The End of an Era

I made this and, because a few people have been kind about it, I thought I'd bung it here too, just in case you read this but don't follow my Facebook and Twitter witterings. Could happen. Unlikely, but you never know. Apologies if you've seen it three times now and are heartily sick of it.

Alchemists Update

And straight after the announcement comes... announcement of postponement!
That's why I didn't give you any pre-order links the other day. Despite the cover being revealed in print a few days ago (curse magazine run-in times), we've known since just before the magazine came out that the CD now wouldn't be able to get through all the post-production, approval and manufacture mallarkey in time for July.
Nothing sinister in this, it's just our April recording date fell through, and that was really the last feasible point it could be done and still be released on time (March recording was the initial plan but dates for that proved unschedulable).

The release is now set for next year, which has a couple of bonuses for me- one, it won't now be released at the same time as the Counter-Measures box set, so I'll only have one set of reviews to deal with at once (good or bad, reviews are tricky beasts and I've yet to master indifference), and two, my story that takes place as 1933 begins and made to fit in with the TV of 1963 will come out in 2013. That's definitely tidier.

The Alchemists of Sound

This was scanned, or maybe photographed (I'll be honest, I've not asked) from the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine. It's the CD cover of a Doctor Who audio drama and if you squint you can see what might just be my name listed as the author. I've not read the accompanying text yet, snow means we've had no post so my copy's not here.

Actually the CD doesn't exist yet, and if you squint more you can see the guest cast appears to be the same as that for a story set some years after it. That's not a clue to the story, it's a clue that that part of the cover art hasn't been finalised yet! I'll tell you who the guest actor really is later, probably next month.

The story is set both in Germany in the 1930s and before the first televised Doctor Who story. The reason for the latter flows from the former. Producer David Richardson suggested putting the Doctor's granddaughter Susan in that historical setting, and I felt it would be a mistake to put her there with her TV companions, Ian and Barbara. It's a period they'd know well and there was a danger they'd end up explaining it all to the Doctor and Susan, potentially unbalancing the drama and making the story more about them than our featured star.

So there we are, this is what I was writing in January, it's set pre-Quinnis and post-Frayed if you've come across those other bits of pre-series set Who and that's probably all you need to know until it eventually comes out apart from that I'm very excited.
When we're closer to the actual release date I'll drop in links to order it and all that, but that's all a very long way off still...

What to do if a Tory or Lib Dem approaches your home

When they come canvassing, talk to them.
Talk to them for ages.
Tell them not to walk away as you tell them what you think of them because you're being reasonable.
Tell them every second they spend with you is less time they'll spend with the less reasonable people further down the road who simply want to kill them for what they've done to this country. Wish them luck.
You do not have to mean it.

The Power of No

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.

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.

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.