A Blogging Return

I haven’t forgotten about you, dear blog. I’ve just been very busy.

So, updates. The Story Engine in Newcastle went swimmingly – very interesting Q&A sessions with David Peace, Denise Mina, Tony Grisoni and the wonderfully self-deprecating Mike Hodges (who signed his novel for me and lamented the state of modern British publishing, agreeing with so much I have already said – can’t break in unless you’re Oxbridge, they won’t market you when you do, and they won’t pay for a proof reader). I met a few lovely people up there whom I spent the conference sitting with – students both, but who knows, they could be the next big things – and then had a far too long coach ride back home. I did read Little Dorrit though, which has jumped to the top of my Dickens’s best of list (with Nicholas Nickleby and Dombey and Son.)

The script writing then: The Story Engine left me with a few ideas for a crime series that I came back to Oxfordshire with buzzing around my head. I started writing one of them up but discovered something quite interesting in my writing: I can’t write formulaic material. Writing a straight forward police procedural I wanted to shake it up, find something new to do with it. I came up with something exciting: and then, day two into the writing of it, discovered an even better twist on an old idea. So I started writing that. Then the next morning I woke up with a rock solid idea for a radio play and that consumed me. Then my brother came to visit and I couldn’t work for two days, then Mum got sick, so more days. She’s still sick now, nothing serious though, and I should be writing: but look outside, it’s glorious. Not a day to be stuck inside. Which is exactly why I should be writing. I might, in a bit.

I’ve also wasted much time lately ploughing through three seasons of Being Human. I’m in love with this show. I admit it. I’d been avoiding it – the premise, though clever, sounded like a one trick pony to me, but what Toby Whitehouse has done with it is nothing sort of exceptional. He’s mined deep into the darkness of these three figures and found real depth and heart. I’ve found myself thrilled, scared and moved. Who knew werewolves, vampires and ghosts could be so. I’ve watched it all in pretty much one week (I gorged on three episodes alone last night). It is shows like this that remind you that when TV works, it works really well.

Preparing for Travel

Tomorrow is the day of long journeys. First a 50 minute train ride into London, then across the city to a bus station, where I begin an 8 hour coach ride to Newcastle, and then finally, if that wasn’t enough, another 50 minute bus ride out to my hotel. A hotel that is six miles outside the city centre – despite being advertised as only three miles. Named and shamed: the Travelodge at Silverlink. So almost ten hours sitting down: I’ll need a good book. Or five. Consequently I’ve uploaded Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit to read, along with a collection of Keats’ poetry and a modern novel, Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone. As I have an equal length journey back from Newcastle, I’ve Balzac’s epic cycle of novels and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick to keep me going. I think the ten hours will go quicker than they otherwise would. And if I get bored of reading, I’ve a couple of audio plays from Big Finish on my MP3 player to keep me going.

I was supposed to read last night, but I got caught up in the writing until 10pm, and then, eyes heavy, I had a wasted couple of hours catching up with Being Human, Stargate Universe and The Chicago Code. I don’t usually watch that much TV in a day: some days I’ll happily go without at all (though living with my Mum, we’ve developed a routine of watching ITV’s quiz show The Chase, and next week we’ll be making appointments with BBC’s reverse Family Fortunes fun game show, Pointless). I’m on the first season of Being Human – it’s now on its third – and I’m finding it a lot fun, if at times a little obvious. Twists that are clearly meant to shock I could see happening three episodes off, and the relationship between the two central men reminded me, in the pilot, of Stuart and Vince from Russell T. Davies’s landmark Queer as Folk. It is a show with great potential, and from all I hear about later seasons, I think something worth sticking with. Stargate Universe, now sadly cancelled, is at times thrilling, at times maddening, and at times surprising. That the producers had worked out an overall arc for the show, allows them in their scripts to take risks previous incarnations of this show lacked. A shame that the US audiences didn’t take to it. And finally, The Chicago Code, which I began watching solely because the great Shawn Ryan was behind it, and I think The Shield is the best US show EVER. Better than The Wire, better than Mad Men (which is so artificial and emotionally empty I couldn’t get past the third episode), The Shield grew each year in operatic density, until the finale season ended with an episode so heart-breaking and thrilling I actually whooped at the tele. The Chicago Code, seeing Ryan back in copland, at first seems The Shield-lite – no cursing, less violence, more formal in its presentation – and its first ending with a similar stunt as ended the first episode of The Shield (though well done here as well), it is slowly growing into something that might just be very good. I like it best when it turns its eye from the case of the week, to exploring something of the American Dream (last week Delroy Lindo’s Alderman had some great speeches about why he went into politics, and we saw how Chicago evolved from rundown city, to great American city). More of that, and I think The Chicago Code could become one of America’s great series, as lauded here as it should be there.

I’m off to type up some work, and write some more, then an early night before the forthcoming weekend at Newcastle for The Story Engine. If you’re one of the writers going, look out for me, and do say hello.

The Story Engine: The Scene of the Crime

On Thursday I travel northward. I am going to spend the weekend in the beautiful city of Newcastle Upon Tyne where I will be attending The Story Engine: The Scene of the Crime. A two day conference dedicated to screenwriting – with an emphasis on crime, as you’ll note by this year’s subtitle. The opening event, on Friday night, is a screening of Mike Hodges seminal gangster flick Get Carter. One of my favourite films of all time; I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it. The bonus of this screening is Mike Hodges is in attendance and will be speaking about the film.

The second day of events promises even more excitement. We’ll be hearing from Denise Mina about writing crime fiction, Mike Hodges and David Peace exploring the importance of place in genre fiction. Then Tony Grisoni outlines writing the superb Red Riding quarter for Channel 4. Then the BBC’s John Yorke talks about crime on television. Then Script editor Eva Svenstedt Ward and writer Antonia Pyk discuss Scandinavian crime fiction, and their role in it as writers for Yellow Bird (behind Wallander and the Millennium films). Then novelist Ann Cleeves and screenwriter Paul Rutman discuss bringing Vera to ITV. Finally, Eva Svenstedt Ward discusses adapting Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy for the screen, followed by a screening of that film. All in all a jam-packed informative weekend ahead. Sadly, the event is now sold out, so if you got all excited reading that line-up and wanted to go: tough.

I’ve been working quietly on a crime drama pilot that I’m going to approach the BBC Writersroom with if the teenage science fiction series goes nowhere. I’ve completed a rough first draft – it rollicks along, lots of action, lots of tension, and a good chase across some rooftops: the opening of Vertigo influences me still, years after I first saw it. Hopefully The Story Engine will provide a chance to network and meet those who might be able to help my work along.

As a consequence of being in Newcastle, and not owning a laptop, I think my blog will go quiet from Thursday until the following Monday. As I’m travelling by coach there and back (8hrs of travelling!) the two day event becomes four days for me! I think I better take some good books. Perhaps one of Ann Cleeves, or David Peace’s… they’re always worth a re-read.