I did something a little bit unusual for me recently. I turned down work, or more accurately turned down the possibility of work. It's not something a freelance ever does lightly, but I'm really glad I did.
It was for a job I'd had some ideas for, one of which got fairly fully developed and which I was very enthused by, but they weren't really gelling with the commissioner and it was suggested I come back with a different proposal. I had a bit of a think and realised that actually the problem here was me, and the most sensible way to tackle that was remove myself.
Basically, I'm not the kind of writer the commissioner really needed for that project because the idea I'd felt a strong sense was the right one for me didn't match their vision.
I felt the best that could happen next would be that I'd come up with an idea I liked less that I'd work up feeling it was inferior. Something decent might emerge but it would be a difficult creative process trying to fit in where I naturally didn't.
More realistically, with my instincts clearly being at odds with the desired direction for the project, I suspected any new idea I came up with would be rejected too. With deadlines looming it struck me the wisest thing to do was withdraw and let someone else have a crack, rather than mess around people I've a lot of respect for.
I've said yes to things when my instincts told me to say no in the past and ended up doing work I'm not proud of. I don't want to do that again if I can because I invariably get deeply involved in my work and while I can accept other people not rating it the bottom line is I have to.
So now I'm writing something else, in an entirely different genre and entirely on spec after a very gratifying run of commissions, but the important thing is it's to please me first and hopefully others later.
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Monday, 5 March 2012
Marisilver
We saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel yesterday, and it's not bad. It won't, I think, ever surprise you or particularly challenge you. It's a pleasant film with a great central cast, a smattering of funny lines and a thin story. The Full Monty conquered the world on far less.
There are a few little niggles though, all of which could have been avoided. It feels like one tiny rewrite away from being a more satisfying film, and the details that are wrong feel so obvious I can't help wondering whether it's one rewrite more or fewer that would improve it. These are things that feel like they must have been in the script and got lost along the way.
So, if you think you'd like to see the film with all its twists and turns intact (even though they are tiny and you'll anticipate them all) SPOILERS FOLLOW...
1) Maggie Smith's character journey as Muriel is muddied and her hidden strengths go unhinted at for far too long. Surely, her interest in organisation should have been expressed alongside racist suspicion in her exasperation at the management of her health care, her flight and the bus journey to the hotel. It's a tiny addition in the portrait of her intolerance that would have gone unnoticed until the reveal of her efficiency with a spreadsheet. As it is the revelation comes a little bit out of nowhere in the middle of her story.
2) Muriel also asks, apparently without guile, where Tom Wilkinson's Graham goes every day. He dodges the question, yet a minute later she is able to tell Penelope Wilton's Jean that he goes to the Public Records Office. There's either a big subplot about Muriel gone here or the Graham and Muriel scene has been cut down either in the writing or the edit and once had that revelation in it. It's a jarring mistake that's easily avoidable.
3) There feels to be a character beat missed at Graham's cremation. Jean should be expressing, no matter how discreetly, a number of conflicting feelings that move her on- I'd expect some revulsion at the custom given her other reactions to aspects of Indian life and regret about what she'd invested in Graham as well as grief. The scene really should be a further illustration of how far she's moving from her husband who's embracing the culture. As it is, it seems her story just stops for a bit to simply portray sadness. This feels like it's just one brief wordless cutaway from being resolved, and maybe an editing rather than writing issue. The notion Jean is conflicted vanishes when it should be highlighted, even by as little as a held reaction shot.
4) The story of Judi Dench's Evelyn teaching the call centre workers how to talk to older British people doesn't have enough pay-off. I feel Dev Patel's Sonny's eventual declaration of love to Tena Desae's Sunaina or their shared confrontation with his mother, and ideally both, should be laced with communication lessons learned, and could possibly even be done by 'phone to make it easier for the characters. It feels such a natural pay off I find it hard to believe it wasn't there at some point. What we have is probably easier to make immediate and visual but I feel there's a big thematic call back flapping around those scenes wanting to get in, and it seems daft to have kept it out.
Anyway, you might enjoy it. It has no explosions and a great cast and I liked it for what it was, even though I'd have loved it if it'd been 5% different.
There are a few little niggles though, all of which could have been avoided. It feels like one tiny rewrite away from being a more satisfying film, and the details that are wrong feel so obvious I can't help wondering whether it's one rewrite more or fewer that would improve it. These are things that feel like they must have been in the script and got lost along the way.
So, if you think you'd like to see the film with all its twists and turns intact (even though they are tiny and you'll anticipate them all) SPOILERS FOLLOW...
1) Maggie Smith's character journey as Muriel is muddied and her hidden strengths go unhinted at for far too long. Surely, her interest in organisation should have been expressed alongside racist suspicion in her exasperation at the management of her health care, her flight and the bus journey to the hotel. It's a tiny addition in the portrait of her intolerance that would have gone unnoticed until the reveal of her efficiency with a spreadsheet. As it is the revelation comes a little bit out of nowhere in the middle of her story.
2) Muriel also asks, apparently without guile, where Tom Wilkinson's Graham goes every day. He dodges the question, yet a minute later she is able to tell Penelope Wilton's Jean that he goes to the Public Records Office. There's either a big subplot about Muriel gone here or the Graham and Muriel scene has been cut down either in the writing or the edit and once had that revelation in it. It's a jarring mistake that's easily avoidable.
3) There feels to be a character beat missed at Graham's cremation. Jean should be expressing, no matter how discreetly, a number of conflicting feelings that move her on- I'd expect some revulsion at the custom given her other reactions to aspects of Indian life and regret about what she'd invested in Graham as well as grief. The scene really should be a further illustration of how far she's moving from her husband who's embracing the culture. As it is, it seems her story just stops for a bit to simply portray sadness. This feels like it's just one brief wordless cutaway from being resolved, and maybe an editing rather than writing issue. The notion Jean is conflicted vanishes when it should be highlighted, even by as little as a held reaction shot.
4) The story of Judi Dench's Evelyn teaching the call centre workers how to talk to older British people doesn't have enough pay-off. I feel Dev Patel's Sonny's eventual declaration of love to Tena Desae's Sunaina or their shared confrontation with his mother, and ideally both, should be laced with communication lessons learned, and could possibly even be done by 'phone to make it easier for the characters. It feels such a natural pay off I find it hard to believe it wasn't there at some point. What we have is probably easier to make immediate and visual but I feel there's a big thematic call back flapping around those scenes wanting to get in, and it seems daft to have kept it out.
Anyway, you might enjoy it. It has no explosions and a great cast and I liked it for what it was, even though I'd have loved it if it'd been 5% different.
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Writing about writing is like writing about writing about writing
So here we are limping to the end of February. We're not quite at the end though. This year we end it with one of those pathetic little leaps we get every four years and are still expected to get excited about, rather like an Olympics.
I'm also, more or less, at the end of a script, it's an interesting place to be- still utterly and stupidly obsessed with something made up, almost at the point where you can let it go, to either plummet or fly from your hands.
There's a kind of hysteria at this stage where proper perspective is more skewed than in any number of those MC Escher prints your maths teacher put around the walls to make you feel like looking back down at your quadratic equations. This is why I'm only capable of writing about writing just now, the last refuge of the self-obsessed before they disappear up their own singularities.
I'm quite proud of this script at the moment, though I'm not blind to its flaws. I was there while I was putting them all in. I think I'm especially proud of it because the initial idea scared me witless, researching it took me to depressing places and yet I still managed to pop a couple of jokes in it. With a following wind what it is it'll be announced properly in a few weeks and the play based on it will be out in the summer. I say "play based on it" because a script isn't the same thing as a play at all, in the same way a map's not an actual place.
Actually, that reminds me of the inordinate amount of time I spent looking at maps (some of places that aren't there any more) to make the geography in this story work, all for what ultimately became maybe three or four glancing references in the finished thing. Some might argue that whole process was unnecessary, just prevaricating before knuckling down to doing the actual proper writing, and I would tell them to 'shush' feeling they were a bit close to a nerve, but I do think it's quite an important part of the writing process- getting to know far more than you will ultimately tell, and only occasionally just arsing around.
You have to accelerate into what you're writing just like you have to slow down at the end. The two main tricks are starting and stopping, which is what I'm about to be doing. Any minute now.
I'm also, more or less, at the end of a script, it's an interesting place to be- still utterly and stupidly obsessed with something made up, almost at the point where you can let it go, to either plummet or fly from your hands.
There's a kind of hysteria at this stage where proper perspective is more skewed than in any number of those MC Escher prints your maths teacher put around the walls to make you feel like looking back down at your quadratic equations. This is why I'm only capable of writing about writing just now, the last refuge of the self-obsessed before they disappear up their own singularities.
I'm quite proud of this script at the moment, though I'm not blind to its flaws. I was there while I was putting them all in. I think I'm especially proud of it because the initial idea scared me witless, researching it took me to depressing places and yet I still managed to pop a couple of jokes in it. With a following wind what it is it'll be announced properly in a few weeks and the play based on it will be out in the summer. I say "play based on it" because a script isn't the same thing as a play at all, in the same way a map's not an actual place.
Actually, that reminds me of the inordinate amount of time I spent looking at maps (some of places that aren't there any more) to make the geography in this story work, all for what ultimately became maybe three or four glancing references in the finished thing. Some might argue that whole process was unnecessary, just prevaricating before knuckling down to doing the actual proper writing, and I would tell them to 'shush' feeling they were a bit close to a nerve, but I do think it's quite an important part of the writing process- getting to know far more than you will ultimately tell, and only occasionally just arsing around.
You have to accelerate into what you're writing just like you have to slow down at the end. The two main tricks are starting and stopping, which is what I'm about to be doing. Any minute now.
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
January Update
Happy New End of January!
Yes, um, I've been doing other stuff. I hope 2012 is treating you well so far. I've spend most of it in that funny writing and researching dance. You've a deadline but you don't feel entirely ready to fly so you're reading 'round at the same time as you're writing up your thoughts. Slowly, over the process your words get less provisional, the research tells you less and less you didn't already know, the deadline looms up and your confidence grows.
The thing I'm writing now has recently been announced, but it hasn't been announced it's by me, yet. Quite right too, I've only just delivered the first draft there's so much that can happen still down the line. It is however a great and slightly alarming boost to the system to see something you haven't finished yet already up for sale. It was the same when I was writing my book, and cover redesigns kept being emailed me. It all feels a bit unreal, but does encourage you to take care at busy junctions lest a bus suddenly overrules the slightly previous publicity material.
I'm quite pleased with it, though I've already spotted one small change I need to make due to shifting the setting of it a couple of months, but that can wait 'til I get notes back.
So next there's something else completed but unannounced, a couple of projects for me and trying to get an idea together for another possible bit of work.
The trick is going to be fitting everything in and getting a bit of exercise in. I've been a bit of a slug the last 3 or 4 months, it's time to get a bit of light and energy.
Hopefully, I'll have some more to tell you next month.
Yes, um, I've been doing other stuff. I hope 2012 is treating you well so far. I've spend most of it in that funny writing and researching dance. You've a deadline but you don't feel entirely ready to fly so you're reading 'round at the same time as you're writing up your thoughts. Slowly, over the process your words get less provisional, the research tells you less and less you didn't already know, the deadline looms up and your confidence grows.
The thing I'm writing now has recently been announced, but it hasn't been announced it's by me, yet. Quite right too, I've only just delivered the first draft there's so much that can happen still down the line. It is however a great and slightly alarming boost to the system to see something you haven't finished yet already up for sale. It was the same when I was writing my book, and cover redesigns kept being emailed me. It all feels a bit unreal, but does encourage you to take care at busy junctions lest a bus suddenly overrules the slightly previous publicity material.
I'm quite pleased with it, though I've already spotted one small change I need to make due to shifting the setting of it a couple of months, but that can wait 'til I get notes back.
So next there's something else completed but unannounced, a couple of projects for me and trying to get an idea together for another possible bit of work.
The trick is going to be fitting everything in and getting a bit of exercise in. I've been a bit of a slug the last 3 or 4 months, it's time to get a bit of light and energy.
Hopefully, I'll have some more to tell you next month.
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Counter-Measures
I've not posted anything here for a while because I've found nothing I've wanted to say at length that someone else wasn't saying better (and really who needs another 'blog saying I've put the weight back on I lost after last time I put it on and am trying to lose it again?) and I've been unable to say anything about the things I've been doing that haven't been announced yet.
One of them is announced now, so I'm very happy to say I'm one of the four authors of the Counter-Measures series of audio plays from Big Finish Productions. It's a Doctor Who spin-off using a trio of characters that appeared in the series in 1988, and it's firmly set in 1964.
I'm quite pleased with the way my script came out, it's been a while since I exercised the radio drama writing muscles, and was absolutely delighted by how well the recording attended went.
I won't say too much about it now, but the cast are top drawer. Doctor Who fans will remember Simon Williams', Pamela Salem's and Karen Gledhill's performances from the telly and, if they were quite devoted fans back then, the extra layers given to them in Ben Aaronovitch's novelisation of the story, and the actors brought both back beautifully and moved the characters on, during my day in studio.
They're bolstered in this new series by the wonderfully witty Hugh Ross, as new regular character Sir Tobias Kinsella, and he fits in effortlessly, establishing an instant chemistry with the team that delighted me.
My episode also features Big Finish regulars John Banks and Helen Goldwyn demonstrating just some of their versatility, and Stephen Greif giving a spot on reading of a character I'd described as a cross between Alan Sugar and Ken Campbell. I'd expected an actor to go with a voice a bit like one or the other with that brief, but he amazingly found the bloke who sounded like both of them at once.
Anyway, all the details that are available at present are here. More will come nearer release date, and I'm sure I'll let you know the minute a trailer goes up online.
"Onwards and upwards!"
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
August Company
Here we are then, breaking the silence again just 7 months on. What can I report on? Not very much, I've two projects underway that started up in the Spring that I can't say a thing about at the moment, and a bunch of plans for later in the year when they're out of the way. I won't say what they are because you always look an idiot when real life turns out differently.
Most of the 'what I'm doing' and 'what are my half-baked thoughts about things' content that used to fill these pages is now filleted up and smeared over Twitter. You're welcome to type "You're wrong, dull and an idiot." at me there. I 'tweet' as @ianzpotter.
The Faction Paradox book came out to almost universally positive reviews earlier in the year. It's easy enough to google them (apart from the stuff on Gallifreybase you need to sign up to view). There was actually one review that was a bit unkind about several stories, which is probably the most fun to read, even if the reviewer now seems upset that it's been commented on by people who can view but not post on their forum. Disappointingly, even that broadly negative review seemed to regard my work as competent.
Hey ho. On we go.
Most of the 'what I'm doing' and 'what are my half-baked thoughts about things' content that used to fill these pages is now filleted up and smeared over Twitter. You're welcome to type "You're wrong, dull and an idiot." at me there. I 'tweet' as @ianzpotter.
The Faction Paradox book came out to almost universally positive reviews earlier in the year. It's easy enough to google them (apart from the stuff on Gallifreybase you need to sign up to view). There was actually one review that was a bit unkind about several stories, which is probably the most fun to read, even if the reviewer now seems upset that it's been commented on by people who can view but not post on their forum. Disappointingly, even that broadly negative review seemed to regard my work as competent.
Hey ho. On we go.
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Tentative Return
Been a while, hope you're all well. I'll try to post here a bit more often next year.
Latest news? I should have a new short story coming up for Obverse Books' Faction Paradox collection in 2011, first draft's just about sorted.
Erm... I revisited Jungle Jeremy, an old script of mine, on Audioboo to get some sound design practice in again. I hadn't done a really big project since 2007 and I miss it. It starts here, It's a period adventure parody in six five minute long pieces and I'm quite pleased with how it worked out for a hobby piece. Each section has a link to the next under it if you make it past the initial set up.
Will write again soon!
Latest news? I should have a new short story coming up for Obverse Books' Faction Paradox collection in 2011, first draft's just about sorted.
Erm... I revisited Jungle Jeremy, an old script of mine, on Audioboo to get some sound design practice in again. I hadn't done a really big project since 2007 and I miss it. It starts here, It's a period adventure parody in six five minute long pieces and I'm quite pleased with how it worked out for a hobby piece. Each section has a link to the next under it if you make it past the initial set up.
Will write again soon!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
