Ghost Writer: The Resurrection

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)

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

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!

TAPS Film Ghost Writer Online

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!

Reports Of My Blog-Death...

... have been non-existent. Nevertheless, I can't help but notice it's been a while since I blogged. Nothing wrong with that, I'm saying - if you don't have anything you fancy blogging about, don't blog. Good philosophy, no?

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that I'm plenty active on there, tweeting like some kind of coked-up chaffinch. There's no doubt that Twitter has dented blogging's alluring, in favour of daily, hourly micro-blogs - and, to a large extent, led much of the blog-based writing community to up-sticks and communicate there instead. I'm not concerned about that - as long as there's a community, and as long as people are also sitting down at actual physical pub tables to talk about the stuff they can't talk about online (or, at least, shouldn't) I'm not too bothered about the online platform.

That said, I do love Twitter. I'd try and persuade the unconvinced, but Lucy Vee has done a perfectly good job of that in her detailed blog-post The Twit's Guide To Twitter. All I will say, is that Twitter is tailor-made for writers working from home. A whole community, live on your screen, ready to offer whatever you want it to offer. Networking, fun, advice, information, friendship, outrage, displacement activities a-go-go. You can also start your own lists of Twitterers. So far, I've made just the one - a list of Scriptwriters, which can be found and followed here. There are 82 scripters on it right now - want to be included? Tweet me.

So. What else have I been doing? Well, Doctor Who returns to our screens on April 3, when fantastic new episode The Eleventh Hour kickstarts the show's first full series in two years. There's a great new Doctor in the shape of Matt Smith (doubters, believe!) and an equally excellent new companion Amy Pond (played by the ludicrously hot Karen Gillan). As a result, I've failed to resist the undoubted allure of more journalistic work than usual, conducting a set-visit for Doctor Who Magazine and several interviews, including two big ones (who could they possibly be with?) for the next issue, out April 1.

That's not to say I've neglected my own fiction. Hell, no. I wrote a new horror feature in two gloriously driven weeks, and look forward to returning to that for a second draft. It's a dark and unpleasant piece of work, but explores a theme which fascinates me. Aside from that, I've mainly been pitching. Storylines, ideas, this 'n' that. One of those has become a commission, which I'm really pleased and excited about... although in the time-honoured blog tradition, I can't talk about it yet.

Over in comedy sketchville, work has continued on the fourth series of Radio 4's Recorded For Training Purposes, which has been, and continues to be, bagloads of fun and a proper learning experience.

Ghost Writer, my 24-minute film shot by the splendid TAPS organisation, is edited and almost ready to be shown to the world via some medium or other - most likely the net. Once that happens, I'll blog about the shoot. Also the edit, because unlike in TV-World, I was given the chance to give my own notes on the first edit, in conjunction with director Guy Slater.

Generally speaking, this year, one new thought keeps coming back to me: what you want to write is more important than the medium for which you write it. Since my Friday The 13th: Hate-Kill-Repeat novel was published in 2005, I've penned Doctor Who and Bernice Summerfield short stories for Big Finish hardback collections, but haven't given much further thought to prose. I'm starting to feel differently now. If you can do both script and prose, then why not do both? I don't think it necessarily means sacrificing focus. Beyond those, as well, I'm starting to turn my attention to comic strips which are another very viable and fun option for a genre-leaning writer like me.

So. Tough times for everyone from the work-hungry writer to the beleaguered BBC itself. Yet plenty of sandpits in which to play. Buckets and spades at the ready? Let's dive in.

2009, 2010 & The Bare Bones Approach

Hello, you delightful shooting star. 2009, you say? I'd best jot down some thoughts on how it was for me, before it becomes all too tiny in the ol' rear-view mirror. I'll also throw in the most valuable writing lesson I learnt last year...

One of the best things about 2009 was sitting in a room, listening to Tony Jordan telling me I can write. As a writer you ideally have to be able to exist in a vacuum, tough as old hobnail boots, with no need for validation. But Christ Almighty, there's no harm in a bit if someone like Tony's offering. I was sitting in Red Planet Pictures' HQ, as part of a workshop laid on for Red Planet Prize finalists. My relationship with the company - and with a handful of finalists - remains ongoing, as ideas continue to fly. That's a good feeling.

Last year also gave me a nice sense of completion, when it came to my main new TV spec script. On January 1, 2009, I started work on a 30-minute one-off called Letters From Betsy. Truth be told, I poured a great deal of emotion into that script and almost certainly more of me than I'd devoted to a script before - probably with Tony Jordan's words ringing in my ears from the previous Screenwriters' Festival, about writing until your keyboard's covered in tears and snot. Nice.

Letters From Betsy underwent various drafts as the year went on, with untold changes made to direction, emphasis, character... you name it, although the core concept was always there. Indeed, Letters From Betsy's journey would only end when I'd clarified/reminded myself exactly what the core concept was, realising that the rest was mere surplus and should be dispensed with. That's one of the things I really learnt in 2009: bare bones are stronger. Dress 'em up with extra problems for your protagonist and all manner of extraneous tat, and the whole somehow manages to become less than the sum of its parts.

Anyway. Letters From Betsy eventually morphed into Ghost Writer, impressing a few noted industry folk as it did so. It was then chosen by TAPS as one of the four TV dramas which they produce each year. It was filmed in December on Leeds' Emmerdale sets (will write my account of the actual filming ASAP) - and hopefully this month I'll get to see the first edit and give input. But to all intents and purposes, I ended 2009 with a produced film which I started on the year's very first day.


So what else happened in 2009? I had my first commission from a TV production company, Eye Film And TV, to work on four 50-minute episodes of new web series Tempting Fates. That was a really valuable experience, which saw me co-storylining for the first time, thinking in terms of series arcs and generally working as part of a team. Fun fun fun.

At the start of the year, sketches for the show Splendid bubbled away in our collective cauldron. A ticklesome pilot was shot around Spring, with a tremendous June screening, which led to us honing that pilot some more, filming an additional batch of sketchery-pokery. Then another lesson was learnt: creating the pilot is the relatively easy part, compared to persuading industry-folk to watch it. Splendid currently awaits perusal on certain desks, but I remain confident that its irresistible foolishness can't help but charm whichever lucky soul gives it a spin first.

At the beginning of the year, I had some material broadcast on Radio 4's Recorded For Training Purposes, which led to me having material broadcast on that same station's Laurence & Gus: Hearts & Minds, a few months later. I then became a commissioned writer on the Recorded For Training Purposes team, which continues to be huge fun, as the show's next series is pieced together.

What else? I wrote a trial script for the fine BBC One series Waterloo Road, impressing Shed enough to gain a seat on their reserves bench. I associate produced Danny Stack's short film Origin. I became a script-reader for regional agency Screen East and a speaker at the Cheltenham Screenwriters' Festival, chairing two Doctor Who sessions with some excellent show luminaries. At the latter event, I started thinking for the first time about finding the right agent and had a few meetings which gave me some good contacts and possible representation in 2010.

Throughout 2009, I continued to shift the balance between screenwriting and the journalism with which I started out in writing. I'm in the really nice position of being able to pick journalistic jobs which I enjoy - and this has never been truer than when I interviewed former Doctor Who Tom Baker for Doctor Who Magazine. As this had been a longheld career ambition, it can only be described as one of the highlights of my life, let alone 2009. This Christmas, the afterglow became all the warmer, when Tom published the two-part interview on his website: you can read them both here.

So, yeah, 2009 was pretty busy and fruitful. There were of course a few projects that I worked up, only for them to creatively fizzle out, or hit dead ends. I wrote half a horror feature, then was forced to shift priorities to something else, and still need to climb back on that saddle. I also spent the entire year tinkering with my previously Hollywood-optioned horror feature Panik, only to realise over the last couple of months that it needs to be stripped right down, then built back up. Sometimes when a project is rooted in work carried out by Less Experienced You, those roots need pulling up altogether and replanting.

2010 will again be about hard work, only more so. I'm going to capitalise on all the opportunities which Ghost Writer's filming - and its planned BAFTA screening for industry types, this April - will bring, aiming to secure my first TV commission by year's end. Various projects will move forward and new ones will be willed into corporeal existence.

My key word for 2010 is 'focus'. It's all too tempting to diversify in terms of the genres you write, but this year I'm going to push for my priority: TV drama. As much as I enjoy sketchery-pokery and straight-up comedy, there'll be less of that from me this year. Focus, focus, focus. I'll still be writing feature scripts as well as TV scripts, but genre-wise, drama will provide my main sandpit - and as we all know, drama is broad enough church in itself.

Talking of focus, here's the most valuable writing lesson I learnt last year. It's the kind of thing we all think we know, but as Adrian Mead is fond of saying, sometimes knowing isn't doing. During TAPS' Continuing Drama weekend in October, we spent a lot of time with Emmerdale's chief writer Bill Lyons. A brutally honest, yet clearly lovely guy, he passed judgement on various scenes which the class had been tasked with writing in 60 minutes, then were acted by a couple of thespians. You could often feel that dialogue had been overwritten, the moment that actors became a tad stilted. The effort they were devoting to saying all those words, rendered them unable to actually act. As Bill said, "If you put too many words in an actor's mouth, you're actually stopping them from doing their job". That's a fine sentence to remember this year when you're writing dialogue - and especially when redrafting it.

2010, then: the year of focus, bare bones, letting actors do their jobs and - lest we forget - having a right old hoot. Bring. It. On.

Handy 2009 Links

Michelle Lipton on Ten Things She Learnt Last Year. If you didn't much care for The Thing That I Learned, this article will make up for it

Piers Beckley on setting controllable goals

Evernote - a handy application which syncs web, portable device and computer, allowing you to easily store ideas, research materials or indeed Bars You Would Like To Visit

Carbonite - the best back-up service I discovered last year. It simply hoovers your files up into the internet, ridding you of all worries. Even if your house burns down, your stuff is safe

My Twitter page: I discovered this social networking site in 2009, and love it to bits. Give it a go, if you haven't already, and follow me if it pleases you

TAPS: Rehearsal Day

Sitting in my hotel bar with a pint, reflecting on a day which has both frazzled and exhilarated me. I've been babbling about this weekend on Twitter - using the hastag #TAPSdiary, if you're interested - but I had so much to quack about this evening, that only a blog would do.

We had a full day of rehearsal on my TAPS script Ghost Writer at ITV Yorkshire, with the five-actor cast going through the whole thing twice - firstly in chronological script order, and then in shoot-order (literally the order in which it'll be shot tomorrow morning, grouping all the scenes together in terms of their set, in order to save valuable time).

Director Guy Slater is a veteran, and brings every bit of that experience to bear on the production. He's fantastic: a walking cauldron of persistence, perspective, ingenuity and cut-glass vowels. I love the fact that he so clearly 'gets' Ghost Writer, and wants to bring it to the screen in as intact a form as possible. I had my laptop with me today, along with a print-out of the script. As we went along, I made notes on that print-out with a red pen, but a new draft of the script wasn't deemed necessary. On a couple of occasions, I spoke to an actor about a line-change and they then simply made the adjustment to their own script. Simple. Phew. Not that I'd mind making more extensive changes - I'm primarily here to learn, after all - but let's be honest, it's much nicer when it just works. Actors also made minor changes to lines, in order to make themselves more comfortable, which is great, because provided the meaning isn't changed, it just comes across as more natural.

The actors are fantastic, and today has seen me gain an even greater appreciation for thesps in general. Barrie Ryan English, who plays Ghost Writer's main character Darren, deserves special mention. Not only does he go through the emotional wringer during this story, but he's in all 21 scenes, which puts tremendous pressure on him. But he was great today, delivering the Darren I had in mind, and more besides. The outrageously delightful Fiona Wass (previously seen in the series Grownups) plays Sadie to a tee; hard Manc fella Giles Ford (The Bill, Corrie, Emmerdale) is perfect for brash laddish bloke Corin; bee-yewtiful Lisa Brookes (Casualty 1909) is just great as Helen; and Seamus O'Neill (from Dead Man's Shoes - one of my favourite films, hooray) rocks the house as cafe owner Ron. I feel truly spoilt to have a cast without a single weak link in sight. I also feel terrible that one of the characters dies in a heartbreaking fashion, after comparatively little screen-time.

Christ. I've turned into a luvvie.

In fairness, it's hard not to. When you sit through a full day of rehearsal and see how much work everyone puts in, how many different variables they need to constantly bear in mind, and how damn good they are at doing so, you'd be a madman to speak about them with anything less than the highest praise.

Tomorrow morning, over the course of four-and-a-bit hours from 8.30am, Ghost Writer will be shot on four interior Emmerdale sets. We took a lunchtime look at those sets today, in order to familiarise ourselves with them - for the rest of the day we were in a rehearsal space, constantly moving furniture about to simulate the different sets. I can't wait to see it all committed to film: Ghost Writer means a lot to me, and this is the best Christmas present I could hope for.

Tonight, I think, will be all about beer, takeaway pizza and brain-numbing TV of the highest order. Hello X Factor...

TAPS: The Weekend Begins

Will be off to Leeds shortly, for the rehearsal-day and shoot of my Ghost Writer script, thanks to those lovely TAPS people. Will blog about it ASAP afterwards, naturally - until then, feel free to follow me on Twitter. Good DAY to you.

Ghost Writer & TAPS

Hello, you utter delight. I recently had some good news. A month or so back, I took part in TAPS' annual Continuing Drama course, which this year took place in Old London Town. It was a three-day affair which I can heartily recommend: I learnt a great deal, which I will almost certainly blog about separately soon.

The culmination of the course, however, had a competitive element, in that everyone needed to pitch a 23-minute one-off original TV drama, then write the script. Ten people out of 30-odd would then be chosen to address their assigned script-editor's notes (my script editor was the lovely Nicola Larder) in order to produce a second draft, at which point four final scripts would be selected. Ghost Writer, my own script - a relationship drama with a supernatural undercurrent - turned out to be one of those four, which made me very pleased indeed.

So, what next? It's all happening rather quickly, much like TV. The four scripts will be shot over the weekend of December 4-6, on the Emmerdale sets. I'm delighted to have a wonderfully experienced director in the shape of Miss Marple/Love Hurts veteran Guy Slater, with whom I spoke on the 'phone today. It was great to hear that he liked the script a lot, and that the only tweaks he needed to discuss right now were practical, physical concerns like sets and props. It was also nice when he 'phoned me back after having spoken to the casting director, and asked whether I'd be "miserable" if an Irish character had to be made non-Irish. Needless to say, I wouldn't be miserable about that at all.

I'm very much looking forward to heading for Leeds over that weekend and experiencing a day of rehearsal before the shoot. During that prep-day, I'll need to be armed with a laptop, in case spontaneous rewrites are needed. Love that pressure and that challenge.

After Ghost Writer and the other three scripts have been filmed and completed, they'll be readily available to view on the TAPS site. You can see the last few years' films there right now, including Rewind by m'learned colleague Rob Eveleigh.

I've privately thanked - or at least, I really hope I have - everyone who helped me, in some way or other, with Ghost Writer's evolution. But thanks once again. The script means a lot to me, and I can't wait to get it on film.