else has recommended you send a script, still take that deep breath and write that polite, to-the-point introductory e-mail, explaining that X suggested you send them your script. Do they have time to read? That's much nicer, isn't it?

4) Play down the size of the favour
This is admittedly a relatively small pet niggle, and may be exclusive to me and my brain, but I doubt it. Don't play down the size of the favour you're asking this stranger/new contact. I'm talking specifically about saying "I wonder if you could do me a small favour...". Oh, it's only small, is it? I'll be the judge of that. This is the kind of thing it's so very easy to write without thinking, but well worth a mention.

5) Chase them up on a script read
If a relative stranger agrees to read your script, for free, in their own time, don't chase them up on it within six months. Seriously. That's just wrong and will irritate the Christ out of them. You have to be prepared to play the long game here. I've waited literally a year for industry folk to read scripts, and personally wouldn't chase them before a year was up.

If that impatient demon in your brain - the one entirely composed of zealous steam - forces you to chase someone up, at least do it indirectly. Message them about something else - ideally something which isn't asking for another favour. Nine times out of 10, this will jog their memory and provide a subtle prompt. It still runs the risk of annoying them, but it's a lot better than a "Did you get my e-mail?" e-mail, a week after the first. While I'm at it, let's all agree never to write "Did you receive my e-mail?" e-mails any more. It's 2011. The vast majority of e-mails get through. We know this, and yet still we persist with this irritatingly transparent tactic.

6) React badly to notes
So this stranger has read your script for free and given you some thoughts. You dislike and/or disagree with one or more these thoughts, so decide to fight your corner. You passive-aggressively - or downright aggressivelt - inform the helpful stranger why they're wrong and/or why they've misunderstood your grand masterplan. Congratulations! They didn't particularly want any response to their notes (all those questions they asked in the notes were rhetorical, by the way, for your script-analysing use only) and now you're synonymous with two Twitter hashtags in their brain: #DifficultToWorkWith and #OverlyDefensive. Tremendous.

7) Ask a huge question, the size of the MOON ITSELF
This one isn't exactly likely to enrage people, and is once again really easy to do without thinking, but it will assuredly make their life harder. And if you've made their life excessively harder, they won't thank you for that. I'm talking about big, wide-ranging questions like "How can I go about getting into scriptwriting?". That's big. Whole books are written on that subject. In fact, are you sure you shouldn't buy a tax-deductible General Script Advice book, rather than ask a pro to write several paragraphs of advice for free? Then, by all means, you can ask more targeted, specific questions of this person. This will serve a double-duty: it makes it a lot easier for them to answer the questions, and you seem more clued-up from the very beginning. Everybody wins, nobody loses, hooray.

8) 'Forget' to thank them
Never forget to thank someone who has given you advice, help and especially script notes. This is possibly the most infuriating thing of all, and there seems to be an epidemic of this behaviour going around. Almost every industry pro I talk to, shares the annoyance at not being thanked for helping people. This now seems to be a 'thing'. Strangers appear in your life, out of the clear blue sky (© Larry David), ask for help/advice/a script read, are given that valuable stuff for free, then fail to even thank the helper. That's downright weird behaviour, which has certainly happened to me a few times now. Why would anyone do that? Besides being supremely irritating and ungracious, it pretty much guarantees that the person will get zero help or advice from me again. Don't burn bridges. Don't spread the epidemic.

Pro writers, producers, script editors: anything to add to this list? Comment away! I want stories of people who have contacted you, out of the blue, and proceeded to screw up their chances of you ever helping them. I'd also like stories from people who have made mistakes while contacting new people. Let's stockpile this stuff and get a little closer to establishing Best Practice when progressing in this industry and forging new professional relationships.

Further Reading:

My old blogpost Who Will Read Your Fucking Script?

Phill Barron's entertaining, and even more tough-lovey, post on this very subject, eBehaviour

***

Three Joyously Christmassy Doctor Who Events

2011-12-12T19:07:00.001Z

JOYOUSLY CHRISTMASSY DOCTOR WHO EVENT # 1

Mark Gatiss, Terry Burnett and Ralph Montagu at the BFI

Until yesterday, there were 108 Doctor Who episodes missing from the BBC's archives. Now there are 106, thanks to a brilliantly surprising event at the London BFI.

The BFI annually shows a Missing Believed Wiped programme, which presents various footage which has been pulled from the jaws of obscurity over the previous year (see, the BBC didn't always safely archive everything - they didn't know video and DVD were going to happen). This year, I was tipped off that I really might want to go along, which made my legendary Spider senses tingle.

Plenty of Doctor Who-related folk were present in the NFT1 theatre (nothing suspicious about that at all, then), as we sat down to watch a mixed bag of footage which might have vanished forever, were it not for the efforts of historians like The Radio Times' Head of Heritage Ralph Montagu, Missing Believed Wiped presenter Dick Fiddy and many more. We saw Dennis Potter's 1966 TV play Emergency Ward 9, some amusing footage of the Mumford Puppets (including one playing the piano while smoking a cigarette) and a great Peter Cook/Dudley Moore sketch which memorably saw Cook almost corpse at one point.

All good fun, of course, but anticipation was growing. Doctor Who-loving corners of the internet had swollen like a storm about to break. It's truly amazing that the news didn't burst forth days before the event, but no - Who/Sherlock writer and actor Mark Gatiss stood up to inform us that two previously MIA episodes of 60s Doctor Who had been rediscovered! We then saw the first five-or-so minutes of Galaxy Four: Air Lock (1965) and Part Two of The Underwater Menace (1967) in its entirety.

What a joy it was. Sure, these are not the most highly regarded Doctor Who stories of all time, but it's amazing to have them back. It's great to see things like the Rill creature in Galaxy Four, which has hitherto had to exist purely in most of our imaginations. Most of all, though, it struck me that it's magical (or "a Christmas miracle" as Gatiss later put it) to regain the performances of William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. The latter is especially brilliant in this 'new' episode - the moment when he brands Professor Zaroff "mad as a hatter" is one which really has to be seen to be fully appreciated.

The last time a Doctor Who episode was recovered was in 2004 - a fact which led some fans' hope to slowly ebb as time passed since. This time, two episodes were discovered by the same man - retired Southampton broadcast engineer Terry Burnett, who ironically worked for ITV. Terry has been oblivious that the episodes were officially missing and seemed genuinely delighted to bring them to the world's attention. By luck, he sat next to me during the episodes' screening, and it was great to personally thank him afterwards. Tremendous. And here's a video report by Ed Stradling, about the whole thing:

JOYOUSLY CHRISTMASSY DOCTOR WHO EVENT # 2

That Brilliant Book Of Doctor Who signing I mentioned in the last post? It went splendidly well. It took place on November 30 at London's excellent Forbidden Planet store. Pretty much all the authors and creatives who contributed to the book were there, including me. We all sat along a lengthy table, signed books like our lives depended on it, cursed our overly complex signatures, and felt sorry for the people queuing outside in the cold. It looked rather like this (photo by @TheGazulator):

Gary Russell (far left), Paul Lang, David Llewelyn, Me, David Bailey,
James Goss, Benjamin Cook and his amazing HAIR OF SATAN

Just out of shot are all manner of wonderful people, including Mark Gatiss (gets everywhere, that bloke), Book editor Clayton Hickman and Doctor Who showrunner himself Steven Moffat. I grabbed a picture of them myself here:

And here's the wonderfully inevitable but very welcome fez which we scribbled on:

A fine time was had by all signers, and hopefully by signees. Hello, and thanks, to everyone who came along to the event. Great to meet you all. Here's another video - this time of Steven being interviewed mere feet away from our table and speaking at an admirable 666mph:

JOYOUSLY CHRISTMASSY DOCTOR EVENT # 3

Why, it's only the release of my Doctor Who audio play, Army Of Death!

Yes, this epic four-parter is now available through the Big Finish site, on CD and download. It features:

Walking, murderous skeletons
Exploding cities
Gunfire aplenty
Political intrigue and treachery
Flying robots
Mary Shelley
Paul McGann!
A great supporting cast, including Julie Cox, David Harewood, Christina Pickles, Eva Pope and Mitch Benn.

Surely, I can't say fairer than that. In the new Christmas issue of Doctor Who Magazine, I'm interviewed about Army Of Death - and also write the magazine's annual Review Of The Year.

Right, I think that's you fully abreast of Joyously Christmassy Doctor Who happenings. Kindly uncork the sherry and pour me a cheeky snifter. Have one yourself, while you're at it. Good day to you.

***

My Amazon-acclaimed ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de. You can also get a Triple Pack of files (PDF, ePub, Kindle/mobi) direct from me. Full details here, you splendid individual.

Keeping Up Appearances

2011-11-28T09:51:00.001Z

This year, a new phenomenon has entered my life. People have started asking me to appear at places. In public.

That's a funny business and no mistake. It's also a terrifying business, as public speaking doesn't come naturally to me, to say the least. Hell, speaking to more than one person at a time doesn't come naturally to me. Many writers are writers because they're way better at writing than talking (all that lovely, golden time in which to think of the ideal written sentence!), and I'm one of those.

The phenomenon pretty much began with this year's Big Finish Day and continued when I got a call from Sophie Jackson at the Cambridge School of Art. Sophie wanted to know if I could come over there and be interviewed and/or give a lecture to her film students. I ended up doing both, and despite my raging nerves, it was a really good experience. Lots of fun. First of all, in a small theatre at the school, I screened the first eight minutes of my first produced feature, Stormhouse. This received a good reaction, including the big jump and laughter I was hoping for, right at the end. Then Sophie interviewed me about scriptwriting and film-making, eventually opening it up for questions from the floor.

After lunch, I was installed in a classroom which is, funnily enough, slightly more intimidating than the more formal environment of a theatre. My lecture, 10 Things That Make For A Better Horror Film, even ended up incorporating a Powerpoint presentation and a couple of video clips (from John Carpenter's The Thing and the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre!). I was pleased to see that, although the lecture wasn't compulsory for students to attend, the majority of people who were at the theatre interview came along. After all my quacking, my vocal cords felt like they'd been sandpapered. Nevertheless, tremendous fun. It was great to meet those seriously switched-on students and have a proper chat with some at the end. If you're considering attending the Cambridge School of Art, I can recommend it - it boasts a nice, laidback atmosphere and a whole section of the place is brand new, being no more than a few months old.

After Cambridge, came London. The London Screenwriters' Festival, to be precise. A fine event, which I attended in 2007, 2008 and 2009, before missing a year after the event changed hands. I'm happy to report that the festival is in ruddy health - it felt both organised and energised. I spoke on the Fantastical TV panel alongside Paul Cornell (writer on Doctor Who, Primeval and many more), Adrian Hodges (Primeval co-creator) and Philip Palmer (noted SF author). As you might imagine, I felt like an imposter, but was determined to contribute, having conducted some research on the state of the TV industry with regard to genre fare. Amusingly, I later discovered that both Paul and Philip felt like imposters too, which is ludicrous - I can only assume they were trying to make me feel better.

The session went really well, with lots of (hopefully) practical advice flying around and a good interaction with our healthy audience (well, there were quite a few of them - don't know how healthy they were). The session was filmed, so I believe festival attendees should be able to see it online at some point. Loved it, and enjoyed hanging around for the rest of the day, during which I finally got to meet the walking sparkplug that is Robert Thorogood, the man who created BBC One's fine series Death In Paradise. All without a prior TV credit too, so he's a great example and inspiration to us all. He's also the ultimate poster boy for The Red Planet Prize, which made it all happen (and that competition is opening its doors once again for 2011/2012 - get in there).

My next public appearance (now those are four funny words to write, let me tell you) is this Wednesday, November 30, at London's Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue, 6pm. I'll be appearing in that fine behemoth of a store, among various other writers who contributed to The Brilliant Book Of Doctor Who 2012, signing that magnificent tome.

I should warn anyone planning to attend the event that my signature will half the value of the book. Luckily, everyone else's autograph will quintuple it - look, there's Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts, Tom MacRae, the book's editor Clayton Hickman, designer Paul Lang and everyone else listed here on Forbidden Planet's page for the event. Should be a hoot!

So that's all tremendous fun. I'm still much more used to attending other people's public appearances, though. Why, only this week, my young lady Esther and I went along to Waterstones to meet North Norfolk Digital broadcaster Alan Partridge, who was signing his extraordinary new autobiography I, Partridge: We Need To Talk About Alan.

The queue comprised over 300 people, but we'd managed to get there in time to be numbers 108 and 109. When we finally arrived at the Partridge table, he was resplendent in a purple jacket and cheery, seeing as he'd already been signing for an hour. My only stipulation to Alan, as he signed our book, was that he didn't draw a cock, to which he agreed. We had a chat about Suffolk ("I'm from Sheringham," Alan told us, "which is a great place, if you want to kill yourself"), had our photo taken with the great man (I don't think I've ever seen that facial expression on me before - must be The Partridge Effect), then bounced gleefully off into the night to find the nearest pub. Now that's what you call a public appearance.

Photographs from the Cambridge School of Art, above, by the splendid Ann Evelin Lawford, whose website can be found here.

***

New US trailer for Stormhouse!

2011-11-17T19:37:00.006Z

Having enjoyed a great run on the global festival circuit, my first produced feature film, Stormhouse, has a confirmed US DVD/Video On Demand release date of February 7. It's coming out over there through Lionsgate, one of my favourite distributors, so it's nice to be able to finally announce that. The DVD extras will include Stormhouse Uncovered, a featurette involving cast and crew chatting away on the film's set.

Lionsgate have cut a brand new trailer for the film, which I'm very taken by. It has a sinister US narrator, an 'R' certificate at the start for language, violence and gore, and all the jumpily dynamic editing you could wish for. Love it.

UK release, you say? It's happening, so watch this space.

***

My ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de. You can also get a Triple Pack of files (PDF, ePub, Kindle/mobi) direct from me. Full details here, you splendid individual.

Doctor Who Dreams Come Through

2011-10-21T12:35:00.003+01:00

Once, at the age of four, I walked up to my mum and asked her a question which understandably bamboozled her quite a bit.

"Mum... did we ever go hunting for The Master?"

I dearly wish I could remember her exact reaction. As it is, I can vaguely recall her kindly humouring me by taking a brief moment to think it over.

"No," she said. "No, I don't think we did".

Turned out I'd had a dream, you see, in which my family crept around our own house, searching for The Master, cowled nemesis of TV's Doctor Who. The Master had recently scared me witless in 1976's The Deadly Assassin, by dint of having bulbous ping-pong ball eyes, the most theatrically malevolent voice imaginable and lurking beneath Gallifrey's political chambers like some horribly decaying Satan with a creepy grandfather clock for a time-and-spaceship.

I was four and yet contact had been made. Doctor Who had taken root in my subconscious mind and flourished, until I couldn't distinguish between dreams and reality. The show had engaged and ignited my imagination, fanning the flames of creativity. Me and my folks hunting The Master in the darkened corridors of our home in Suffolk's Carlton Colville was almost certainly the first fictional story I ever 'wrote'.

If Doctor Who had never existed, I don't doubt that my brain would have been inspired by something else. I do doubt, however, that it would have been something which encouraged such infinitely fertile imagination as Who - a show which spans all of time and space.

That dream about The Master led directly to this:

And this, in which TV's Doctor Who does battle with the, ahem, 'Sontans':

According to my mum, I "never stopped writing". There are books and books of these Doctor Who tales, all of which feature the word "suddenly" quite a lot. I still find myself deleting the word "suddenly" from second drafts of scripts all the time. It's an affliction which affected me suddenly, over time.

Those books eventually led to the lovely headmistress and English teacher at my middle school conspiring to have my stories put together in a couple of bound volumes and placed in the school library.

Here I am, holding one of those volumes and displaying cheekbones for which I now hate my younger self. Halfway through my teens, rock journalism swept me off on a violent side current, but it always came back to stories of one form or another.

Ultimately, Doctor Who and the dreams it spawned have led me, via a fairly circuitous route, to write fiction for a living. I've written prose for the Fourth Doctor, audio adventures for the Fifth, Seventh and Eighth, and come bang up to date with the Eleventh Doctor for audiobook Doctor Who: The Gemini Contagion and The Brilliant Book Of Doctor Who 2012.

My first produced feature film, Stormhouse, has rightly drawn the odd Doctor Who comparison from reviewers - it is, after all, essentially about a terrible entity in a cage and fits the show's classic 'base under siege' template.

Stormhouse had its world premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival, its London premiere at Leicester Square's FrightFest and will have its US premiere at the Los Angeles Screamfest tomorrow afternoon. (Update: Lionsgate Home Entertainment have bought it for US distribution and cut a brand new trailer). Now that I really stop to think about all this, it's pretty mind-blowing. Needless to say, I have a vast amount of things to learn and no end of things to achieve. But it feels important to stop, take stock, and never forget where my career really began. Hunting for The Master in our old house.

I've so much to thank Doctor Who for, beyond the considerable entertainment it has brought, and continues to bring me.

You see, Doctor Who isn't just a show you watch. Doctor Who isn't just for Christmas.

No. It's a show which combines with your DNA, coils tendrils tightly around it and informs your entire creative life.

You'll never be the same again. Thank God for that and thank God for Doctor Who.

You can still buy tickets to see Stormhouse at Screamfest here.

A new interview with me and Stormhouse director Dan Turner at US horror site Dread Central here.

***

What Writers Always Forget

2011-10-14T15:41:00.007+01:00

I've been beating myself up all week, for seemingly being incapable of starting work on the rewrite of a TV series pilot spec script.

It's been at best bemusing, at worst quite distressing. Why the hell haven't I been able to write a single line of script? Ridiculous, right? The script is 80 per cent there. I've already gone in and stripped out 13 pages of subplot - all I need to do now is write 13 replacement pages to flesh out what's there. Why, then, in the name of Satan's surprisingly well-groomed beard, can't I do that? Have I lost faith in the central concept? In myself? In life? Christ - maybe that subplot should stay after all. Maybe this rewrite is all wrong. Or maybe a crucial, fleshy valve is my brain has popped and I'll never be the same CREATIVE COLOSSUS again.

The answer is something I already knew, and have known for some time. I just forget it on a regular basis. Just as I've known for years that my days are so much more productive when I go for a morning run and get brain and body buzzing. Just as we know that it's best to take regular breaks from typing, before our limbs stop functioning. And yet we forget.

Here's what I forgot again, in this case: I haven't finished thinking this rewrite through.

Sure, I've 'only' got 13 new pages to write, but if I haven't worked out what will happen in them, and exactly how the retooled story will fit together, then they may as well be 13,000 pages.

The truth is that the new version of the story has been slowly developing in my brain all damn week, partly consciously and partly in my brain's back room while I've been playing angry guitar and baking myself a cake of self-loathing. I have been working. Just hasn't felt like it. And it turns out that my brain hasn't been happy with simply fleshing out the existing story and characters. No. It wants to use these new 13 pages as a way to make the ending much more excitingly twisty, to change the point at which one main character dies and, oh, all sorts. My brain had a masterplan to which I wasn't entirely privy. Our brains are secretive bastards, but we should place more trust in their ability to deliver the goods.

This post is as much a reminder for me as it is for any writer liable to consider themselves a doofus or a lazy failure, purely because something has been stopping them from sitting down and writing that script.

From now on, every time this happens again, we are going to stop and ask ourselves one simple question.

Have I properly thought this through?

If the answer is no, we will stop giving ourselves such a hard time and focus on the story for a while until we're ready.

That's a pact, yes?

***

My ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de. You can also get the PDF Edition direct from me. Full details here, you splendid individual.

Brilliant Doctor Who Things

2011-10-13T12:02:00.001+01:00

Good morning. Dark forces are stirring in the Doctor Who universe. And by "dark forces", I mean "things about to be released which I worked on".

The Brilliant Book Of Doctor Who 2012 is out today! As with last year's inaugural release, it's a wonderful annual-style affair, officially sanctioned by the BBC and with the participation of many members of the Who writing and production team. I've written a few things in it.

For months now, I've been dying to tell you that I've written a piece which reveals what happened in the three month gap between the episodes The Impossible Astronaut and Day Of The Moon. This was, as you might imagine, incredibly good fun if slightly mind-warping at times. I really went to town on this thing, printing out a map of America and charting Amy, Rory and River's separate paths around it with differently coloured pens. A tidied up version of this map is included in the piece, illustrating excerpts from the three characters' diaries.

I looked for times and places in late '60s America when The Silence's influence on humanity might have been inferred by the TARDIS crew. This was, of course, made easier by Steven Moffat's original conception of the creatures' look, which was cleverly meant to have prompted man's popular image of alien lifeforms in the first place. I also got to write an introduction from the Doctor himself, explaining the whole three-month plan. It was great to write for Matt Smith's Doctor and Amy again, having had so much fun with them in this year's BBC audiobook Doctor Who: The Gemini Contagion.

I also wrote the front page of The White Flag, the newspaper on the home planet of Gibbis from The God Complex. As you can imagine, given the cowardly, invasion-loving nature of Gibbis' race, this was a proper hoot. The whole book looks amazing and I'm currently trying to resist reading too much of it. Still want to be reading it over Christmas.

My Big Finish audio play Army Of Death is on the horizon and a few snippets have been released in advance of its December 31 release date. There's the splendid cover, for a start (get a load of that skull), and you can also now hear the trailer on the Big Finish site. Love that trailer - it's all "skeletons" this, "death" that. I've been interviewed about the play for Doctor Who Magazine and Doctor Who Insider, so those pieces should be emerging over the next couple of months.

Army Of Death has a great cast. Besides the joy of Paul McGann as the Doctor, as Julie Cox as Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, it boasts David Harewood (Robin Hood, Doctor Who and Dan Turner's forthcoming feature The Man Inside, which I script edited), Eva Pope (Waterloo Road), Carolyn Pickles (Harry Potter, Emmerdale), Mitch Benn (Radio 4's Now Show), Joanna Christie (the stage play Equus) and Trevor Cooper (Spooks!). Can't wait to hear the finished article.

Pining for more Doctor Who? As ever, there's plenty of Who activity beyond the TV set. Good day to you.

You can buy The Brilliant Book Of Doctor Who 2012 at Amazon UK here.

You can pre-order Army Of Death at Amazon UK here.

***

My ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de. You can also get a Triple Pack of file formats (PDF, ePub, Kindle/mobi) direct from me. Full details here, you splendid individual.

Three Good Writing Apps For iPad

2011-10-07T11:40:00.004+01:00

Every writer works differently when it comes to making a note of ideas, then building them up, making them bigger, better and faster until they either run straight into a brick wall or zoom all the way to victory.

I've developed a personal approach over the last year or so, as iOS technology has increasingly dovetailed with my working life (thanks, Steve Jobs, and RIP). Initial ideas, whether I'm at home or out and about, get tapped into the Evernote app on the iPhone, where they are then synced across the ether, ready to be examined on the PC at a later stage. I used to do this in a physical notebook, but I find that it's all too easy for scribbled ideas to become lost among those pages. With something like Evernote, you can organise ideas into different notebooks ('Doctor Who ideas', 'short story ideas', 'feature ideas', etc) and easily assess them all in one place when you're looking for something to work up, or an idea to cannibalise.

When it comes to further developing an idea, I either grab an actual notebook - with paper and everything - and scribble away, or use the iPad. As much as I'd love a Final Draft app for the iPad (hopefully this will happen some day), I'd only ever be likely to use a scripting app when (a) out of the house and (b) when I really needed to meet a deadline. I've found the iPad is great for letting a stream of consciousness flow through your fingers onto that touchscreen, as you explore a new story. Here are three apps which I've used and liked...

PAGES
Price: £6.99 / $9.99
Also available for: iPhone and iPod Touch
App store links: UK / US

Yes, £6.99 seems quite expensive for an app. And it is, when compared to the other two apps I'm talking about here. Pages does have the cachet of being the iOS version of the desktop-hugging Pages For Mac. More relevant to its defence, is the fact that it technically packs in enough features to justify the price. Of course, it depends how many of them you're planning to use. There are templates all over the place, for writing letters, etc, plus all manner of customisable elements, but I've only ever wanted to open a blank page and write. Pages also offers good value for money if you have an iPad and an iPhone, as you can use the one purchase on both.

Pages presents a simple enough interface, although one thing really bugs me: I constantly forget how to name files. This really should be the easiest, most intuitive thing in the world, but on Pages I often find myself going around in circles until I work it out. Groundhog Day for writers.

I must admit that, as much as I really like the following two apps, Pages might well be the one I'd use if I was writing quite a lot of intensive prose. So it's worth the investment for that sturdiness alone. The file-export options are pretty comprehensive, too: you can e-mail your doc, print it, share via iWork.com, send to iTunes, copy to iDisk or copy to WebDAV (whatever the hell that last one is). Import-wise, you can copy files in from iTunes, iDisk or - of course - WebDAV (from within Pages) or switch over to your trusty Dropbox app and export a file to Pages from there.

IA WRITER
Price: £2.99 / $4.99
Also available for: Nothing, as far as I can tell. It's specifically for iPad.
App store pages: UK / US

This one's appeal is belied by its terrible, eminently forgettable name. Wisely look beyond that and you've got a word processor which very deliberately takes a highly minimalist approach. It's all about simple text on a white screen, with a nicely accessible keyboard, which is all you need if you don't hunger for bells and whistles.

I like the way that its best features are devoted to helping you focus on what you're writing. FocusMode for instance, which lets you see one sentence at a time. There are some nice shortcuts, such 'undo' or 'redo' with a two-finger swipe. IA Writer has also tinkered with the standard iPad keyboard, including details like one single button to handle parentheses (which is nice).

Connectivity isn't quite as comprehensive as Pages', but for me offers the essentials: export and import via e-mail, Dropbox and iTunes sharing. I like this one.

OMMWRITER
Price: £2.99 / $4.99
Also available for: Nothing. An iPad special.
App store pages: UK / US

You know, in many ways this is my favourite. While initially feeling like a novelty, it actually stands a good chance of longevity. The interface again aims for utter simplicity, but with a rather magical Zen twist. The keyboard is all floaty and gel-like, responding quite organically to your touch, like a less disturbing thing out of William Burroughs' Naked Lunch. My favourite customisable background is the snowy vista, complete with falling snow! Oh, and there's music. Relaxing, ambient music. I really enjoy one of the pieces and just stick with that on loop, but your musical mileage may vary. No wonder, though, that one of OmmWriter's slogans is "Welcome back to concentrating".

I've found OmmWriter brilliantly useful when you want to sit down somewhere away from your desktop and properly focus on working out a story idea. Especially when you use headphones, it really does transport you to a realm where only words matter. Sounds good, yes? One of the two downsides is that the designers have tried to be a little too clever with their over-minimalist symbols denoting various functions. You get used to it eventually, and working it out is actually perversely fun, but once again, as with Pages, simple tasks like naming documents is harder than it should be.

The other downside? Unless I haven't figured out those symbols well enough (correct me if I'm wrong), OmmWriter has the least connectivity of all three apps here. As far as I can tell, you can't import from Dropbox. Export-wise, it's e-mail only, with a choice of txt file or PDF. This might sound grim, but it really isn't if you're using OmmWriter for story meditations and plot outlines. I've never wanted to import anything into OmmWriter. It's for creating new things. Write them on OmmWriter and send them to yourself. Simple.

Do you have a favourite writing app for iPad? Share it with us in Comments, below.

***

That's the end of my experimental week of one-a-day blog posts. I've enjoyed this, but if I'm going to continue blogging every day (and I might), I need to grasp the art of often writing shorter posts which take less time to get right, or perhaps adopt that splendid Warren Ellis style of bloggery, whereby meatier articles rub shoulders with much simpler posts which are sometimes a photograph, a video or an aggregate of content from elsewhere. We'll see. Either way, I'd like to maintain this site as a livelier hub...

Here are links to the previous posts from this week:

Transformation Behind Sam's Taverna

Five Things I'll Miss About Spooks

Your Script Is Not A Lottery Ticket

Doctor Who: The Lions Of Trafalgar

***

Transformation Behind Sam's Taverna

2011-10-06T11:16:00.005+01:00

Hello, this is Future Me, writing after finishing this post. For some reason, a place called Sam's Taverna had been on my mind for the last couple of days and I decided to commemorate it with a quick post. While writing, I realised why it felt so significant - and as a result, the post has ended up perhaps being more for me than for you. Still, you might be interested. You're a good sort, even if you do still owe me a tenner.

Between 1999 and 2004, I lived behind Sam's Taverna Ta Varelia, which was a Cypriot bar and restaurant in London's Camden Town. As director Rob Reiner says in his intro to This Is Spinal Tap, don't go looking for it - it's not there any more.

From outside on good old exotic Pratt Street, Sam's Taverna looked tiny. A narrow frontage, framed by a mess of vine leaves - or at night, a steel shutter pulled down over the whole thing. Inside, it remained narrow but went back a fair way and had a basement level with many more tables. The atmosphere was very much old-fashioned, down-home Cypriot bonhomie. Ornate jugs and bottles lined the walls alongside maps of Cyprus. On ground level, you could sit at the small bar (my favourite - I love sitting at bars) or at one of four dinner tables. The bar was always busy with a healthy combination of booze-addled regulars and random newcomers.

More than anything, though, this Taverna was about Sam. He was quite a short man with a rather intimidating face until he grinned and his eyes glinted. He worked like a dog, opening in the early afternoons and often staying open until 3am at weekends. He called me "Master", which is always pleasing for a Doctor Who fan, and served mean hummus and charcoal-grilled halloumi, all washed down with lashings of booze. Every now and again, though, Sam was forced to live up to that intimidating face of his. One night, a couple of local gangsters sidled into the place and had a hushed conversation with Sam. I seem to remember him later telling me that they wanted protection money (I know - it's like we were in prohibition era New York or something). What I very definitely remember is Sam suddenly holding up a large chopping knife, dramatically slashing it through the air in front of one of the men's faces and yelling, "I'll cut your throat and drink the blood! I don't care!".

They never came back.

Walk out of the Taverna's back door and you'd find a small courtyard with two toilet cubicles on the left. You'd also see the front of a small ground-floor flat, provided that the steel shutter wasn't pulled down over its entire front. That was where I lived for half of my Camden Town years. I had to walk through part of Sam's Taverna to reach the street.

That flat was full of shoddy charm. A big studio with a spinning ceiling fan and only two windows: a small one by the front door, looking out into that courtyard, and a barred skylight. If a raging fire had ever started in the kitchen beside that front door, I'd be dead. Really should have kept a hacksaw for those skylight bars, looking back. Apparently, the flat used to be a lock-up where various no-doubt shifty characters would come and play cards. I loved that. It was a great place to live, even towards the end when it started to fall apart and slugs decided to invade.

By the way, don't worry: Sam's not dead. Or at least I don't think he is. Certainly hope not. He moved away from that Taverna circa 2005, while I was on holiday, and I never got the chance to find out where he went. The restaurant, and my flat, became an internet cafe because, you know, Camden really needed another one of those. But that's not really the point of this blog. The point, I suppose, is that those five years were pretty formative for me, in terms of starting to turn a big ship around and switch from journalism to scriptwriting.

When I moved in, during 1999, I was very much in journalism, being the News Editor of Kerrang!, the weekly rock magazine. It was fast, furious and mostly fun. I regularly went the extra mile for that job, sometimes staying in the office until 3am, to ensure that images of Korn's new stage set, or something, would be e-mailed over from America. After the turn of the millennium, I became Deputy Editor - and also more seduced by the world of fiction. Writing this, it has only just occurred to me that moving deeper into dry, dusty and coldly corporate affairs almost certainly made me yearn for something far more creative. God, all those meetings turned me into Homer Simpson. People would be talking ad spaces and marketing plans, while skeletal cows pranced around my brain, playing fiddles as I firmly nodded and offered ever-so-sensible suggestions.

For many issues, I became Acting Editor and ran the whole ship. That was fun. Then in 2002, the Editor's chair became open. I initially went for the job, but soon after a realisation hit me hard. Who was I trying to kid? I no longer had the passion to edit Kerrang! I wanted to make stuff up, pure and simple. Stories had long since taken root in my brain and were already splurging out into clumsily tentative screenplays (my very first, World Wide Web, ended up being cannibalised of its central concept for my 2010 audiobook The Sarah Jane Adventures: Deadly Download). In truth, that process had begun with drawing and writing endless Doctor Who comic strips as a child - I'd just fallen into rock journalism in my teens and stayed there. So I realised that, not only did I not want to edit the magazine that I still loved, but I wanted - no, needed - to leave it. That was certainly the most painful career decision that I ever made. Tears and everything. Nevertheless, it was so right. I had 14 great years in rock journalism, but change was afoot. And not a moment too soon...

Between 1999 and 2002, there had been much drinking afoot in Sam's Taverna and in the surrounding bars of Camden Town. So much so, that I'm astonished and saddened to see, while scanning hard drives old and new, that I apparently never got it together to take one single picture of Sam or his Taverna. I think this picture, taken in the (then) Liberties Bar along the road, sums up that period pretty well. Behold that slack-jawed elegance! I remember it as a lively, fun time, although I'm not entirely sure how happy I was. Lively fun and happiness are not always the same thing. Behind the beer, I was certainly unfulfilled and in need of forward-moving change, even if it didn't realise it for some time. After the career-switch, everything started to sharpen and I found myself increasingly glued to the home PC, taking steps into a world in which I could build other worlds.

By the time that planned redevelopment forced me to finally move out of the flat in 2004, I was planning my first published novel, which turned out to be 2005's Friday The 13th: Hate Kill Repeat (still love that title). The transformation was in full effect. It had been an often difficult time, almost like a second adolescence, but I'm convinced that's mostly why I remember the Cypriot place opposite my weird lock-up flat with such undying affection.

When you're working your way through a tricky stage of evolution, the comforting buzz of a place where the landlord knows your name, and what you want to drink, makes everything just that much smoother. Everyone should have a Sam's Taverna.

Well? Do you have one? Tell us about it in comments.

***

Five Things I'll Miss About Spooks

2011-10-05T09:43:00.004+01:00

Spoiler note: Never seen Spooks? This piece probably contains very mild spoilers, but no name-specifics about characters who have died during its run. It does, however, reveal one character who has endured throughout.

Last night, I watched episodes four and five of the current series of Spooks. I couldn't face watching the sixth. It was just too much to face.

This is because it is the last Spooks episode ever.

Ever.

This fact pains me. As much as I understand and appreciate the need for a show to ideally bow out gracefully before it starts making a fool of itself like some ginned-up dancefloor gran, I could go on watching this for years yet. Even water-treading Spooks would be preferable to most other drama shows.

So what's been so great about Spooks? Let's hack into my memory banks and exercise covert surveillance...

1) Spooks entices you into a world to which you'd otherwise have no access. The scarily seductive micro-universe of MI5. Sure, it's MI5 played for drama, but it's about as much of an authentic feel as you're likely to get, without subsequently being bundled into a black van in the middle of the night and vanishing forever. It's a relative safe, entertainingly vicarious look into that mind-boggling world via majorly souped-up TV specs. There's no question however that, at the very least, Kudos have managed to mirror, and sometimes pre-empt, the global climate when it comes to terror, espionage and lurking threat. Its finger has remained squarely on the pulse, as well as the trigger.

2) Spooks has great characters. Ingeniously, it makes you care more about these characters by dint of the fact that any of them could die at any moment. This was established early in Series One, when one character had her hand dunked into a deep fat fryer, followed shortly afterwards by her head. That was a seriously horrific scene, matched only for intensity during Spooks' entire run by another sequence in Series Five which saw a really likeable Section D character being psychologically terrorised by two thugs before being hung by the neck. I still think the latter is one of the most disturbing things I've ever witnessed on TV - and despite myself, I love to be disturbed. How often does drama properly shake you and feel like it's doing something forbidden? Spooks plays hard, fast and loose with its people, keeping you on the edge at all times. No-one is safe.

3) Spooks moves fast. As the producers have noted, the show munches narrative like a nuclear-powered Pac-Man (okay, so I'm paraphrasing). It's clear that, while assembling each episode's plot, writers have been encouraged to pile in as many shocks and twists as possible. The show has worked hard to anticipate your expectations, subvert them and then throw the whole thing into a blender roughly ten minutes from the end. Dear God, that whole bomb plot has been a decoy! This is actually about feeding the Prime Minister headfirst into a cement mixer while his weeping children watch! Spooks not only moves fast, but it's jampacked with brain-warping plot goodness.

4) Spooks tempers its brutal ice with heart. Behind all the explosions, gunfire and nail-biting transferrals of confidential data to USB sticks, the show has always wisely striven to give their agents a personal life. A recurring thematic question throughout Spooks' run has been how MI5 operatives can balance their work with their often sorry excuses for home lives. Drama's most likeable characters tend to have one thing in common: altruism. That's arguably why the two most evergreen professions in long-running drama are medicine and law enforcement. Spooks' characters constantly have to value the greater good above their own lives, even if it means losing colleagues who have also become friends. I'll never forget Adam Carter (Rupert Penry-Jones, the finest of Spooks' square-jawed leads) throwing up into a sink upon hearing a fellow operative getting shot in the head over a comms link, then having to immediately pull himself together in order to deal with the ongoing crisis.

5) Spooks has Sir Harry Pearce. Section D's quotation-spouting, scotch-sipping monarch has remained the decade's sole constant as horrendous things happen to his agents, whose heads he regularly has to place on chopping blocks for Queen and country. Peter Firth is consistently astonishing in the role. He's the master of underplay. Where other actors might overly wrap their gums around lines, Firth practically whispers them - and his increasingly weathered face always says far more than his mouth. Harry's also a truly brilliant character. Never predictable. A man who relies on his gut instinct and remains steadfast in making impossible decisions while all around is madness. Most importantly, I think, Harry is never entirely knowable. We've spent 10 years with the man, but have remained muzzled at just the right distance. More than close enough to empathise with him, but never enough to work out what makes him tick. Frighteningly, if Harry turned out to be a Russian spy all along, our hearts would sink with the realisation that we never really, truly knew anything about him. It would be entirely gutting, but all the more so for its plausibility. That's a really tough trick to pull off in drama's leading characters, but it's common among its best. Harry Pearce, The Doctor, Peter Boyd (Waking The Dead), Vic Mackey (The Shield)...

You'll notice that I've been talking about Spooks in the present tense, even though every episode which will ever (presumably) be made is now in the can. That's because referring to Spooks in the past tense would be almost as painful as hearing the Eleventh Doctor talking about himself that way, in Gareth Roberts' recent and splendidly touching Doctor Who episode Closing Time. "Those were the days..."

I don't want to employ that past tense. No, not yet. The past tense must remain unemployed for a while.

Besides, I first need to muster the gumption to watch that final episode.

Goodbye, Spooks. You were the most arresting and dynamic drama series that the BBC ever made without the aid of a blue police box. I'm so sorry to see you 'go dark'.

What else are you going to miss about Spooks? What did I miss? Tell me in the comments below.

***

My ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de. You can also get a triple pack of files (PDF, ePub, Kindle/mobi) direct from me. Full details here, you splendid individual.

Your Script Is Not A Lottery Ticket

2011-10-04T11:09:00.004+01:00

Wanted to write a (hopefully) quick thing about the curious way in which some scriptwriters seem to think about their careers and advancement. I'll cut straight to what I see as the truth here: it can be comforting for the writer in his or her ascendancy to think of career advancement as largely luck-related. That it's a matter of writing script after script and firing them into a machine full of other National Lottery balls, which may one day be picked out.

I think this view is, at best, complacent and at worst, dangerous - at least for the writer who holds it. One thing's for sure: if it really is at all useful to think of a scriptwriting career as a lottery, then you are squarely in control of the odds. There is nothing random here. When entering a scriptwriting competition, for instance, it can be tempting to find out how many other people are going for it too. That, however, is the Devil whispering in your ear, reinforcing that whole idea of luck being a big part of this. If you've sweated blood over the bulletproof script, it shouldn't matter whether there are one or one million other contestants.

I don't want to focus solely on competitions, because that's a whole subject in itself. Suffice to say that people like to talk about the aspects of competitions which seem to make the process more arbitrary - the judges having a bad day, or just not 'getting' you, etc - but I say forget about that stuff. It doesn't help. You're just either pre-emptively armouring yourself for a potential failure, or trying to salve wounds which were almost certainly your fault. Let rejection hurt, but take responsibility for it as you heal, learn and strengthen. Take the time for a reality check if necessary. Whatever it takes to ensure that your next script is a decisive step forward. Don't succumb to that deeply weird Scriptwriter Quirk which compels you to sling an imperfect script into a competition "just to get something in". God knows, I've done it myself over the years and have come to think of it as supremely self-defeating.

Let's sidle away from competitions, then, and regain the big picture, while simultaneously focusing on something quite small. A couple of years ago, an 'aspiring' writer publicly contacted a Doctor Who writer on Twitter, asking if he'd like to collaborate. When Doctor Who Scribe, not impolitely or unreasonably, asked why he would want to do that, the aspiring writer replied that Doctor Who Scribe had been so lucky with his career and it'd be good to give something back, quack quack quack... frankly, I stopped listening after "been so lucky with your career". Uh, no. Doctor Who Scribe hadn't been lucky - he'd worked fucking hard to get where he was, over many, many years. It felt so insulting and demeaning to what DWS had achieved. For me, that rather ignorant attitude summed up a blind alley of thought which we must avoid at all costs.

Look, don't get me wrong: of course there's an element of luck involved with building a career. When it comes to launching projects, for instance, the stars can seemingly align or scatter on a whim. No doubt about it. What I'm saying is that it would be a massive mistake to overestimate luck's contribution - or to start talking about how ultimately your fate is in others' hands. Go down that rabbit hole and, before you know where you are, you'll be whining about the whole "It's not what you know, it's who you know" thing. And oh sweet lord, that's definitely a whole other blog post. In short, yes, contacts are really important. Make them. You must. But it's increasingly untenable to complain about being shut out of some imagined 'system' by 'The Man', in a world when you can make direct contact with the vast majority of the TV and film industries via Twitter.

We all have to take responsibility for our careers. The only armour we need should be our work, as opposed to weird, insidious denial and excuses. We must write to win. We must toil away at the furnace until we come away with something amazing.

Your script should be the ultimate representation of you. Your unique brilliance, which no-one else in the world can possibly have. Your creative DNA, all swabbed up in a PDF. Even when compared to a winning Lottery ticket, that's priceless.

***

Doctor Who: The Lions Of Trafalgar

2011-10-03T12:36:00.002+01:00

God, you're painfully attractive. Thank you for gracing this blog with your face.

I've decided to try and step up the frequency of posts here, for two reasons. For one thing, I think I've fallen into habit of saving stuff up until I make overly long posts which tend to be groups of updates. For another, Graham Linehan on Twitter mentioned the site 750words.com, which offers a way of limbering yourself up for a day's writing. That looks great and useful, but it also struck me that a blog-a-day might not only keep the doctor away (although hopefully not The Doctor), but serve the same warm-up purpose. For yet another thing (yes, okay, this is three things now), the tireless frequency of Chuck Wendig's blogposts have shamed me (not to mention the damn quality of the things - I hate that brilliant beardy bastard). So I'm going to blog every day this week, even if it's about nothing in particular. Let's see how it works for both of us, yes? Yes.

***

In something like February 2010, I was commissioned to write a short Doctor Who audio story for Big Finish's Short Trips series. Short Trips were originally a long run of hardback books which collected various stories featuring various doctors. Back in 2008, I wrote Christmas Every Day, a text tale for the Short Trips: Christmas Around The World collection.

For a while, an idea for a Doctor Who story had been bouncing around my brain. Something involving Nelson's column, with something alien inside it - and something very wrong with the four stone lions at its base. I started working the idea up and made several visits to Trafalgar Square, taking photographs like the ones below. Not being much of a history buff, I bought a book about 19th Century London (Jerry White's recommended London In The Nineteenth Century), since the story needed to be set at 1843 when the building of Nelson's column neared completion.

The story really came together when a friend told me about a remarkable dinner which took place that year. Fourteen stonemasons, including civil engineer and entrepreneur Samuel Morton Peto and his cousin Thomas Grissell, perched a dinner table on top of the column (before Nelson's statue was placed upon it) and enjoyed a full meal, in order to celebrate their three years of hard work on the monument. I loved that idea and the meal immediately became the focus of the story, which was originally named The Sevakrill Mission, before switching to the hopefully less generic and more interesting title.

Each Short Trips audio collection features one story for each of the first eight Doctors. I was really pleased to get one of my very favourite Doctors: the Fifth, played by Peter Davison. I wanted to pair him with '80s companions Nyssa and Tegan. Best of all, Davison reads all of the Fifth Doctor stories in this Short Trips run, so I got the pleasure of hearing him read The Lions Of Trafalgar.

Or at least, I have today. While writing this, I've been listening to it for the first time, despite the CD having been released over a month ago. So why didn't I listen to it straight away? Two reasons. First and foremost, I suspected it might be pretty overwhelming. A Doctor forever embedded in your formative years, reading your Doctor Who story? That's enough to make the brain melt in on itself. The second point leads on from that - what if I listened to the story and winced at clunky prose which I'd forced Peter Davison to wrap his gums around? That would be overwhelming in a very bad way. One of the important distinctions about writing prose for audio is that you have to be extra sure it will sound good aloud...

... and I'm really glad I made the effort to read The Lions Of Trafalgar aloud before submitting it to editor Xanna Eve Chown. The story sounds great. Big Finish could have had these short tales read simply - just the text spoken bare - but they've clearly devoted a lot of effort to these releases, with sound effects, voice treatment and a lovely attention to detail. Davison reads it brilliantly, putting on a great Aussie accent for Tegan - and the sound mix is nicely multi-layered, with Davison narrating in the foreground and the characters' dialogue happening in a bustling Trafalgar Square elsewhere in the soundscape. I'm properly delighted with it and will definitely be replaying. The cherry on the cake has been a really nice review of Lions in Doctor Who Magazine, which called it "marvellous" and "compelling". Woo, and indeed, hoo.

You can order Doctor Who: Short Trips Volume IV, which features seven other tales by writers like Richard Dinnick and Cindy Garland, on CD at Amazon UK or on CD/download through Big Finish themselves.

That's all for today. Same time tomorrow?

***

Spectator Piece On My 'How To Interview' Book

2011-08-30T16:26:00.001+01:00

Film4.com's splendid editor Catherine Bray has reviewed my book How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else for The Spectator's Arts Blog. The piece includes some interview quotes with me. Nice.

You can read the piece here. And if you're coming here after reading the piece, looking for the full lowdown on the book, then hello! Please click here for those details.

Flush The Fashion Interview

2011-08-26T16:17:00.000+01:00

Hello! Stormhouse plays the Film4 FrightFest tonight. Very exciting indeed. I'll let you know how it goes.

Fine site Flush The Fashion interviewed me this week, about the film and indeed my whole career, including the rock journalism in the 80s and 90s. You can read it here.

Stormhouse FrightFest Article Now Online

2011-08-24T13:19:00.002+01:00

That article I mentioned the other day - the one about the making of Stormhouse? It's now online, in the Film4 FrightFest's free e-magazine. It features some exclusive behind-scenes on-set pictures and some happy memories of that Summer in 2010 when we all descended on a military base to make a film.

The mag's full of articles and fun stuff. Read it here.

***

My ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else, is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de. You can also get the PDF Edition direct from me. Full details here, you splendid individual.

Stormhouse: FrightFest & The Festival Schedule

2011-08-23T13:00:00.002+01:00

Hello you,

As new additions are made to the Stormhouse screening schedule, I wanted to post a round-up of places where you can see the film in coming days, weeks and months. Here goes:

AUGUST 26
Film4 FrightFest, London Leicester Square Empire Cinema, Discovery Screen, 11.30pm
This is a source of tremendously giddy excitement for me. It's a dream scenario for this event to be the very first to screen Stormhouse post-Edinburgh. As I've said before, FrightFest has been a yearly pilgrimage for me since 2002, so having a film showing at this most prestigious of genre festivals is a great way to mark my tenth visit. I've written a 1500 word piece on the experience of making a horror film in the UK and how that's a far from impossible achievement, for the latest issue of the event's free e-magazine. Keep an eye on the Film4 FrightFest's home page for the new August 2011 edition, which should be posted soon.

AUGUST 27
Birmingham Comic Con, 7pm
A new addition to the schedule, this well-regarded event will be screening the film for attendees, who will hopefully enjoy being frightened after a busy day of buying comics, meeting creators and attending panels! You can see Stormhouse's placement on the Events page here.

AUGUST 30
Chichester International Film Festival, 9.15pm
I'm delighted that Stormhouse is showing here as a Best Of FrightFest package, comprising five films. What an honour!

OCTOBER 14-23
Los Angeles Screamfest, screening day and time tbc
This is the US film festival which broke Paranormal Activity, and one which I've attended on two occasions. A really tremendous event, passionate about horror films. Again, such an honour to be among the line-up here. Screamfest's Advisory Board reads like a Who's Who of horror, including John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, Clive Barker, Sean Cunningham, Eli Roth and John Landis!

Exciting times, then. Honours a-go-go! Hope you get to see Stormhouse at one of these events. As a very special bonus at no extra charge, please know that after you've viewed the film, Stormhouse's entity will follow you home and destroy your life. Enjoy!

Stormhouse on Twitter

Stormhouse on Facebook

Stormhouse teaser on YouTube

***

The Magic Of Draft Zero

2011-08-17T12:21:00.004+01:00

One of the many mistakes made by new writers and indeed some not-so-new writers, is showing their work to people too soon. Serving it up before it's ready. It's not fully cooked, still pink in the middle. God knows, I've learnt from that mistake many times. (And God knows where I'm going with that script/chicken analogy. I'm hungry and I've been talking about Nandos with @PaulJHolden on Twitter.)

That initial urge to show your work to people ASAP is only natural. Until other people absorb your stuff into their brains, it's in a vacuum. Might as well not exist. If a script sits on a hard-drive with no-one around to read it, does it make a difference? No. Only to you, at this point in time, unless you have an agent who's badgering you to finish it, or at least waiting for it.

Hand in hand with that drive to show people, comes the feeling that whatever you write in that vast, gaping, intimidatingly blank Final Draft file will be read. Sometimes, that feeling can bring about a terrible paralysis. You're standing on the brink of a huge vortex of possibility. Worst of all, there's the sense that This Is It. No more talking: it's time to do. Time to prove yourself to the world. Again.

Me, I love the first draft. Love that open road, beckoning you to burn rubber. Most of all, though, I love the fact that no-one will ever read it.

This is because the first draft you hand to Important People should never be the actual first draft, but crucially, the first draft you've decided to show them. Personal first-draft, public first-draft. Very different beasts.

With that in mind, I like to call my first salvo Draft Zero. For one thing, it sounds cool. Zero-anything is cool besides, off the top of my head, Size Zero. Zero tolerance, Patient Zero, the Zero Room, Zero Mostel, allowing absolutely Zero to stop you finishing this script or novel.

For another thing, the concept of Draft Zero helps cement the idea in your head that this draft is your own personal sandpit. Sure, you're taking it seriously and making every effort to construct a strong skeletal structure to which you'll eventually graft muscle, organs and finally beautifully flawless skin, Hellraiser-style (see? You knew that photo above would eventually tie in to something). But at the same time, you have absolute carte blanche to fuck it up. You can't win unless you're not afraid to lose. Forget all external pressure and fuel yourself with internal pressure: the burning desire to write this story before you die of anticip-p-p-pation.

Launch yourself into that sandpit and write like the seven winds. Momentum is everything. Never look back. Pretend you're being chased by a shark which devours words (an image which reminds me to strongly recommend Steven Hall's extraordinarily vivid and imaginative novel The Raw Shark Texts). Some writers continually stop, survey what they've written, then go back to fix it. If that method works for them, great, but I can't do that. Momentum, momentum, momentum. When I realise I've messed up, or that things will need to be fixed later, I make Running Notes, then just keep writing.

When you reach the end of that fun, breathless marathon, what you have is Draft Zero. And it's yours. All yours. A template for future greatness.

You'll go back to rewrite it again and again, restructuring, ironing out the many flaws, de-clunking that often laughable dialogue, starting to introduce or strengthen those lurking themes. And at the end of that process, that's when you emerge triumphant from your steaming, churning brain-factory with The Actual First Draft.

Draft Zero is your own personal, very private firstborn. Enjoy the vacuum in which it resides. In space, no-one can hear you scream that it hasn't turned out quite how you expected.

***

E-Book Is Go!

2011-08-14T14:02:00.001+01:00

Good afternoon/evening/morning, my little laser beam.

My first ever e-book, How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else, is available now, via Amazon as a Kindle Edition or direct from me as a shiny PDF.

While my focus these days is very much on fiction and scriptwriting, I thought it might be a good idea to make use of the experience I built up over two decades as a journo-scribe.

If you'd like to know more about interviewing people or are just interested in the topic then you can, by all means, read the full blurb here on my How To Be A Journalist site. Good day to you!

E-Book Announcement

2011-08-08T13:40:00.000+01:00

Good afternoon! I've just made an announcement about my forthcoming first ever e-book.

Because it's all about interviewing people as a journalist, you can read about it at How To Be A Journalist, the separate site I recently started for aspiring journos and those interested in the topic. Hooray and good day to you!

Slipknot Biog Goes Electronic

2011-07-25T18:13:00.001+01:00

In 2001, I wrote a Slipknot biography calledSlipknot: Inside The Sickness, Behind The Masks for Random House. While unofficial, it involved way more exclusive interviews than most unofficial biogs, including lengthy chats with drummer Joey Jordison, producer Ross Robinson and plenty of locals from the band's Des Moines hometown. It also had an introduction from Ozzy Osbourne and an afterword from Gene Simmons. It's out of physical print now, but the publisher has made it available as an e-book. You can see the Kindle Edition of the book here on Amazon UK. On that same page, you can get a free sample of the book wirelessly sent to your e-reading device. Clever!

Edinburgh, FrightFest & The Like

2011-07-16T17:02:00.006+01:00

Dean Fisher, Dan Turner, some bloke

A month after the last blog post, it's plainly time for another. And there's a lot to tell you, so for Christ's sake stop molesting that swan and pull up a toadstool.

STORMHOUSE AT EDINBURGH!
Oh yes indeed - my debut feature film Stormhouse had its world premiere at the 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival. Two nights, no less, at the Filmhouse1 cinema. What an honour and a thrill.

In the picture to the left, you can see producer Dean Fisher, director Dan Turner and me, minutes before going into the first night's screening. Notice the large gin and tonic clasped in my paw and the barely-concealed terror in my eyes. We didn't know whether to expect five punters (including us) or 500. Thankfully, it was way closer to the latter, with a really good showing.

While watching Stormhouse, the audience looked very much like the picture below right. They jumped and often appeared to be hiding behind their hands, so I took that to be a good thing. They also applauded at the end. (Afterwards, it was great to get feedback from Twitterers like @stefanw1980, who said: "Just watched Stormhouse at #eiff and really enjoyed it. Not been scared by a film in a long time. A great independent supernatural horror!".) We celebrated our relief by piling ourselves and our attending cast members (Grant Masters, Grahame Fox, Patrick Flynn, Frankie Fitzgerald!) into a couple of people carriers and enjoying a banging rave party for the premiere of Momentum Pictures' film Weekender. God it was loud, but there were free cocktails and glowsticks.

Edinburgh Film Festival audience

That first screening wasn't quite loud enough, so we cranked the volume the following night. I had to head home, but Dan assured me it was much louder and people were jumping out of their seats. Lovely. Thanks to the Edinburgh Festival organisers, who made us feel so very welcome. No thanks, however, to Edbook Apartments. I'd advise you to give them a wide berth if looking for accommodation in that fine city. Ahem. Onwards.

LONDON FILM 4 FRIGHTFEST!
Yep, that's the next stop for Stormhouse! Loving that. I've been attending FrightFest since 2001, so it's pretty amazing to be there a decade later with a film I wrote. FrightFest is, of course, the UK's biggest horror and fantasy festival. They know how to do it properly, year after year, so I'm very much looking forward to that August Bank Holiday weekend. Stormhouse will screen on August 26 at 11.30pm, tantalisingly close to the witching hour, on the festival's Discovery Screen. You can see our FrightFest page here. Shortly after FrightFest, there's another UK screening of Stormhouse, outside of London, although I don't know if I'm allowed to announce that yet. So I'll keep my trap shut. More Stormhouse news to come this Summer.

THE BBC WRITERS' FESTIVAL!
This was the second annual event thrown by the BBC Writersroom, and attended by various TV and film-writing types, as well as a variety of special guests. As a big fan of BBC2's The Shadow Line, which recently aired, I was really pleased to sit in on a session with writer/director/producer Hugo Blick, as he talked about the process of creating it. The man spent four months just thinking about it, before he started the actual writing. Four months. That's something to think about, next time your writerly excitement bursts forth like volcanic lava, forcing you to launch into a script which you haven't entirely thought through.

The Shadow Line creator, Hugo Blick

Other panelists include Jimmy McGovern (legendary writer with a frank mouth to match), Kudos' Jane Featherstone, BBC Head of Drama Ben Stephenson, Matthew Graham, Ashley Pharoah, Toby Whithouse, Bill Gallagher, Paula Milne and John Yorke. The latter gentleman gave another fine semi-lecture, this year all about dramatic structure and scriptwriting gurus. John's two main conclusions boiled down to this:

1) All those gurus are basically peddling the same structure (and yes, he was aware of the irony that many perceive him to be just such a prescriptive guru). No matter which structure you adhere to, you can never escape the fact that the human brain has long been conditioned to need a beginning, middle and end. It's hardwired into our psyches, just like morning, afternoon and night, or birth, life and death.

2) Regardless of whether you believe in structure, you use it anyway, consciously or not. There's no escaping beginning, middle and end. Unless you're writing something deliberately mad. Or just mad.

I took a fair few iPhotos during the event, which you can see on my Tumblr here. Once again, a brilliantly organised and useful affair. Always nice to see a bunch of writers blinking against the unfamiliar onslaught of daylight and sociable behaviour.

THE MAN INSIDE!
Stormhouse director Dan Turner is shooting a new feature, right now, in the fine city of Newcastle. It's called The Man Inside and stars Peter Mullan, Michelle Ryan, Bashy, David Harewood, Carl Barat and plenty more. I'm pleased to say I script-edited The Man Inside, and am very much looking forward to seeing the results.

DEAD ROOTS!
I'm among the writers on a forthcoming graphic novel anthology of zombie stories. My story's called Consumed and is delightfully unpleasant. Editor Mike Garley suggested an artist whose distinctive work I liked a lot and so I'm tremendously excited to see the finished product there too. Comics are very much a medium I'm looking to sink my talons further into, so this will be a big step forward.

IN DEVELOPMENT!
Film 2011 co-host Danny Leigh and I are special guests at an In Development gathering, later this month. We'll be informally chatting to people about moving from journalism to fiction and how you can go about juggling the two, or making the jump altogether.

Right, I think that's you up to date. I've probably forgotten stuff. Follow me on Twitter if you'd like to keep up with everything, plus a whole load of nonsense which you'll regret signing up for. I also just joined Google+ (profile here), but aren't entirely sure whether I'll settle yet. Maybe see you there anyway, eh?

Coming up on this blog: an update on useful writing tools I've discovered on the iPad.

Stormhouse web page

Stormhouse on Twitter and Facebook

SFX interview with Dan and me, about Stormhouse

GeekChocolate interview with Stormhouse cast and crew

Doctor Who: Earworm Part Four

2011-06-18T15:05:00.000+01:00

Yes, it's the final instalment of Earworm, my Doctor Who Adventures comic story! When I've figured whereabouts to permanently place all four pages on the site, I'll run them together. So that you can, you know, read them from top to bottom, going down...

Doctor Who: Earworm Part Three

2011-06-17T16:30:00.000+01:00

Slightly later than advertised, it's the third instalment of Earworm, the four-page story I wrote for Doctor Who Adventures magazine! Missed the first two? Read the story from the beginning, here.

Final part tomorrow!

Doctor Who: Earworm Part Two

2011-06-16T14:58:00.002+01:00

Here's Part Two of my four-part Doctor Who Adventures comic story, Earworm. See yesterday's blogpost, here, for Part One. See you same time tomorrow, for Part Three!

Doctor Who: Earworm Part One

2011-06-15T15:02:00.001+01:00

Hello! In February, I wrote a four-page comic story for the brilliant weekly magazine Doctor Who Adventures. With their very kind permission, I'm going to run a page of that story every afternoon at around 3pm from now 'til Saturday. Enjoy!

Big Finish Day 2011 & Steven Moffat Interview

2011-06-12T19:36:00.003+01:00

Peter Anghelides, signing way more than me, yesterday

Hello, sexface! Enjoying the rain and wind? Or are you somewhere on Earth where weather is actually season-appropriate? (This question is rhetorical, obviously. If I see weather-related comments I will go MENTAL.)

Had a good time at Big Finish Day yesterday. The event happened at Barking's Abbey School and was a right old hoot for fans of the company's increasingly varied output. There were various panels, podcast-recordings and signings. Good lord, people even wanted my autograph, without me having to pay them money to come up to my table and pretend to know stuff that I'd written. I signed a fair few sleeves of Big Finish's Doctor Who: The Demons Of Red Lodge & Other Stories, to which I contributed the title-story. It was also nice to be presented with a few other items for which I'd written, like BBC audiobooks Doctor Who: The Gemini Contagion (craving more Matt Smith-era Who before the series resumes in the Autumn? Buy it, damn you!) and The Sarah Jane Adventures: Deadly Download.

That lovely card!

The day's most surprising moment came when a Very Nice Man named Mick handed me a homemade card which combined elements of Stormhouse (buy your Edinburgh tickets here, I says atcha!) and Friday The 13th: Hate-Kill-Repeat (politely pester Warner Bros in the States for a re-issue!). A really touching and thoughtful gesture and a big highlight of my day.

It was also great to catch up with various friends and meet a few new ones. I got to meet Who novelist Una McCormack, Full Circle scripter Andrew Smith and Scott Andrews for the first time, for instance. Lovely. A really fun day, and I was glad to hear there are plans for it to happen again next year.

While I've got you: since this is a Doctor Who-related post, you might be interested to learn that I've added an in-depth Steven Moffat interview to this very site. It's the online debut of an epic feature I wrote for Doctor Who Magazine in 2008, in which Lord Moffat reveals a great deal about his approach to writing, the love-hate madness of it and the psychology behind the whole creative thing. You can find it here, after you've scrolled down past my Doctor Who CV. Enjoy!

Ghost Writer: The Resurrection

2011-06-07T13:50:00.004+01:00

In 2009, I had a one-off 24-minute drama produced by the TAPS organisation. Ghost Writer is a story about love, death and letting go. I'm still very proud of what we all achieved in four-and-a-half hours on the Emmerdale sets, one Sunday morning in December.

Sadly, TAPS ran aground in 2010. This morning on Twitter, someone made me aware that their website had finally gone the way of all pixels - a website which included showcases of the various films which TAPS had made during their many years in existence. It was a shame to think of Ghost Writer joining the Choir Invisible. Why are films made, if not to be seen?

Happily, due to wonderful technology, plus the helpful generosity of knowledgeable folks on the Twitter, it has been a fairly simple process to (a) rip Ghost Writer from the TAPS showcase DVD using Handbrake software; and (b) upload the MP4 file to Vimeo. Voila - Ghost Writer returns. Of course, it no longer has anything like the through-traffic that the TAPS site would have enjoyed, but I like the fact that it remains in a public place.

You can now watch Ghost Writer on Vimeo here, in full-screen if you so wish, and with Miss Marple director Guy Slater's original aspect ratio lovingly preserved.

Why should you bother? Here are a few reasons:

1) It has a fine cast, including actors from Waterloo Road, Midsomer Murders, Casualty 1909 and one of my very favourite films, Dead Man's Shoes.

2) Hopefully it has something to say about relationships, their bad patches and the occasional painful necessity of putting them behind you.

3) The way it was shot - at light-speed, with few opportunities for second takes - lends it a certain buzz. A hint of live theatre.

4) It involves LETTERS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE. No-one can resist that, hmm?

Ghost Writer on Vimeo

Ghost Writer shooting script (PDF)

Doctor Who: Army Of Death

2011-06-02T14:12:00.001+01:00

Hello captain!

Just a quick one: last year, I wrote a new Big Finish audio play, starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and Julie Cox as Frankenstein author Mary Shelley. It's called Army Of Death and is out in December 2011, with a fine supporting cast in David Harewood, Eva Pope, Carolyn Pickles and Mitch Benn.

Army Of Death will conclude a trilogy of new Eighth Doctor/Mary Shelley stories. The preceding tales are Marc Platt's The Silver Turk and Rick Briggs' The Witch In The Well.

That's the bare bones information for now - rather appropriate since the story sees an uprising of scorched, walking skeletons! More, closer to release. Good day to you.

The 'Subtitle Script' Approach To Economical Dialogue

2011-05-31T13:20:00.003+01:00

Last week, I spent two or three days working on the subtitle script for Stormhouse.

A subtitle script is a time-consuming document to compile, which is nevertheless vital for making your film accessible to people all around the world. There are a few different variations of subtitle script, but this one was for the purposes of dubbing Stormhouse into foreign languages or presenting onscreen subtitles.

In one column, the subtitle script lists every single piece of dialogue and significant actor-made sound. In a second column, an abbreviated version of dialogue is presented, if the original dialogue is lengthy. This is, as you'd imagine, to help fit subtitles onto a screen. Each line also has to be supplied with an exact timecode of when it happens.

But enough of that: I'm not here to babble specifically about subtitle scripts. They're fairly dull, functional beasts. Compiling the script did, however, make me think about the economics of dialogue. Because occasionally I would prefer the abbreviated version of a line as I typed it into that second column.

Most of the time, an abbreviated version of the dialogue would lose something which I would prefer not to. Just a tiny thing, whether it be detail, shade, humour or subtext. I cut it anyway, for the sake of the subtitles/dubbing. But every now and then the abbreviation made a line leaner and meaner, with zero regrets. In fact, I occasionally wished I'd originally written the line that way.

So here's a suggestion, which is clearly just another way of looking at the editing process. Next time you're going through a script-draft, looking to improve it, apply The Subtitle Script Approach to dialogue or indeed your action lines:

What would the abbreviated, subtitle-script version of that line be?

Does a line repeat something which you've already established?

Could the sentence structure be more direct? Less passive? Less fiddly?

Do pointless qualifying words lurk within these lines? Does something need to be "really bad" when it could simply be "bad"?

Can you lose direct replies to questions - the "Yes"es and the "No"s - when the answer is made obvious by the reason which follows?

Basically: can you tighten lines without losing something you'd really prefer not to - and without making them SO abrupt and staccato that they resemble a Uzi round? If so, gouge away until those lines are pure fillet steak.

Stormhouse teaser trailer

Stormhouse on Facebook

Stormhouse on Twitter

Stormhouse: Yesterday's MCM Expo Panel

2011-05-29T13:36:00.000+01:00

At 1.30pm yesterday, we had a Stormhouse panel on the Cosplay Stage at London's brilliantly epic MCM Expo event. It's a vast (seriously, vast) get-together for lovers of comics, movies and games, which happens every six months and especially attracts folk who like dressing up in fun costumes.

Stormhouse director Dan Turner and I took to the stage with special/make-up FX veteran John Schoonraad, who has worked on the likes of Casino Royale, Rambo, X-Men First Class and indeed Stormhouse. What a pleasure. At the start of the panel, John commandeered a table and began applying prosthetic pieces and make-up to volunteer Tim, who you can see in his final guise, 45 minutes later, in the photo you see above. And below, you see Dan quizzing John during the panel.

Thankfully, Dan and I had a lovely panel-host, Louise, to fire questions at us, or we might simply have babbled like geese all the way through. We kicked things off with a plasma-screen airing of the film's teaser trailer, then made the first ever public airing of two scenes from the film, including an FX-heavy scene in Stormhouse's medical centre (see pic below). Dan talked along with the scenes, explaining what was going on and how various effects were achieved.

Then we continued to talk about the film while Mr Schoonraad beavered away on his table. It was a fun way to spend 45 minutes and the audience seemed engaged, which was no small achievement in a huge venue where people are spoilt for choice in terms of what to pay attention to. A resounding success.

Heading out of the venue, towards much-needed pints, we were delighted to see that our trailer was part of a looped programme playing on a huge screen outside the venue (see below), where hundreds of people hang out on the steps - thousands across the whole weekend. So if you're reading this while still at the Expo, take a look outside and you should see Stormhouse's teaser trailer loud on that screen!

We also scored a half-page feature in the event's official programme, which was great. Overall, then, a fine combination of fun and promotion for Team Stormhouse! Hooray.

For more photos, head over to the official Facebook page. And good God, don't be afraid to hit 'Like' while you're there!

Stormhouse: Edinburgh Preview Reel, MCM Expo News & More

2011-05-23T17:00:00.003+01:00

Well now. There I was, thinking I couldn't be prouder of the fact that me, director Dan Turner and producer Dean Fisher made a feature film in a country where it's allegedly impossible to do so, thanks to 'The System' trying to keep us all 'down'. But it turns out I can be prouder, ever since this morning, when the Edinburgh International Film Festival unveiled its 2011 Preview Reel, featuring Stormhouse clips amid other splendid-looking motion pictures.

The video below may well stretch out onto the right-hand column of this blog, but I don't mind if you don't. Stormhouse clips are scattered throughout this video, but most are clustered together after the 2.15min mark:

Lovely, isn't it? I like that a lot. I'd also like to tell you that tickets are now on sale for Stormhouse's two public world premiere screenings at Edinburgh.

Thursday June 23
Filmhouse 1, 22.10

Friday June 24
Filmhouse 1, 21.15

But that's not all! No, sir/madam, certainly not. There will also be a Stormhouse panel at London's MCM Expo event, this coming Saturday May 28 at 1.30pm. It's a huge event for lovers of comics, films and dressing up in fun costumes. We will be there, talking about the film with an FX spin. Dan, Dean and I will be joined by Stormhouse special/make-up FX genius John Schoonraad, who has worked on the likes of Casino Royale, Gladiator, Rambo, 28 Days Later and Event Horizon. Join us!

Also wanted to tell you about the power of the internet - and specifically, Twitter. The other day, I tweeted a link to the Stormhouse teaser trailer. Comic book legend Warren Ellis, a gentleman who I much admire, retweeted the tweet to his 414,000 followers. Wow.

But it got wowier. William Gibson, the man who invented cyberpunk and brought the world classic works like Neuromancer, then retweeted Warren's retweet. None more wowy. And so, you begin to realise how social media - and Twitter in particular - really can be about much more than what people are having for lunch (although I like to read a bit of that, frankly. I like the minutiae of people's lives.)

Having said that, it's a constant struggle to get people to watch even a 45-second teaser trailer for an unknown indie horror feature. Nothing shameful about anyone's initial disinterest or lack of awareness - there are a billion other things vying for their attention. So if I may refer you to my earlier post, Stormhouse Needs YOU, I'd love for you to help spread the word, if this film looks up your street. We genuinely need the support. Thank you!

The Stormhouse Facebook page has been updated today with a stills gallery, if you fancy a peruse and hitting 'Like', if you haven't already.

Finally, here are a few tremendous things that friends have been blogging about:

Phill Barron, on how to approach writers for advice in the right, polite fashion.

Danny Stack, on his new comedy web-series Liquid Lunch.

Simon Guerrier's advice on being a freelancer writer.

James Moran on his recently-shot film Cockneys Vs Zombies and Chas & Dave.

Also from Moran, an excellent 2008 blogpost, giving scripters a load of free advice which he really should have turned into an ebook.

Stormhouse Needs YOU

2011-05-12T12:14:00.000+01:00

The Stormhouse teaser trailer, as the title of this very blog-post subtly implies, is now on YouTube. Which means the trailer now belongs to the internet, to do with as it will.

If you like the trailer, and/or like supporting indie films which genuinely need support and assistance, then feel free to engage in any of the following fun activities:

YOUTUBE:

Link to the teaser with this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp5a6T0kCCw Or the handily-shortened version: http://bit.ly/j6fzDD

Embed the teaser into your own blog/webspace, just as I did on this very blog, by following the above link to YouTube, hitting 'Share', then grabbing the brief bit of code.

Hit 'Like' on the teaser's YouTube page, via above link. Provided you liked it, obviously.

FACEBOOK:

Go to the film's new Facebook page here and be among the first people to hit 'Like'.

Post something like this on your wall:
In 2002, the military captured and imprisoned a supernatural entity: http://bit.ly/j6fzDD

TWITTER:

Tweet something like this:
In 2002, the military captured and imprisoned a supernatural entity: http://bit.ly/j6fzDD #Stormhouse

Follow Stormhouse's progress on its Twitter page here.

Everything and anything you can do to help spread Stormhouse awareness will be much appreciated. Thank you, you effervescent human being.

Stormhouse Trailer Hits The Web

2011-05-06T16:17:00.001+01:00

Hello beautiful!

The first teaser-trailer for me and Dan Turner's horror feature Stormhouse is now hosted online on two key websites.

In the UK, across-the-board genre site Den Of Geek bigs up the film.

In the US, top horror site Bloody Disgusting unveils us to the world.

Great to get coverage like this on such excellent sites. And I love this teaser: hopefully it does the job of conveying Stormhouse's atmosphere, attitude and genre rather well.

Stormhouse Launches In Edinburgh

2011-05-04T15:40:00.000+01:00

We've known about this for over a month now, and have been dying to reveal it, but finally the news can be passed on: our feature film Stormhouse will have its world premiere at the 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011.

This is obviously tremendous news. Edinburgh is such a prestigious event and I couldn't think of a better way to launch Stormhouse upon the press and public. The film will enjoy two public airings during the festival (which runs from June 16 - 25) as well as a press/industry screening.

Director Dan Turner, producer Dean Fisher and I certainly intend to be there, to see our progeny unleashed. It'll be a tremendous honour to follow in the Edinburgh-premiering footsteps of the likes of Moon and The Hurt Locker. Congratulations to Dan, Dean and all our brilliant cast and crew members.

Variety article on the first batch of Edinburgh announcements

Voices From The Past

2011-04-27T23:05:00.003+01:00

This here Voices From The Past thing is an ebook anthology, crammed to the very gills with genre fiction. I've written a rather unpleasant horror story called The Screams Next Door for it, along with a whole host of other writers. Here's the full list of tales and their authors:

Another Kind of Lightning by Alasdair Stewart

Ascension Day by Alastair Reynolds

The Lab Gang by Andrew Smith

Master of the Game by Bill Willingham

Just Do It by Cavan Scott

The Maharajah’s Star by George Mann

Dr Wormhole by J. Robert King

He Loves Me Not by Jacqueline Rayner

The Screams Next Door by Jason Arnopp

Shuttle by Jasper Fforde

George V by Johnny Mains

Success by Joseph Lidster

The Wisdom of the Ages by Juliet E. McKenna

A Pot To Piss In by Kaaron Warren

Twisted by Lee Harris

Beauty Will Come by Mary Robinette Kowal

Mustn’t Grumble by Maura McHugh

Receipt of Fern Seed by Maurice Broaddus

750,000 of Your Friends Like This by Mur Lafferty

A Map of Lychford by Paul Cornell

The Curious Package by Paul Magrs

The Runt by Robert Shearman

The Chaos Exhibition by Scott Harrison

The Victim by Scott Sigler

On The Road Again by Stuart Douglas

Never Go Back by Susan Murray

In Leon’s Room by Thomas Fletcher

The God Confusion by Toby Hadoke

Looks good, yes? And it'll look even better when I tell you it costs a mere £0.99 from H&H Books. That's right - 99 pennies, or $1.59. That's mad. Couldn't even buy you a half in a pub. Mind you, there's an option to pay £2.99 if you'd like to give more to the hospital.

Surely, when I tell you that 100% of the proceeds are going straight to the London's Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, you'll now have this filed away in your brain under Must Buys. You can grab it from the launch day of April 30 onwards.

Here's the page for order details. Cheers!

UPDATE May 5: it's now for sale on Amazon UK.

Stormhouse: The BAFTA Screening

2011-04-05T13:02:00.005+01:00

Well, I'm still recovering from that. Have quite the headache. Still, if I keeled over and perished right now, then last night wouldn't have been the worst one to go out on.

It was great! BAFTA's lovely Princess Anne Theatre was 90% full - and thankfully, the reaction to our Stormhouse film was overwhelmingly positive.

You can't help but have your heart somewhere uncomfortably close to your mouth, as lights go down. Thankfully, one shock-jump moment in the first 10 minutes genuinely sent a jolt through the theatre, followed by that lovely shared laughter you get at the cinema, when a moment properly grabs the audience. After that, hopefully both audience and film-makers relaxed a little. But not too much in the audience's case, since we wanted to scare the hell out of them.

Working on a film, especially over a long period of time, is a funny business. It's easy to lose objectivity about how effective the thing is - and also what its true nature is. Watching Stormhouse alongside 200 other people really opened my eyes and ears as to how nasty and brutal it is. This is a pretty uncompromising film and I'm really proud of that. Director Dan Turner is not a man for compromise, and so this isn't just another saccharine borderline-horror film aiming for a '12A' certificate. This is about atmosphere, scares, darkness, uncomfortable moments, wince-making moments and pure, raw horror.

After the screening, Dan, producer Dean Fisher and I kidnapped our lovely test-screener crowd, who we'd positioned in the first three rows for ease of access. They kindly filled in our questionnaires, designed to find out what they liked least and most about the film. Then we informally quizzed them for a while. It was a very useful session indeed. I quickly learnt one thing: you're looking for that moment of forest-fire consensus. Someone asks a question and pretty much everyone makes a noise and nods. That's when you know the point really needs to be considered. Great stuff, which will genuinely allow us to strengthen Stormhouse in small but very important ways.

After the Q&A, we headed over to join cast, crew and industry guests at this really lovely bar...

... the Jewel in Piccadilly. What a lovely place - especially if you like spirits and are rich. It was great to see the cast and crew members again. Backs were slapped and plenty of compliments on the film came from guests. You can tell when someone didn't really like something, because they don't say any more than they need to. People generally hate lying. So they'll say something generic but encouraging, like "Well done!". But when they start breaking out the "Amazing"s and the "I loved it"s, you know there's more likelihood of sincerity. So that was nice.

And already, the buzz was starting to spread out through the Twittersphere. People saying stuff like this:

hedwig_thegreat Lisa McLisa
Just back home from @JasonArnopp's #stormhouse - congrats to all concerned - I really enjoyed it! :D I likes my horror super creepy :)

Joeymuz1 Joanna Murray
@JasonArnopp Totally loved @stormhouse_film tonight. Can't wait til release so I can bore my mates that I've already seen it. Brilliant!

WorksWithWords Lisa Holdsworth
Just had the bejesus and several other things scared out of me by @JasonArnopp 's film Stormhouse. Amazing new British horror movie.

Lisa_Moranio Lisa Moran
Home from @stormhouse_film Dunno why I'm bothering,I'll probably never sleep again anyway.Not without my bejaysus which was scared out of me

I swear these folks received no money from us. Incidentally, they were unaware that Dan has recently returned to Twitter (follow him here) - and this film is certainly far from being just my baby.

Thank you, again, to everyone who came to the screening and gave such valuable feedback. You've really helped to give us the courage of our convictions.

Hopefully, in the next month, we'll be able to make the Stormhouse announcement we've been dying to make for a few weeks now. Stay tuned. Do not adjust your set.

Stormhouse on Twitter

Stormhouse on Facebook

Stormhouse hits BAFTA tonight

2011-04-04T13:19:00.001+01:00

So, er, yes. Good God! Christ in a bowl! Etc.

In May 2010, Dan Turner and I sat in a Soho boozer, talking about Stormhouse.

Tonight, in April 2011, we'll sit among a BAFTA audience (in the theatre pictured above) and watch it.

Time flies when you're making films. Even when, in the UK, received wisdom suggests it's impossible to get them made. (It's only impossible to get things done when you decide it's impossible.)

Tonight is mainly two things: a test-screening event (in which horror fans with no connection to us will give feedback, via anonymous questionnaire forms, after the screening) and a cast-and-crew shindig for all the amazing people who worked themselves silly for this film. We'll have some industry folk along for good measure.

I'd be a liar if I said my stomach isn't rivalling an Olympic gymnastics team for impressive cartwheels and flips.

Let's go and break some legs.

The Howettgate Effect

2011-03-30T13:04:00.006+01:00

These last few days, a viral delight has swept the internet: self-published author Jacqueline Howett whipping up a petulant storm in the Comments section of a blog which gave her novel a fairly positive review.

It starts out as a lot of jaw-drop fun, in an oh-my-God, how-not-to-deal-with-criticism kind of way. Later comments in the 307-item thread, from countless folk desperate to show how much more professional than Howett they are, become mean-spirited and dull, but that initial, escalating tornado is pretty essential reading and I'm still chuckling at much of it. (Particularly the second of Howett's two "Fuck off!"s, which proves she's listening to none of the rather reasonable advice being given to her by shocked folk.)

Upon linking to Howettgate on my Facebook page, however, I became aware that 'Howettgate' has shone a bright light on the rather raw, grey area of (a) how writers should feel about criticism of their work and (b) whether they should ever respond - particularly in a public forum.

For my money, direct responses to criticism - whether public or otherwise - are by and large pointless and reek of unprofessionalism. If someone doesn't like an aspect, or even all, of your work, then it's their subjective opinion and you'll be unlikely to change their mind. Certainly, if someone has spent money on your work, they're entitled to say pretty much whatever they like about it. I've seen both good and bad reviews of my own work, and am perfectly happy to let the warm rush of the good wash over the undeniable momentary disappointment of the bad. If there was to be a damning, widespread consensus, this naturally wouldn't be pleasant, but you'd be foolish to rail against it, as it would clearly be sending you a message...

Ultimately, I find it difficult to take criticism personally because it usually comes from such a personal perspective. The critic's tastes simply don't chime with what you've created. If the pair of you got talking about films or food, you'd probably disagree on those too. So where's the hurt? I certainly don't feel it. The most I ever feel is a very mild irritation when net-critics appear to be frustrated writers (you can always tell those by the way they litter their assessments with technical writing terms, as if to not-so-subliminally convince the reader that they know the game and could do this better).

While comedy is surely one of the hardest and most stressful things to write, I also believe it to be a field where you'd be truly mad to take criticism personally. Humour is so blatantly subjective that you can hardly hold it against the viewer if your work doesn't tickle their mirth-glands.

It takes strength to absorb, ignore or cherry-pick the useful parts of criticism, then get on with your work with a quiet confidence, coupled with a never-ending desire to improve. For me, this cherry-picking approach works best. The idea of a writer 'taking' criticism imbues the critic with undue power - as if every negative missile automatically finds its target and damages us, unless we either respond or erect a tough barrier. Instead, I like to think of criticism as existing in a kind of 'critical limbo', from which we can reject or accept whichever positive/negative nuggets we choose. A criticism buffet, if you will. (What's that, you say? You won't? Fuck off! Ho ho.)

Of course, if someone makes an untrue personal accusation, then this is clearly different to offering their opinion of your work. Even then, these kind of snide hecklers don't exactly present themselves in the best light and in responding you may well give them the attention they crave. Probably best, nine times out of 10, to forget about them and get on with your work.

Writers definitely face a wobbly tightrope. Topple off one side and we become leaves in the wind, overly swayed by the opinions of every Tom, Dick and Harriet. Topple off the other and we become Jacqueline Howett, circa March 2011.

Surely, the answer is to ensure we're happy with our work. If that's the case, then we shouldn't need to waste energy and radiate insecurity by defending it. And, frankly, if we're working hard enough, we shouldn't have time.

***

My ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else, is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de. You can also get the PDF Edition direct from me. More details here, you splendid individual.

The Gemini Contagion on 'DVD'

2011-03-15T10:39:00.001Z

The TARDIS Art blog has smoothly transformed the cover art for my BBC audiobook Doctor Who: The Gemini Contagion into the style of a BBC DVD release for the TV series. Looks great, no?

After a brief spot of release date confusion, The Gemini Contagion is now available to buy (CD or download) in all good online and physical shops. The best price I've seen for the CD is £4.63 here at Amazon UK.

As you can see, it features Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond in a rip-roaring adventure read by the brilliant Meera Syal. A rampaging mind-virus, icky flying starfish, shrieking, rapid gunfire, explosions and aerial combat? How can you refuse, hmmmm?

Pick up the current issue of Doctor Who Magazine - the one with the Comic Relief cover - and you'll find an interview with me about The Gemini Contagion, in which I quack on at some length about how it's about the breakdown of interpersonal communication, etc. What a right royal treat!

Stormhouse Comes To Twitter

2011-03-09T10:03:00.001Z

Just a quickie, m'loves, to inform you that our Stormhouse horror feature now has a Twitter feed. Follow it for news updates, and you'll be the first to hear exciting news about the film's world premiere, which frankly I'm dying to tell you right now. Can't, mind. Anyway. We'll also follow you back, for your trouble. That's the kind of people we are. Good day to you.

Big Finish Day

2011-03-05T10:30:00.000Z

Good morning to you, sir/madam.

I'm appearing at the Big Finish Day in Barking on June 11. Running from 10am until 4pm at Barking Abbey School, it will literally be awash with Big Finish's great and good. And me.

The event's webpage claims that I'll be signing free autographs, but I'm afraid that won't be the case. No - I shall be handing a crisp tenner to anyone who asks me to sign an item*.

In seriousness, it should be a superb event for lovers of the decade-old audio company, which makes officially-licensed audio plays for shows like Doctor Who, Highlander, Stargate and Robin Hood. Big Finish's big hitters like Nicholas Briggs, Robert Shearman and Gary Russell will be present, along with a whole host of writers, directors and actors. Tickets are £25. Perhaps I'll see you there, hmmm?

* Not really (just for the absolute avoidance of doubt).

London Comedy Writer's Festival: Ticket Discount!

2011-03-01T18:20:00.000Z

Thank God! There you are. Where have you been? I've been worried sick. Hope you're pleased with yourself.

Anyway, now you've finally decided to show your face, you cheeky whippersnapster, I can tell you about The London Comedy Writers Festival 2011, which sounds like a right hoot and useful to boot, for those who fancy a career in chuckle-smithery or indeed those who are already carving out such a thing.

It happens in London on April 9 and 10, with a pre-registration shindig on the 8th if you're game. Confirmed guests include the legendary Griff Rhys Jones, Jon Plowman (the man who commissioned The Office), Jessica Hynes (nee Stevenson), Red Dwarf creator Doug Naylor, The Inbetweeners script editor Robert Popper and Avalon's John Thoday.

You can gauge the sessions' plentiful nature by examining the hectic density of this PDF schedule for the Saturday. The whole thing's run by the same people who brought you the widely-lauded 2010 London Screenwriters' Festival, so organisation should be top-notch.

Tickets are £149 each, but woo-hoo! Readers of this blog can secure a mighty discount of £25 on each and every ticket purchased by entering the top-secret discount code 'BLOGGERY' during the purchasing process here. Lovely! Good day to you!

Doctor Who Developments

2011-02-21T00:19:00.002Z

My first comic strip, Earworm, was published in Doctor Who Adventures magazine on February 11. Writers don't get to see the artwork ahead of publication, so it was a joy to see the finished article upon returning from holiday a few days back. Artists John Ross and Alan Craddock did a brilliant job of bringing this story to the page. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and hope to do more comic strippery soon.

In other Eleventh Doctor news, my BBC audiobook Doctor Who: The Gemini Contagion now has two release dates: March 1 for download-to-own and March 10 for shiny CD. My comp copies arrived yesterday and I finally got to hear the finished recording. I'm blown away by Meera Syal's delivery - she really goes at the material, switching voices and accents with ease. I feel slightly guilty for two things: making her do a fair bit of guttural bellowing and also including such an international cast of characters. The voice she's given alien scientist Korn Palloa is particularly applause-worthy.

At the moment, I'm still working hard on two Doctor Who projects for Big Finish. Enjoying them immensely. Hope you're splendidly well! Good day.

Doctor Who Adventures: Earworm

2011-02-10T20:54:00.002Z

When I was a kid, I'd write and draw Doctor Who comic strips. Loads of them, in endless notebooks. Most of those tales, funnily enough, involved the Doctor running away from Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans, as laser bolts and the like whizzed over his shoulders.

My first Doctor Who comic story as an adult hit UK shelves today. I've written Earworm, in Doctor Who Adventures magazine. Featuring the Eleventh Doctor (or Matt Smith, to most non-fan folk), Amy and Rory, it's about a young boy who keeps hearing weird music. He's persuaded to visit a doctor, who turns out to be... well, I'm sure you can imagine.

As I love both Doctor Who and comic books, this is a significant development for me, and also a deep source of joy.

In further Who news, the next thing of mine to be released is my Doctor Who BBC audiobook The Gemini Contagion. Read by the excellent Meera Syal, it's out in the UK on March 10 as a single CD story - and also as a double-pack with Martin Day's The Jade Pyramid from March 15. Excellent! I was recently interviewed about The Gemini Contagion by a couple of Doctor Who magazines, so those should be out closer to release.

Good day to you, specialface.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

First Sitcom Eps

2011-02-07T11:11:00.000Z

Lately, been taking a look at the first episodes of a few sitcoms. The vast majority of them plunge you straight into the comedic action, as if ep 1 could be interchangeable with ep 4 or 5. There are a few exceptions, which are often referred to as 'premise pilots'. In these, ep 1 is devoted to setting up the format which the other eps will follow.

I started a hashtag thread on Twitter over the weekend, to which the likes of The IT Crowd's script editor Andrew Ellard and Peep Show writer Sam Bain ended up contributing. As you'd expect, much wisdom was the result. Here are some choice excerpts, after I asked what good examples of first sitcom eps might be...

@ellardent: "#FirstSitcomEps Friends is my high-watermark pilot. Characters come in clear, it has its own stories, series entirely established. Perfect."

@ellardent: "#FirstSitcomEps I'm pretty anti full-on premise pilots - set-up shows that don't entirely resemble what the show will be."

@ellardent: "#FirstSitcomEps BBC4's Getting On, Great Outdoors and Thick Of It all nail first eps - when you only have 3 eps, you get on with 'the show'."

@sambaintv: "#FirstSitcomEps The Simpsons - like most sitcoms, the characters get better drawn over time."

@ellardent: "#FirstSitcomEps Writing an ep one that could be ep 2 is a sign of confidence. "This is our show." Peep Show, Men Behaving Badly. No crutch."

You can take a look at the whole thread here - it's quite compact. Twitter conversations being what they are, you'll want to start at the bottom for the oldest post, then read up. Good day to you.

The Gemini Contagion: Press Release

2011-01-20T15:04:00.000Z

Here are the words on the press release which AudioGO (formerly BBC Audiobooks) have sent out, about my Eleventh Doctor/Amy Doctor Who audiobook The Gemini Contagion. Pleasingly, the synopsis is pretty much culled from my outline for the story. It's great that Meera Syal (The Kumars, Doctor Who Series Five) is reading it - I haven't heard the recording yet, but I'm sure she'll knock it out of the park, as they say.

"The ice-planet Vinsk, in the year 2112. The all-new anti-viral handwash, Gemini, has been laced with Meme-Spawn: a sentient micro-organism which makes the user fluent in every language in the universe. However, manufacturer Zalnex made one crucial mistake. They didn’t test Gemini on humans, who are seized by the violent urge to communicate but speak every language all at once – with a manic, garbled shriek – and pass on the virus by touch.

The Doctor and Amy arrive on an Earth-bound cargo-ship loaded with Gemini, where a human crew are succumbing to the virus which has nasty second and third phases in store. When the Doctor and Amy are separated, they both know that it’s only a matter of time before Amy is infected.

With the ship locked on course, and no way of curing the sufferers, the Doctor is faced with a terrible decision: does he save Amy, or Earth?

Meera Syal reads this exclusive audio story featuring the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond.

Written specially for audio by Jason Arnopp, ‘The Gemini Contagion’ is read by Meera Syal, who played Nasreen Chaudhry in the BBC TV episodes ‘The Hungry Earth’ and ‘Cold Blood’."

You can pre-order Doctor Who: The Gemini Contagion for a very reasonable £6.29 at Amazon UK here.

The Gemini Contagion's Lovely Cover!

2011-01-18T14:00:00.002Z

Not-So-Secret Agent

2011-01-12T14:07:00.001Z

Hello you delight! I'm very pleased to announce that, as of this week, I have representation for film and TV. My new agent is Matthew Dench of The Dench Arnold Agency. He's a splendidly laidback fellow with, vitally, an appreciation and understanding of genre fare.

Being a naturally pro-active type, I was always inclined to build up a head of career-steam myself, in order to become a viable proposition for an agent, rather than prematurely chasing them. I don't see any point at all in badgering an agent before you are that kind of proposition. Put yourself in the agents' position: particularly in this unforgiving economic climate, do you want to devote your precious time and effort to a writer who's already in business, or one who needs a lot of hand-holding and development? The answer may be harsh, but it undeniably makes perfect sense.

By the time I attended the Cheltenham Screenwriters' Festival in October 2009, I felt ready to chat to a few agents. The nice thing was, I was getting enough work by myself. At the level I was working at back then, I didn't really need an agent. So I could talk to potential representatives without exuding anything like that air of 'Save my career!' desperation which quite probably makes them run a mile.

Matthew Dench was one of the agents I spoke to at the festival. I got talking to him in the green room and we went to see one of the event-sessions together. Over the 14 months since, it's been an unhurried process. Matthew read through a few of my scripts and we got together for a meeting at his office every few months, sizing each other up to a degree.

When he read my horror feature spec Forgiveness, over this last Christmas break, it seemed to not only cement his decision to represent me, but confirmed that he was the right agent for me. If he'd been put off by the grimness of that script, then perhaps I might have wondered whether we were the best possible match. As it is, though, the contract's signed and we can move merrily on.

So how will things be different for me now? Well, shockingly, Matthew has point-blank refused to write any of my scripts for me, or even come up with any ideas for scripts. So that's frankly a bit of a bind. In seriousness, though, having an agent means that my work will be read quicker, and by more people. Representation will open doors, but I still need to be armed with strong material when I walk through them. I also won't have to worry that I'm missing tricks when I read contracts. Or negotiate price. This pleases me, because few writers enjoy that side of things. It involves a side of the brain which we prefer to ignore.

Perhaps the best thing about having an agent is that it can't help but gee you along. Suddenly, you have someone who believes in your writing, to the extent that they're willing to put time and effort into selling it. All of a sudden, someone's waiting for that new market-ready spec or outline.

Suddenly, there's pressure. Real pressure. And a writer can never have enough of that.

Bonus Demons!

2011-01-06T20:04:00.001Z

Did you buy Big Finish's audio CD set Doctor Who: The Demons Of Red Lodge & Other Stories?

If so, then first of all, thank you. Secondly, the company have just released a download-only extended version of the CD extras, which covers all four stories on the release. All four authors - me, William Gallagher, John Dorney (who also acts on this release) and Rick Briggs -are interviewed, along with Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Susan Kyd, director Ken Bentley and script editor Alan Barnes.

As you'll possibly discern while listening, I'm not particularly used to being interviewed. Much more used to the shoe being on the other foot. While being interrogated, I have to stop myself from firing questions back at the interrogator. Must shape up those interview skills for 2011.

In Other News: my new Tell Arnopp feature seems to be going rather well, with a fair few people responding to it. I'm enjoying reading what people are achieving, and it rather has the unexpected effect of spurring me on too. Lovely.

Oh, and I now have a Wikipedia page. Liking that.

And frankly, if I may be rather forward, I am LOVING YOU. Without you, this blog would be rubbish. Just letters and words, floating aimlessly around in an electronic lagoon.

Good DAY to you.

Tell Arnopp!

2011-01-04T19:09:00.004Z

Happy New Year, sir/madam/charming combination of the two.

I've been thinking about this idea for a while. Might not work at all, but there's no harm in seeing if it's of interest.

We writers are often solitary beasts. Very few people understand what we do. Even our nearest and dearest people often struggle to get it. They're broadly supportive, but if someone sat them down and asked exactly what we do, they'd probably find themselves coming up short.

As a result, writers - especially new writers - can struggle to find motivation. It can seem like they're typing away in a void. After a while, that question rears up in the back of the mind: "What difference does it make if I write today or not? Who will know or care?". Of course, motivation has to come from within. You have to sit down and write, as if the whole world is going to care. But a little help with motivation never goes amiss.

Some writers use blogs and/or Twitter as a way of telling the world how many pages or words they've bashed out. That's fine, but not everyone is that forthcoming in a public space.

So here's the idea. At the end of each writing day, drop me an e-mail and tell me how much writing you've done that day.

There are only three rules. And the first one isn't strictly even a rule.

1) I won't be able to reply to you. I will, however, read all e-mails. So you know that somewhere in my brain is the information that, for instance, you've written 10 pages of your World War II drama. And if you stop writing to tell me about a project's progress, you'll know that somewhere in my brain, I know that you didn't finish it and will be pointing an accusatory finger at you from afar.

2) This one's vital: Please don't tell me anything about your story's content. Not one thing. E-mails which start to tell me anything about the story you're writing will be regretfully deleted straight away - as will anything with an attachment. Or anything which isn't Telling Me What You've Written Today. Or messages kindly offering me Viagra. I'm sure you realise this, but this rule isn't because I don't care about your story - it's to protect me legally. Tell me the genre if you like, but that's not necessary.

So to sum up this rule: telling me "I've written ten pages of my World War II drama today" is great. Telling me "I've written ten pages of my World War II drama today - it's about the effects of the war on a family in Chiswick" is not. Just for the absolute avoidance of doubt: by sending your message to tell me you're writing a World War II drama, for instance, you agree not to be mad enough to cry "Rip off!" if I happen to also write a World War II drama, somewhere down the line. (I refuse to believe anyone would be this mad, but you never know.)

3) Please only tell me how much you've written - not how much you're planning to write.

So if you're determined to start the New Year with a full head of steam, and would like someone to know what kind of progress you're making - in either scripts, prose or anything else creative - then Tell Arnopp is the 'service' for you! Tell me as often as you like - every day, once a week, once a month, whatever helps. This should be interesting - I may receive no e-mails whatsoever, but I have a feeling a few people might like it.

What's the e-mail address? It's 'TellArnopp at gmail dot com'. Starting now.

Use it only for good.

2010: Doctor Who, Stormhouse, Sarah Jane & Other Fun Stuff

2010-12-29T21:26:00.027Z

Hello tinsel-chops!

Sweet baby Jesus in a Pret A Manger: what a year that was. If ever there was a year in which I did a shedload of work and gained confidence in my ideas-flow, it was 2010. I wrote my first produced feature film. I wrote my first scripts for BBC Audiobooks and Big Finish, including one for the current incarnation of the Doctor, as played on TV by Matt Smith.

What follows are the details of pretty much everything I did (professionally, mind - you'll hear nothing of the time I fought a 15-foot clay badger in a quarry) in the last 12 months. To be honest, writing this stuff is more for my benefit than anything else. At this time of year, I like to stop and take stock. So if you'd prefer to return to your New Year Limbo Period booze, I certainly shan't hold it against you.

STORMHOUSE

Somewhere in the year's second quarter, director Dan Turner and I went for a drink. We'd worked together before on various projects, including freaky, sexy short film Look At Me. At one point during our beer-fest, Dan oh-so-casually mentioned his idea for a film in which "the military capture a ghost". I immediately keeled over, picked myself up and became obsessed with the idea. We spent the rest of the night quacking about it and deciding that this could well make a super-scary horror film.

The idea grew and grew, until suddenly it became Stormhouse, a film shot in August and starring the excellent Katie Flynn, daughter of Jane Seymour. Yes, Stormhouse really happened that fast - and I'm glad it did. There's nothing like the rush of shooting towards deadlines like an Exocet to induce full creativity in the brain. Stormhouse was filmed in a military base nestled away in the English countryside, with me as writer and executive producer. That shoot was unquestionably one of the finest experiences of my life. Cast and crew alike stayed in the base, which gave the production a real sense of camaraderie. I slept each night on an airbed in a creepy office off a creepy corridor - both of which were locations by day. I loved the whole experience - apart from the mad, incessant flies.

Stormhouse is currently in the last stages of post-production: music (Sam Watts!), FX, sound, grading - all with Dan and producer Dean Fisher toiling away at the eye of the storm. We have a fine sales agent in AV Pictures, who handled the likes of Neil Marshall's Dog Soldiers (see their website page for Stormhouse here) and the film will be released in 2011. Can't wait for you to see it, if supernatural horror is your bag.

FORGIVENESS

The first thing I wrote in 2010, Forgiveness is a horror feature spec script. It was created while I was in a hateful mood, which I'm convinced can be the best possible mindset with which to approach writing a horror film. Or at least, it seemed to work with this one. A rather bleak and harrowing beast, it loosely combines Misery with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, as a story about a couple menaced in the middle of nowhere hopefully transforms into something a little different. Forgiveness is now with a prospective agent. Hooray.

GHOST WRITER

Somewhere around June, my 24-minute TAPS film Ghost Writer became available for anyone to watch online. It was shot on Emmerdale's Leeds sets in December 2009, benefiting from a marvellous veteran TV director in Miss Marple's Guy Slater and a lovely cast in Barrie Ryan English, Grownups' Fiona Wass, The Bill's Giles Ford, Waterloo Road's Lisa Brookes and Seamus O'Neill from one of my favourite films, Shane Meadows' Dead Man Shoes.

Especially given the limitations which were imposed by the good folk at TAPS (no more than six characters, no more than 20 scenes, no more than three locations and a four-hour shoot!), I'm very happy with the results. Ghost Writer was a training ground in every respect, teaching me a lot about the realities and economics of television production.

Sadly, the TAPS organisation folded in 2010, after 17 years of helping new writers up the career ladder. I'm honoured to have been among their final batch of graduates. Thankfully, Ghost Writer remains online at the TAPS website, so if you haven't seen it yet, then I'd be delighted if you had a look.

BBC AUDIOBOOKS

God, the amount of time I spent this year, explaining the various different formats of audio-things I was writing! Audiobooks, audio plays, mimed vignettes on half-inch tape... Well, maybe not that last one.

In October 2009, I hosted a couple of sessions at the Cheltenham Screenwriters' Festival - and one of my panelists was Michael Stevens, the Commissioning Editor at BBC Audiobooks. Afterwards, I shamelessly hustled the poor man, asking if I could pitch an idea for an Eleventh Doctor audiobook. Being a splendid fellow, he said yes and advised me to submit something to his new range editor John Ainsworth in the New Year.

I was delighted when my two-page storyline, for something called The Language Of Spawn back then, successfully made it through the filtration process guarded by Michael, John, the remarkable Gary Russell (who is the nexus through which everything Doctor Who-related must pass, in order to gain a greenlight from BBC Wales) and supremo Steven Moffat himself. The title became The Gemini Contagion (oh God, the number of alternative titles that got scribbled into a notepad, before I settled on that one) and I set to work. Absolutely loved writing for Doctor Eleven and his companion Amy Pond - and I hope that, come the audiobook's March 3 2011 release, Who fans feel at least a fraction of my own enthusiasm!

While working on Doctor Who: The Gemini Contagion, I was invited to pitch for one of the BBC's two annual Sarah Jane Adventures audiobooks. Elisabeth Sladen's performance as Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who is inextricably woven into my childhood memories and it's fantastic that she continues to delight kids and adults alike in Russell T Davies' successful CBBC show. So I pitched a storyline called Deadly Download and was delighted when it once again made it through the filtration process which included Russell himself. I didn't have too long in which to turn this one around, but sheer enthusiasm bustled me along.

One interesting distinction between the writing style required by both audiobooks was the POV. Doctor Who audiobooks are written in the third-person and enjoy different narrators each time, while the Sarah Janes are necessarily first-person because Elisabeth Sladen will be reading them in character. As a result in Sarah Jane audios, nothing must be described which Sarah Jane wouldn't be aware of in some believable way. This makes things a little more challenging, but I like that. The Sarah Jane Adventures: Deadly Download was released in early November and has since had some nice reviews. I'm very happy with it indeed. Elisabeth Sladen does a brilliant job of reading the story and whole-heartedly bringing characters to life, while producer Neil Gardner and Simon Power's soundscaping is exemplary.

BIG FINISH AUDIO PLAYS

Also during the Summer, I pitched a storyline for something called Nightfall to longstanding audio production company Big Finish. This was retitled The Mindkillers and then finally The Demons Of Red Lodge, which ended up as the title-story of the anthology Doctor Who: The Demons Of Red Lodge & Other Stories (see recent blog for full details). The first thing I actually wrote for Big Finish, however, was The Lions Of Trafalgar.

That one is a short story featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan, which has been read for audio for Peter Davison. It will be published as part of one of 2011's three Doctor Who: Short Trips anthologies for CD/download. The research for this tale happily involved a couple of trips to Trafalgar Square, which is always a pleasure. I was excited to learn about a historic dinner party which took place on top of Nelson's Column, which ended up becoming a big part of the story.

OTHER DELIGHTS

I contributed a fair deal to a fantastic new annual-style Doctor Who book, Doctor Who: The Brilliant Book 2011, which emerged in plenty of time to be snatched up for Christmas. My work on this included a fun piece of short fiction, The Stone Totems, which took the form of a Natural History Museum plaque explaining the Stone Daleks' alleged history.

In February, I was pleased to number among the speakers at Newcastle's Story Engine event - a really friendly and intimate affair, which I'd recommend to any writer. It's back again in March 2011!

With so much of my work in 2010 being bound for audio and film, it was good to write something for an actual book. That something was The War Of Art, a short story in Big Finish's hardback print anthology Bernice Summerfield: Present Danger. Floating lizard-heads, firey death, enormous art installations and timey-wimey tomfoolery were the names of that particular game.

I was among the judges in The National Student Film Association's inaugural scriptwriting competition. A fun process, looking through the scripts and enjoying some really nice work.

On a journalistic front, I was delighted when the readers of Doctor Who Magazine voted my Tom Baker and Christopher H Bidmead interviews as their favourites of 2009. Amazing to get that kind of appreciation from a readership which I've numbered among since 1979.

And that reminds me of perhaps my proudest moment of the year. Andrew Smith wrote the 1980 Doctor Who TV story Full Circle, which I watched and enjoyed when I was eight years old. In November this year, Andrew sent me a message on Twitter to say that he'd bought my Deadly Download audio for his eight-year-old daughter's birthday. Wow. Talk about full circle...

2011: WHAT NEXT?

As happy as I am with my progress over the last 12 months, I'll be aiming to achieve more than I did in 2010. But everyone says that.

As I said in the the last post, I have a couple of irons in the fire with Big Finish - one of which is a rather large iron which should keep me busy for most of January. I also have a couple of TV spec ideas knocking about the brain, two features in development and a non-fiction e-book which I want to write.

I will be writing a short story for an e-book anthology called Voices From The Past. This will be published by H&H Books in April 2011 and features a whole host of fine writers like Paul Cornell, Paul Magrs and Rob Shearman (see the current list here). All proceeds from Voices... will go to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

I fully intend to keep blogging in 2011, although as in 2010, the influence of Twitter will mean that blogposts tend to be reserved for longer pieces which couldn't be adequately conveyed in 140 characters. Incidentally, you may find my various Twitter lists to be of use - I have several, listing directors, scriptwriters, producers and all sorts. If you're wondering who to follow on Twitter, then these lists may be of some use. I currently follow far too many people and seriously need to cut down on new follows, I'm afraid - but if you follow me, I will at least endeavour to put you on one of my lists in return if you're serious about one of the professions covered by them.

Right, that seems to be everything. I can now stop talking about myself. Phew.

Happy New Year!

Actually, no. That's not good enough.

Amazing New Year!

Demons Unleashed!

2010-12-24T19:13:00.004Z

Festive greetings!

Over the last week, on and off, I've been working on a blog about My Writing Year. This will emerge in that glorious limbo between Boxing Day and New Year's Day. Right now, though, just wanted to stop by and issue the aforementioned greetings, while quacking about Doctor Who: The Demons Of Red Lodge And Other Stories.

While audio production company Big Finish's release date for this - and the one which remains on Amazon - was December 31, it transpired that both CD and download became available this week. This was a nicely surprisingly early Christmas present. So, what is The Demons Of Red Lodge...?

It's an audio anthology featuring four self-contained 25-minute stories. Each stars Peter Davison as the Doctor and Sarah Sutton as companion Nyssa, along with various supporting cast members. Due to the clever co-ordination of our brilliant script editor Alan Barnes, the tales enjoy the odd link while being completely and utterly different from each other. Why, the whole thing's like some kind of Christmas selection box.

The Demons Of Red Lodge...'s
beautiful Big Finish CD sleeve

I wrote The Demons Of Red Lodge itself. It sees the Doctor and Nyssa waking up in a woodshed in 17th Century Suffolk, terrified without knowing why or being able to remember how they got there.

The second story, The Entropy Composition, was written by Rick Briggs who won a Big Finish competition this year, and takes the novel approach of involving prog rock in the proceedings.

Doing Time was penned by my friend and fellow blogger William Gallagher (pictured above with some pointy bloke with a shiny ring, in the very depths of Big Finish HQ), who came up with the solid-gold genius idea of putting the Doctor in prison. For a year.

The collection is splendidly rounded out by lovely John Dorney's Special Features which takes the form of a faux DVD commentary in which the Doctor is one of the speakers. Remarkable, funny stuff. Dorney is annoyingly multi-talented: the man also acts in, I believe, three of the stories, including mine.

As I say in journo Dan Berry's preview piece in the current Christmas edition of Doctor Who Magazine, I was rather channelling The Blair Witch Project in my story. Mainly in terms of the atmosphere, of course - but also in terms of the rising panic of people in that situation.

Joshua Leonard in The Blair
Witch Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project is one of my favourite horror films. There, I’ve said it. Unfortunately, the 1999 delight really polarises people. This is largely, I reckon, because its US-based hype led to it becoming a glorified test of how tough people were in other territories: the cinematic equivalent of a vindaloo. Most folks then became determined not to let it burn them.

I also like combining things. So I wanted to see what would happen if I dropped the Fifth Doctor – the most fragile and vulnerable of them all – into Blair Witch territory, with scary woods, no compass, no short-term memory and no TARDIS. What if he woke up scared in darkness, in the middle of nowhere, alongside an even more petrified Nyssa? Without even a Blair Witch-esque legend to pin his imagination to, the Doctor would have no idea of the nature or magnitude of the threat he’s facing or even a recollection of where or when he is.

That’s the initial premise of The Demons Of Red Lodge. The Doctor, afraid in the dark, without even knowing why he’s afraid. He and Nyssa have nothing to fear but fear itself. Or do they? Little did I know, however, the extent to which Peter and Sarah seized that opportunity and made it all look so effortless in the studio, aided and abetted by top-notch director Ken Bentley. (Susan Kyd is also great in two roles here and it was also lovely to have a contribution from Duncan Wisbey - a great voice artist who starred in one of the sketches I wrote for Radio 4's Laurence & Gus: Hearts & Minds last year.)

On the day of recording, Peter had something of a gravelly throat from shoutingalot in the West End's Spamalot. This almost certainly helped him lend the Doctor's voice a nicely raw edge during the Demons sessions. I'm so happy with the results and proud to be a part of such a consistent release, which seems to be going down pretty well with fans. I'm especially prone to punching the air when someone refers to it as "scary" or even "terrifying" - that was very much the intention.

The Demons Of Red Lodge & Other Stories is my first Big Finish release. Will there be more? I don't think I'm breaking any confidences by saying yes. I'm writing two new things right now, for 2011. (Well, not right now. Right now, I'm lounging on a sofa with an iPad and a magically refilling glass of sherry, pootling around on Twitter and stuff. But you get the idea.) This pleases me a great deal - can't wait to tell you about this mad new stuff, hopefully in the first few months of the imminent new year.

I insist that you have the finest feasible Christmas! I'll back to babble about my 2010 and hopefully also list my Top 10 Writers' Apps/Games Of The Year.

Misletoeing you already...

Doctor Who: The Demons Of Red Lodge & Other Stories can be bought as a CD or download from Big Finish Productions here.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad (although I then had to use a netbook to get it just so...)

Running Notes

2010-11-25T16:45:00.005Z

Hello there, it's me. I'm taking a short break from writing fiction like some possessed jackanapes, to take a quick tea-break and tell you about a technique I've quite recently started using during script drafts. You might well do it yourself and I certainly didn't invent it, but just in case you don't already do it, you might want to consider it. Got that? *Exhales*

Wait a second, while I have a sip of tea. I'm gasping.

Right. I'm currently writing two scripts at once. Both first drafts. With deadlines being what they are right now - somewhat pressing - the priority has to be to keep going. I'm always like that with first drafts - keep going, don't look back, don't let the Devil gnaw your heels, for he almost certainly is riddled with syphilis - but in this case I need to be even more steamrolleresque.

Among the many enemies of first draft momentum - any draft momentum, in fact - are niggling thoughts. You're working on Page 7, while your hind-brain slags you off for making a terrible job of Page 6. "Why did she say that? And because she's said that, this now doesn't make sense". And the like. Your hind-brain may well be right, but unless these niggles will seriously affect the structure of what's to come, you can wait 'til the second draft to fix them.

Except your hind-brain doesn't want to wait. Oh no. It starts throwing your mental furniture around, protesting that it won't be able to settle until these Page 6 niggles are straightened out. And while it's up, what the hell were you thinking on Page 3? You didn't even mention that Jemima and Hieronymous were siblings! These things must be fixed NOW, godammit, or they might even be forgotten, down the line.

This is where running notes come in. A simple notepad, by your side, in which you write the likes of 'Page 3: State J & H are sibs'. There. The hind-brain is silenced, its moans purged, but you haven't had to go back in the script and break your Page 7 concentration for more than a few seconds. You know that, when you come to that second draft, you can make these relatively small yet important changes. But for now, all that matters is finishing the first draft and meeting that deadline.

Whaddaya mean, you're writing a spec and so don't have a deadline? You should have given yourself one.

Oh, for Christ's sake. Tea's gone cold. Honestly, you could've told me I was going on a bit.

Good day to you.

***

Sarah Jane Adventures: DWM Interview Extended

2010-11-15T22:57:00.002Z

Hello, you unthinkably alluring saucebag.

In this month's Doctor Who Magazine, there was a preview of my Sarah Jane Adventures audiobook, Deadly Download, which was released on November 4. The writer, David Darlington, kindly agreed to let me run the full interview, from which quotes were plucked for the magazine piece. Here goes...

First up, I believe it's your first Doctor Who-related long fiction to see publication, though you've been hovering round the franchise for a while (including Doctor Who Magazine itself, obviously - you needn't think I'm not going to mention that!) But you have, I believe, worked in other franchises and in developing your own completely original work... so what's the appeal of 'playing with other peoples toys'...?
"Outside of Whosville, I wrote the Friday The 13th novel Hate-Kill-Repeat for New Line Cinema; worked on a web drama series called Tempting Fates; wrote the short films Ghost Writer and Look At Me; some radio comedy; and, most recently, a supernatural horror feature film called Stormhouse which was shot in England this Summer.
"In Whosville, I’ve written the Fourth Doctor short Christmas Every Day for Short Trips: Christmas Around The World; the forthcoming audio short The Lions Of Trafalgar for an as-yet-undetermined audio Short Trips collection; and the title-story of December’s BF collection The Demons Of Red Lodge & Other Stories.
"So yes, this is indeed my first DW-related long fiction to see publication, which is very exciting. The appeal of playing with other people’s toys depends entirely on the quality of the toys – and in writing a Sarah Jane Adventures story you’re dealing with a proper icon in Sarah Jane herself. So it’s been wonderful to create a brand new story for her and the gang."

Without going into more detail than you need to – what kind of story are we talking here?
"As its title might suggest, Deadly Download concerns an alien attack via the internet. Sarah Jane’s super-computer Mr Smith alerts her to some highly abnormal internet activity on Bannerman Road, plunging the team into a whirlwind of exploding computers and airborne menace! This invasion turns out to have an unexpected connection with the corporate world. While I’d never want to write a preachy ‘Hey kids, don’t do this!’ kind of story, Deadly Download might well have the side-effect of making younger listeners think twice before chatting to strangers online..."

Working within the Sarah Jane brand, presumably the format, the branding and the length presumably all place their ownvery stringent constraints on what you can or can't do in terms of storytelling - has to be short, to be family-friendly etc. Add to that the fact that the series is generally Earth-bound... is it harder, do you think, to devise stories for this format than for, say, Doctor Who itself, where the canvas and the possibilites are both so much broader...?
"Funnily enough, infinite possibilities are the writer’s enemy. When tasked to create a Doctor Who, with no given parameters, a writer is likely to be paralysed by the vast array of choices they face! So Sarah Jane Adventures’ tighter format actually makes it easier to devise stories. The real fun, of course, comes in satisfying the brief and fitting that mould, while hopefully delivering some things that the series hasn’t done before. It’s been nice to write a story with a technological theme, which also touches on how the art of face-to-face human interaction seems to be on the decline."

Knowing that your story will be read by a single reader (and in the likely knowledge that Lis Sladen will probably be the reader) - what impact does that have on the writing and/or the story's development...?
"Elisabeth Sladen’s voice will forever provide a wonderful link to my childhood, when I watched her and Tom Baker in Doctor Who – and then heard them again on the audio cassette recordings which my family made - so it’s a truly surreal experience to write for that voice. It’s a really lovely voice to write for – warm, brave, kind and gutsy all at once."
"I absolutely loved this job, trust me! Given that these audio stories are effectively long shorts, I really wanted Deadly Download to hit the ground running early on, with the threat quickly established. I have quite a short attention span, so I’m always really keen to keep things moving throughout a story – and my fine editor John Ainsworth really drove me to wring the most excitement out of the technological, internet-based mayhem! Besides all of that, there’s something about the Sarah Jane Adventures’ world which is just . It walks that brilliant tightrope between things being cosy and safe, then not safe at all. There’s darkness, but the stories always end up in the light. Such a fun, life-affirming world to get involved with!"

Review of The Sarah Jane Adventures: Deadly Download at Planet Gallifrey here.

Deadly Download can be ordered at Amazon UK here, for a mere £4.47. Blimey-Christ!

Doctor Who: The Gemini Contagion

2010-11-07T15:14:00.001Z

Woo-hoo! Now that online outlets like Amazon UK have started listing this item with my name attached, I can announce what I've been dying to tell you for a while. I've written a Doctor Who BBC audiobook, featuring the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond.

It's called The Gemini Contagion. The reader has yet to be confirmed. The CD (and presumably download) is not out until March 3, 2011, so I won't be telling you much about the story now, except to say that, as the title suggests, it does centre on some kind of outbreak.

I can definitely tell you that I loved every single second of writing it and that it very much represents me and the kind of stories I like to tell. Hopefully, like my Sarah Jane Adventures: Deadly Download - out now, folks - it's also about something, in addition to being a big old barnstorming adventure in time and space.

Couldn't be more thrilled, I tell you! Roll on March.

Sarah Jane Composer Enters Stormhouse

2010-11-03T13:46:00.000Z

Hello! I'm more than delighted to announce that Sam Watts is our composer on the feature film Stormhouse.

Sam is, of course, the composer on hit BBC show The Sarah Jane Adventures. Besides being an undeniably lovely man, he is a superb creative talent and we couldn't be more pleased to have him working on this film. Tremendously exciting.

And here's the poster, for your delectation...

Stormhouse: The Halloween Unveiling

2010-10-31T17:19:00.004Z

I've been waiting for this for some time. Halloween is, needless to say, the best possible time to raise the curtain - partly, at least - about me and Dan Turner's forthcoming horror feature. Here are some facts about it:

It's called Stormhouse.

Set in 2002, it sees the Military capturing and imprisoning a supernatural entity at England's secret base Stormhouse. The Government send 'ghost whisperer' Hayley Sands in to try and communicate with the entity. Then everything goes seriously ghost-shaped.

Hayley Sands is played by Katie Flynn (the daughter of Jane Seymour), who delivers a remarkable performance - as do Patrick Flynn, Grant Masters, Munir Khairdin, Grahame Fox and the rest of our awesome ensemble cast.

Dan has brilliantly directed it, with a luscious cinematography aided and abetted by our DOP Richard Swingle. Dan and I created the story, from his original idea (those five words I mentioned in a previous blogpost were "The military capture a ghost"). I wrote the script and executive-produced. Dean Fisher at Scanner-Rhodes is our ingenious, tireless producer.

That's all for now, except to say that as we move into post-production I couldn't possibly be more thrilled about this film.

Release Schedule For The Rest Of 2010 & Beyond

2010-10-12T10:48:00.004+01:00

Hello my little bowl of magic,

I haven't had material in a physical book for a fair while, since the Doctor Who story Christmas Every Day in Big Finish's Winter 2008 collection Short Trips: Christmas Around The World. So it's nice that two actual-world, papery books have come along at once. Namely...

THE BRILLIANT BOOK OF DOCTOR WHO 2011

A brand new official BBC tome! It's like the Doctor Who annual you always wanted, full of fun and proper content for all ages. I've written a smidgeon of fiction for it, in the shape of The Stone Totems. This consists of a curator's plaque in The National Museum, attempting to explain what its Stone Dalek exhibits might actually be. Oh dear lord, that was fun to write. On top of that, I wrote a few articles about Daleks, Silurians, the TARDIS and all sorts. Ridiculously exciting to work on a book edited by my former Doctor Who Magazine editor Clayton Hickman and designed by Doctor Who Adventures' equally super-talented Paul Lang. Buy it for Christmas, or better still, get someone to buy it for you.

BERNICE SUMMERFIELD: PRESENT DANGER

Bernice, for the uninitiated, is a former Doctor Who companion from various novels and audios. She was created by that splendid fellow, Paul Cornell, and is a tad like a female Indiana Jones, being a feisty archaeologist.

I previously wrote the short story Prime Five for 2007's Bernice Summerfield: Missing Adventures hardback collection, so it was nice to return to the fold with a war story. Edited by the excellent Eddie Robson, Bernice Summerfield: Present Danger is a collection of stories which document a one-sided war between mankind and the Deindum, who are a bunch of aggressive, paranoid, floaty lizard-headed bastards from the future.

Rather than going for a full-blown war epic, out on the frontlines, I wanted to make the conflict more claustrophobic and personal. So my story, The War Of Art, sees Bernice trapped in a crashed freighter with a bunch of refugees, menaced by a single Deindum. There's fire, death, revenge, time travel and a 150-foot-high head. Surely I can't say fairer than that.

THE REST OF 2010

Brilliantly, I seem to have to have something of a release schedule for the rest of the year. (A release schedule! Loving those apples.) The two books already mentioned are available right now, and then I have one release per month until January. Here's what's in store for the rest of the year...

TEMPTING FATES

Red Eye Pictures' teen web drama series, which I worked on last year, receives its full launch on November 1. Three rather beguiling Fates arrive on a university campus, with a demented X Factor style mission to kill various people. Professor Morgan Node is the poor bastard chosen to chaperone the Fates and make sure they don't misinterpret the various clues provided to them by the gods, and bump off the wrong target. It's splendid black comedy fun, with some strong performances from the cast and more energy than you can shake a power generator at.

SARAH JANE ADVENTURES: DEADLY DOWNLOAD

Wooo! Especially now that The Sarah Jane Adventures' Series Four has kicked off (you can see the concluding part of Joe Lidster's The Nightmare Man story today on CBBC), it feels great to have this original audio story set for release on November 4 through BBC Audio. Read by Elisabeth Sladen, it sees an alien attack on Earth, via the internet. And good heavens, it's only £4.49 at Amazon UK! I have yet to hear the finished recorded product, but can say I had a great time writing it and working with my great editor John Ainsworth, who really pushed for every last drop of value from the story.

DOCTOR WHO: THE DEMONS OF RED LODGE

Christ, what a way to end the year. The Big Finish release The Demons Of Red Lodge & Other Stories will be issued on December 31! Rest assured that I shall be partying with added vigour. This is a release which I'm proud to share with three other writers, the first two of whom are good friends (I haven't had the pleasure of meeting the third): William Gallagher (who writes the story Doing Time), John Dorney (Special Features) and Rick Briggs (The Entropy Composition). Four stories, starting with my own The Demons Of Red Lodge, and each featuring Peter Davison as The Doctor and Sarah Sutton as Nyssa. Yes!

2011: THE PLAN

Next year will see the release of me and Dan Turner's supernatural horror feature film, which was shot in August. It does now have a title, but not one which we're going to reveal just yet. Editing and post-production are coming along apace, and I couldn't be more excited about that. Elsewhere in featuresville, I have two new horror specs written, which need honing before I can lead them to market with bells in their noses.

There's one Doctor Who-related release scheduled for next year, which I've already written but can't announce yet. Can't bloody wait to do so, mind. The already-announced Short Trips Big Finish audio-story The Lions Of Trafalgar (read by Peter Davison and starring his Doctor along with Nyssa and Tegan) will be released on one of the Short Trips CD collections, to be decided. I'm working on at least two more things in that expansive Who universe, with a great deal of work in store between now and Christmas. Feels like I'm building up the head of steam I've always wanted.

You can't see this, but I'm doing a celebratory dance. And thank God you can't see it. Far too arousing. Shouldn't have mentioned it at all, really.

Good day to you.

Deadly Download: The Cover

2010-10-01T10:18:00.000+01:00

More new cover joy! This is out on November 4...

Demons Of Red Lodge: The Cover

2010-09-29T22:48:00.001+01:00

Hello! Big Finish released this today and I love it. That is all.

Doctor Who Audio News

2010-09-03T22:06:00.000+01:00

Been so busy lately that I can't help making announcements on Twitter, days or even weeks before I get to blog them. Nature of the beasts I suppose, and at least I get to talk about them in more detail here.

I've written two Doctor Who or Doctor Who-related audio releases. They're both original stories rather than adaptations, and are as follows:

THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES: DEADLY DOWNLOAD
This will be published by BBC Audio on November 4. Every year since the TV series began, the BBC have released two original audio stories alongside the show. I'm really privileged to have written one of the 2010 pair (the other being Wraith World by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright).

I'm also delighted that Deadly Download has been read by Sarah Jane herself, Elisabeth Sladen. Elisabeth's voice is intrinsically linked with my childhood, just like Tom Baker's, and so it's amazing to have her read my 11,000-word prose story on CD.

As you might imagine from the title, Deadly Download concerns the Internet. Hopefully, it should make a fair few younger listeners think twice before chatting to random strangers while online...

DOCTOR WHO: THE DEMONS OF RED LODGE & OTHER STORIES
This will be published by Big Finish - the producer of BBC-licensed Doctor Who, as well as various other franchises - in December. I've written the title story on this collection of four tales, each of which features the Fifth Doctor (played by Peter Davison, for the uninitiated and/or forgetful) and companion Nyssa (Sarah Sutton).

One of the really nice things about this release is that two of the other authors are friends of mine. William Gallagher has written Doing Time, while John Dorney brings us Special Features. I've never met the remaining writer Rick Briggs, but he emerged triumphant from a recent Big Finish competition which earnt him this commission, so I've no doubt that his tale The Entropy Composition will be excellent.

I haven't heard the other stories yet, or even read the scripts, but I can obviously tell you a certain degree about mine. The Demons Of Red Lodge is very much a creepy horror story which puts a terrified Doctor and Nyssa into a literally dark place, then challenges them to work out where they are and what's going on. Red Lodge is a Suffolk village and I'm from that part of the world, so it was nice to base my first Big Finish story there, albeit in the 17th Century.

I was lucky enough to attend the recordings at Big Finish's London studio, a few weeks back. As you can imagine, it was beyond surreal to see Peter and Sarah acting out my script - surely one of the best experiences available to a writer and lifelong Who fan. I was really glad to see that they really went for the unusual level of anxiety which seizes their characters in this story, and really nailed each and every line. Rather than merely churning it all out, as you might reasonably expect, what with them having recorded countless audios by now, they often asked for a retake, so that they could try to better the previous one. Marvellous.

Further announcements are to come as the year goes on, but good lord, I'm still busy fanning myself in an attempt to recover from all this giddy excitement!

After The Storm

2010-08-22T09:28:00.002+01:00

You know that feature film I told you about in my last blogpost? We finished shooting it yesterday. The raw footage exists, which is a source of great joy, tinged with sadness that the filming experience is over.

I'm sitting on a sofa in the communal living area which cast and crew have shared for the duration of the shoot. Since we had our wrap party last night (complete with live rock covers band!), the place looks like a bomb hit it. A booze bomb. The majority of us have lived together for these weeks, in the middle of nowhere with the weakest internet and phone signals known to man, as well as the most persistently hardcore flies on the planet. It's been one of the greatest experiences of my life.

The shoot has taught me so much about film-making, not least in terms of directing. It's been great to sit at the monitors with director Dan Turner, learning from every single decision he makes. The story has evolved as we filmed, too, so it's been a thrilling challenge to solve issues along the way, ensure that everything makes sense and is the best that it can possibly be.

We've been helped by a brilliantly dedicated crew and a fantastic ensemble cast, all of whom went beyond the call of duty on a regular basis. I'm really going to miss waking up each day on an airbed on the floor of one of our sets, knowing that a full day of shooting lies ahead, with good, professional folk. And the catering.

Of course, the film still has a long road ahead of it. Effects, editing, the grade... that's all to come. For now, I'm going to take a little time to reflect on the whole giddy experience. Oh, and, er, catch up with all the writing and story creation that I should have been doing over the last fortnight...

UPDATE: You can catch up with some of my hashtagged tweets during the shoot here: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23horrorfilmdiary

My First Feature Film

2010-08-01T22:39:00.001+01:00

A while back, director Dan 'Daniel' Turner and I went out in London for several pints of ale. Although we'd previously worked on a number of projects together, that evening was intended purely as a social catch-up. A quackery session.

Somewhere around the middle of this session, Dan told me about an idea he'd had for a horror film. He casually presented it to me in the form of five words. Just five.

I was immediately hooked. We spent the rest of the night talking about nothing else. It became an obsession - the kind of idea that simply had to become a film. It couldn't not. In coming weeks, it grew and grew, in a flurry of e-mails, texts and Twitter DMs.

This film is about to be made. Currently untitled, it starts shooting next week. Dan's directing. Dean Fisher at Scanner Rhodes, who previously handled the likes of City Rats, is producing. I'm the writer and executive producer.

We're setting out to hit the viewer hard. To scare, disturb, jolt and generally terrorise them.

I don't believe I could possibly be more excited. You'd never know from my ice-cool demeanour, but I've been shrieking like a gibbon throughout this entire post.

Good day to you.

Leeds TV Writers' Festival: The Tweetcast

2010-06-30T11:30:00.000+01:00

Hello Dolly!

I'm shortly off to the above BBC event, where many writers will attend sessions on an agenda created by other writers like Toby Whithouse and Jack Thorne. The likes of Tony Jordan, John Yorke and Ben Stephenson will be there.

I'm sure I'll blog about it at some point afterwards. But if you want the as-it-happens scoop, then follow me on Twitter. Will do my best to tweet the odd wisdom-pearl. You're welcome.

TAPS Film Ghost Writer Online

2010-06-17T21:38:00.008+01:00

My TAPS film, Ghost Writer, is now online at their site here, along with the organisation's other three new films for 2010. The 24-minute Ghost Writer was shot in four-and-a-half hours last December on the Emmerdale sets. The logistical stipulations included: a maximum of 20 scenes, a maximum of three locations and a maximum of six characters. Great practice for the practical realities of television writing.

Infuriatingly, that's pretty much all I have time to tell you, as I'm racing towards several deadlines. Guess the film should speak for itself. I'm very proud of it. The cast, director Guy Slater, the crew and all of the TAPS folk were great. Thanks also go, once again, to the various wonderful people whose input helped move the script along last year.

I will return to blog about the shoot. Will also host the film on my own website using a service like Vimeo which will allow crazy full-screen action - and include cast info, plus the shooting script.

Before I go, though, I must echo David Bishop's feelings about this week's announcement that, as of June 30, TAPS will be forced into closure by lack of funding. This is immensely sad. The countless scriptwriters, directors, actors and folks of all disciplines within the TV industry who have benefited from this friendly organisation's hard work will feel this loss especially keenly. Again: more when I have more time!

Fight For Your Right To Think

2010-06-09T00:41:00.014+01:00

Hello darling! Pull up a chair, because I've been doing some thinking about thinking.

Miles of column space and endless vocal-cord waggery are regularly devoted to the actual craft of writing. All that 'sitting down, tapping at keys' stuff.

Comparatively little is ever said about the sheer volume of thought which must take place before that writing begins. Thinking time is vital for the writer and yet rarely gets discussed. It's as if brilliant ideas only spring up through the act of writing itself.

I love the fact that, in 2010, we're bombarded by more information, social media, entertainment and downright choice than ever before. Anyone claiming to be bored in 2010 frankly must have something wrong with them. Our inboxes, RSS feeds, Twitter columns and general environments are endless sources of brain stimulation. We get to do and experience way more than previous generations. It's easy to take it for granted that, for instance, we now have written conversations with people over the course of minutes via e-methods as opposed to weeks via snail-mail. Everything is increasingly compressed and we're increasingly impatient. However, these developments also threaten our opportunities to relax and think about nothing. Oh, sweet, precious nothing.

Wander down the street, attempting to dreaming your little dreamy dreams, and see how quickly your train of thought gets hijacked by any number of things and people. See how easily your eye gets diverted by, say, one of those flashy animated adverts at bus stops, or on the Tube. In places like gym changing rooms, or even steam rooms, where you might reasonably hope to switch your brain to neutral and see what it naturally serves up, there's often that socially inappropriate character who wants a conversation. Annoying reminders of everyday chores might pop up to plague you. There may be clipboard-Nazis, flyer people or rain. And even if none of those things happen, someone's bound to text or call that magical metal rectangle in your pocket.

Unless we're careful, our brains may never get a chance to work from a blank slate. If our minds are whiteboards, they spend a great deal of time every day being scrawled on by other people. The subconscious mind tends to be good at solving problems, and occasionally at creating new ideas, even while we're asleep, yet it's important to force the issue and make time to think. Actually schedule it. Prioritise it. Confiscate everyone else's marker pens, grab a yellow duster and scrub that mental whiteboard clean. Embrace the blankness.

If we're thinking alone, even while defacing our non-metaphorical whiteboard and/or notepad, we need to overcome the nagging feeling that we're not doing real work. Of course we are. Ideas are king. Sure, the execution arguably matters most - which is part of the reason why you can't copyright an idea, only its realisation - but without that genius concept in the first place, there's no seed to nurture into a delightful bloom. A great idea should never be underestimated because it came to you in the space of ten seconds. Probably best for us writers to drop all thoughts of being paid by the hour.

So we must ignore those nagging feelings, which undervalue what we're doing. Because Christ only knows, hardly anyone else is going to understand this 'sitting around thinking' business. To other people, a writer sitting around thinking - especially if he or she happens to be in a pub - is a work-shy daydreamer, who has been irritatingly successful in finding an excuse to do nothing. It just looks like a person lounging around doing sod all while others demonstrably toil with the aid of corporeal items like heavy machinery or spreadsheets. Others probably imagine us sitting there with Homer Simpson-esque thought bubbles suspended above our heads, in which skeletal cows merrily play fiddles.

While some people genuinely don't understand writers' thinking-sessions, I'll wager that others understand only too well. And they may envy us. We get to sit in cafes, libraries or pub beer gardens for hours on end - ideally not drinking booze, admittedly, unless you're one of those characters who works best with a loosened brain - and come up with notions while using nothing for reference except The Stuff In Our Brains. Along the way, when we settle on a project, sure, we'll do a little research, or maybe even a great deal. But we get to sit there, creating stuff from scratch as our neurons pinwheel about - an action which is entirely invisible.

No wonder writing tends to be such a solitary occupation: all that thinking naturally makes it an internalised task, even before we glue ourselves to a desk-chair and do the actual writing (just then, instead of "the actual writing", I very nearly wrote "the real hard graft of writing". Proves how easy it is to forget just how much heavy-lifting is done by the brain alone, even when you're writing a blogpost about it). Right there at the start of the process, it's just us: our minds, our notepads, our Post-It notes on the wall, our whiteboards, our Evernote accounts, our text documents entitled Loose Ideas. It's initially all very personal and shielded from the outside world - a world which we must then work out how best to excite with our big ideas.

It's not for nothing that current Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat prefers not to tell anyone about his ideas until he's writing them - the reactions of others, even if it's a qualified enthusiasm, can blow some of the magic dust away. "It's so important," he told me in an interview for Doctor Who Magazine in 2008, "the magic of Not Telling Anyone Yet. I know Russell [T Davies] thinks that way too – he won’t tell anybody what he’s doing. Because it turns to ashes in your mouth. It almost becomes ordinary.”

"The sheer amount of thinking you have to do, to make this work!" he exclaimed. "When I read scripts that are bad, it’s often because they’re just lazy. The writer hasn’t thought things through in the way that I would. There was a quote from John Cleese, around the time he was ruling the world with Fawlty Towers: 'If I’m any good at writing comedy, it’s because I know how hard it’s supposed to be.' And that’s it. It’s shockingly difficult and emotionally upsetting!”

Need further proof of how well the brain responds when temporarily removed from external interference? Go on holiday and force yourself to think about very little. See how those new story ideas gather like moths to a flame.

So modern life's intensity is a thing of wonder, but also threatens to erode those special times when we get to rejoice in stirring that big, utterly unique cauldron inside our heads. Fight for your time to think, without the slightest hint of shame. Book yourself a whole string of psychological working holidays.

***

Alan Moore On Storytelling

2010-05-17T10:06:00.013+01:00

Hello Satan! I've been reading Watchmen/V For Vendetta creator Alan Moore's Writing Comics Volume One. It's a slender yet wonderfully informative and refreshing tome culled from articles he wrote in the 80s (there has yet to be a Volume Two!) Wanted to read this bit to you, as it applies to storytelling across the board, regardless of media. You ready? Then I'll begin:

"As I see it, a story of almost any kind should be like hypnosis. You fascinate the reader with your first sentence, draw them in further with your second sentence and have them in a mild trance by the third. Then, being careful not to wake them, you carry them away up to the back alleys of your narrative and when they are hopelessly lost within the story, having surrendered themselves to it, you do them terrible violence with a softball bat and then lead them whimpering to the exit on the last page. Believe me, they'll thank you for it".

It's worth re-reading this, I'm saying, even if you've already absorbed it a thousand times. Are we doing enough, with our stories, to paralyse the reader and wrap them securely in our webs, allowing us to devour them? We can always do more.

On a similar comic-centric note, I'll be at the Bristol International Comic & Small Press Expo this weekend. There are still some tickets left for Sunday and it looks set to be a superb event. If comics are your bag, then maybe I'll see you there!

Doctor Who: Short Trips

2010-05-10T20:12:00.009+01:00

After a few months of keeping it under my hat, it's lovely to announce that I've written one of the stories for Big Finish's forthcoming Doctor Who: Short Trips range.

Short Trips was once Big Finish's series of licensed books, compiling various short stories together - mostly under umbrella themes. I contributed the story Christmas Every Day to Short Trips: Christmas Around The World, which was released in December 2008, but soon after, those books came to an end. Thankfully, that Christmas book's editor Xanna Eve Chown didn't forget me and got in touch a little while back, asking if I'd like to write something for the rebirth of Short Trips... on audio!

My story, The Lions Of Trafalgar, features the Fifth Doctor (that's Peter Davison, in case you're a non-Whovian), along with companions Nyssa and Tegan. Like all of the stories on these new Short Trips CDs, it will be read by one person, yet to be decided. Whoever ends up reading it, I couldn't be more thrilled.

The Short Trips CDs will be out later this year. Among the other writers on board are James 'Trousers Off' Moran, Simon Guerrier, former TV Who script editor Andrew Cartmel, Richard Dinnick and former Sixth Doctor Colin Baker himself! Remarkable. Most of the other writers are triumphant winners of a competition which Big Finish ran to harvest new talent - congratulations to them all!

I also have a couple of other Big Finish irons in the fire, which I don't believe I can reveal yet. Needless to say, when I can, you'll soon know all about it. Oh yes.

Big Finish's Short Trips announcement today can be read here.

Story Engine 2010: Reportage!

2010-05-08T14:26:00.004+01:00

See that? It's a photograph of this blog, on a big screen at The Story Engine, during a session about online technology. Furthermore, on the depicted blog, is a blog-post about The Story Engine.

Hear that? It's the sound of reality eating itself.

This week, writer/top gent Paul 'Twitchiker' Smith and I yapped on the Newcastle event's Digital Connections panel, which was hosted by ITV legend Malcolm Wright. For 45 minutes, we discussed how important it is for writers to embrace and utilise digital/online technology. It's a subject so large that we could have talked all afternoon, but thankfully for the audience we stuck to that time-limit.

It's an interesting topic for me. On the one hand, I love the opportunities, information, ease, communication, general functionality and downright cool stuff which the internet and technology bring us. On the other, I'm painfully aware that none of it is ever a substitute for great ideas, great stories and fingers which type until they bleed. Once upon a time, after all, writers had to make do with a typewriter, paper, the postal system and a telephone if they could afford to pay the bill. Even if technology progresses to such an extent that we can beam our pitches directly into the minds of producers, those ideas will never stop having to be bulletproof and brilliant.

As with last year's Story Engine in Darlington, the whole event was a wonderfully personal and personable affair. Story Engine mastermind Ian Fenton is a writer himself, and it shows. He knows what writers want to see, hear and ask, and is determined to give value for money, ensuring that no-one walks away with a question unanswered. It's a smoothly-run and professional event, with soul.

This year's guests included Black Books/Hyperdrive/Little Britain comedy writing duo Kev Cecil and Andy Riley (whose comprehensive Q&A session was an informative and fun look at their work process), New Tricks/Waterloo Road writer Lisa Holdsworth (a splendid lady who dependably speaks her mind), your friend and mine Danny Stack (who appeared on no less than three panels, strongly speaking up for the writer on more than one occasion - trust me, you owe this man a beer), local scripter Gavin Williams, Script Factory wizard and tremendous fellow Ludo Smolski, Smack The Pony/Green Wing writing duo Fay Rusling and Oriane Messina (funny and lovely, the pair of them) and BBC Writersroom founder Kate Rowland.

Throughout those two days, the sparkling Tyneside Cinema positively teemed with good people, including scripter Dean Lines who we can thank for the above brain-boggling photo. I had a blast and was sorry to leave not only the event, but such a beautiful city.

Before I did, though, I took a sneak preview at the town's imminent Doctor Who Exhibition. Thanks to the aforementioned Paul Smith and the Life Centre's events manager Andy Lloyd, I was able to step boldly beyond this here sign...

With two weeks to go, the exhibition was still under construction, but you could immediately see it's going to be immense. Plenty of fan-pleasing items and aliens were already in position, and the thing's huge: around 9000 square feet! Nice. Go see, when it opens on May 22 at the Life Centre.

The Story Engine: Update

2010-04-30T18:44:00.002+01:00

Further to my last post, about next week's splendid Newcastle screenwriting event The Story Engine, I can now confirm that I'll be among the guests. I'll be quacking away in the Digital Showcase session about the importance of emerging technologies for writers. There are only about 10 tickets left on the Story Engine's site, so grab 'em fast if you want 'em... and see you there!