Right, I'm away on hoiday for the next nine days. Talk amongst yourselves.
If I'm not back soon...
...wait longer.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
How I became a writer
Somebody asked me recently how I got into being a writer. Here was my reply...
I did lots of writing at school, but nothing of note nor merit. Rather than wste three years of my life at university, I decided to try journalism. I bluffed my way into a six-month high-pressure journalism diploma at what was then called ATI (now the Auckland University of Technology, apparently). From there I became a cadet with The Daily News in Taranaki, before going back to Auckalnd for 2.5 years on the Herald. By the end of 1989 I decided to emigrate, furstrated at being unable to get into the Herald's features department. Thanks to grandparent patriality, I got myself indefinite residency and work permission for the UK, arriving in January 1990. I haboured an ambition to write for Doctor Who, but the show was about to go on a brief hiatus...
Some magazine journalism and then I somehow became an assistant editor on the about-to-be launched Judge Dredd Megazine, despite having no experience of working in comics before. I'd read comics from an early age in NZ (mostly Marvels, cos they were in colour) but knew little about Dredd or 2000 AD. The next ten years remedied that, at least.
I was freelance editorial until April 1992, writing several excruciatingly bad stories for the Megazine. One at least had the distinction of stunning art by fellow expat Roger Langridge, but my fiction writing career was not off to an auspicious start. I then went on staff and finding time to write got harder and harder, as did finding the motivation - a nice salary offsets that gnawing hunger at the back of your soul, in my experience. I toyed with pitching some ideas to Virgin, who then had the Who licence and actually took submissions from nobodies with no experience and no agent. But lack of confidence and drive let me down, until Virgin came knocking. The Judge Dredd movie was definitely happening and Virgin was looking to expand its fiction empire, so they got a licence to publish original novel featuring the future lawman. What they needed was writers who knew Dredd.
I had no track record as a writer but I knew Dredd - I was in.
My first novel was The Savage Amusement, a shocking mess plotwise but chunk full of Dredd goodness. I used to get up at 5 in the morning, write for an hour on a manual typewriter while the wife was asleep, then make breakfast, go to work and edit the Megazine. At weekends I managed to squeeze into another couple of pages while the wife was out at singing rehearsals (she loves to sing, but can't make a career of it). TSA took me ten weeks - no rewrites, no corrections and no going backwards. Like a lot of first novels, it was all over the place, but I learned much from the experience. Happily, not many people read it and those that did were forgiving.
Even more happily for me, Virgin still hadn't found anymore Dredd authors and needed another book in a hurry. The result was Cursed Earth Asylum, a vast improvement plotwise (as far as I'm concerned you can never go wrong borrowing the plot of Zulu) and containing moments of genuinely creepy horror that made me wonder where they'd come off. Characters starting coming to life on the page and I felt like I was turning into a real writer.
My third Dredd novel, Silencer, was written for the money. This is a mistake. If you don't care about the story you're writing, don't expect your readers to either - and don't think you'll enjoy the experience of writing it. Purgatory, although one fleeting scene almost moved me to tears.
By 1995 getting up at five in the morning to write seemed less attractive, what with the Dredd movie, editing two fortnightlies, a monthly and five different specials. Somehow in the midst of that madness I also managed to write Who Killed Kennedy, after swallowing a lifetime of Who continuity in a month. Annoyingly, it's still my best Who novel, despite the ending being rather shit.
WKK benefitted enormously from my having gone on a three-day seminar about story structure for wannabe Hollywood screenwriters, run by a guy called Robert McKee. It opened my eyes to the classical three act structure, confirmed a lot of things I discovered myself through trial and error (and editing thousands of stories for the Megazine and later 2000 AD). If you ever get the chance and have the money, go on the McKee course. He has his detractors, but those three days did wonders for y writing...
AFter WKK I was fulltime on 2000 AD and simply didn't have the time or energy to pursue my own writing. The itch was there, but I was giving everything I had at the office. In the year 2000 the urge to write got too strong and I quit to go freelance. Happily, my wife promised to support us both financially if I didn't make money - an understanding partner with a decent paying job does wonders for taking the pressure off would-be writers, I highly recommend finding one, if you can. In fact I've made a decent living in the five years sicne going freelance - some years better, some years not.
In the last five years I've written 11 novels, 12 audio dramas, 20 issues of The Phantom comic, three non-fiction books, dozens and dozens of non-fiction articles, and a shitload of other stuff. Frequently, one job has led to another, or one editor has led to another. I've hustled for work, I've been turned down a lot and I've had days and weeks when pulling teeth was easier than writing. I've been lucky, but I've also been persistent.
I recognise my limitations, but that doesn't mean I'm content with them. I'm always trying to improve my writing, pushing myself to do better. At the same time, I'm a pragmatist. If I'm writing a novel where I have to sign away my copyright, waive my moral rights and won't ever a reprint fee or royalty, then that novel is only worth a limited amount of my time. hell, I'll be dead in 30 or 40 years, I don't want to be thinking I shouldn't have wasted an extra week polishing that Nightmare on Elm Street novel when I could have been doing something better, something that held out the hope of a royalty, something all of my own creation.
Grim reality: editors look for two things in a professional writer - writing and professionalism. Yes, all editors want brilliant, exhilarating, deathless prose. But they also want manuscripts that arrive on time, require as little editing as possible and they meet the basic specifications they stated (wordcount, plotline, whatever). In my experience, the professional journeyman often gets more work - and more regular work - than the genius.
The sad fact for me so far is I've made a decent living but I haven't written many stories featuring just my own characters. I've got a long list on credits but they're nearly all media tie-ins. There's no shame in that, but I also want to write my own shit as well as somebody else's.
To achieve that ambition, I've just started an MA in Screenwriting at Napier University in Edinburgh. I'm doing it part-time, so it'll take two years and fitting that in around my freelance work is proving problematic, but I'll find a way. I'll be 40 when I graduate and I've got a list of things I want to achieve in my 40s - writing a bestseller, getting my first original crime novel published, that sort of thing. Hell, Doctor Who's back on TV, I might even crack that nut one day.
So, that's the story thus far. A modicum of talent, a bit of luck and a lot of hard work.
Come to think of it, there's one thing people never mention about being a writer: there's a hell of a lot of typing involved. If you don't type with all ten fingers already, go on a secretarial course at nightschool. Trust me, the amount of time you'll save, it's worth that little bit of effort. I was lucky, my journalism tutors demanded we all be able to touch-type at 30 words per minute, so I was forced into acquiring that skill.
I am to write 4000 words a day and you don't tend to do that tapping at a keyboard like two hens in a farmyard fighting over the last piece of corn.
I did lots of writing at school, but nothing of note nor merit. Rather than wste three years of my life at university, I decided to try journalism. I bluffed my way into a six-month high-pressure journalism diploma at what was then called ATI (now the Auckland University of Technology, apparently). From there I became a cadet with The Daily News in Taranaki, before going back to Auckalnd for 2.5 years on the Herald. By the end of 1989 I decided to emigrate, furstrated at being unable to get into the Herald's features department. Thanks to grandparent patriality, I got myself indefinite residency and work permission for the UK, arriving in January 1990. I haboured an ambition to write for Doctor Who, but the show was about to go on a brief hiatus...
Some magazine journalism and then I somehow became an assistant editor on the about-to-be launched Judge Dredd Megazine, despite having no experience of working in comics before. I'd read comics from an early age in NZ (mostly Marvels, cos they were in colour) but knew little about Dredd or 2000 AD. The next ten years remedied that, at least.
I was freelance editorial until April 1992, writing several excruciatingly bad stories for the Megazine. One at least had the distinction of stunning art by fellow expat Roger Langridge, but my fiction writing career was not off to an auspicious start. I then went on staff and finding time to write got harder and harder, as did finding the motivation - a nice salary offsets that gnawing hunger at the back of your soul, in my experience. I toyed with pitching some ideas to Virgin, who then had the Who licence and actually took submissions from nobodies with no experience and no agent. But lack of confidence and drive let me down, until Virgin came knocking. The Judge Dredd movie was definitely happening and Virgin was looking to expand its fiction empire, so they got a licence to publish original novel featuring the future lawman. What they needed was writers who knew Dredd.
I had no track record as a writer but I knew Dredd - I was in.
My first novel was The Savage Amusement, a shocking mess plotwise but chunk full of Dredd goodness. I used to get up at 5 in the morning, write for an hour on a manual typewriter while the wife was asleep, then make breakfast, go to work and edit the Megazine. At weekends I managed to squeeze into another couple of pages while the wife was out at singing rehearsals (she loves to sing, but can't make a career of it). TSA took me ten weeks - no rewrites, no corrections and no going backwards. Like a lot of first novels, it was all over the place, but I learned much from the experience. Happily, not many people read it and those that did were forgiving.
Even more happily for me, Virgin still hadn't found anymore Dredd authors and needed another book in a hurry. The result was Cursed Earth Asylum, a vast improvement plotwise (as far as I'm concerned you can never go wrong borrowing the plot of Zulu) and containing moments of genuinely creepy horror that made me wonder where they'd come off. Characters starting coming to life on the page and I felt like I was turning into a real writer.
My third Dredd novel, Silencer, was written for the money. This is a mistake. If you don't care about the story you're writing, don't expect your readers to either - and don't think you'll enjoy the experience of writing it. Purgatory, although one fleeting scene almost moved me to tears.
By 1995 getting up at five in the morning to write seemed less attractive, what with the Dredd movie, editing two fortnightlies, a monthly and five different specials. Somehow in the midst of that madness I also managed to write Who Killed Kennedy, after swallowing a lifetime of Who continuity in a month. Annoyingly, it's still my best Who novel, despite the ending being rather shit.
WKK benefitted enormously from my having gone on a three-day seminar about story structure for wannabe Hollywood screenwriters, run by a guy called Robert McKee. It opened my eyes to the classical three act structure, confirmed a lot of things I discovered myself through trial and error (and editing thousands of stories for the Megazine and later 2000 AD). If you ever get the chance and have the money, go on the McKee course. He has his detractors, but those three days did wonders for y writing...
AFter WKK I was fulltime on 2000 AD and simply didn't have the time or energy to pursue my own writing. The itch was there, but I was giving everything I had at the office. In the year 2000 the urge to write got too strong and I quit to go freelance. Happily, my wife promised to support us both financially if I didn't make money - an understanding partner with a decent paying job does wonders for taking the pressure off would-be writers, I highly recommend finding one, if you can. In fact I've made a decent living in the five years sicne going freelance - some years better, some years not.
In the last five years I've written 11 novels, 12 audio dramas, 20 issues of The Phantom comic, three non-fiction books, dozens and dozens of non-fiction articles, and a shitload of other stuff. Frequently, one job has led to another, or one editor has led to another. I've hustled for work, I've been turned down a lot and I've had days and weeks when pulling teeth was easier than writing. I've been lucky, but I've also been persistent.
I recognise my limitations, but that doesn't mean I'm content with them. I'm always trying to improve my writing, pushing myself to do better. At the same time, I'm a pragmatist. If I'm writing a novel where I have to sign away my copyright, waive my moral rights and won't ever a reprint fee or royalty, then that novel is only worth a limited amount of my time. hell, I'll be dead in 30 or 40 years, I don't want to be thinking I shouldn't have wasted an extra week polishing that Nightmare on Elm Street novel when I could have been doing something better, something that held out the hope of a royalty, something all of my own creation.
Grim reality: editors look for two things in a professional writer - writing and professionalism. Yes, all editors want brilliant, exhilarating, deathless prose. But they also want manuscripts that arrive on time, require as little editing as possible and they meet the basic specifications they stated (wordcount, plotline, whatever). In my experience, the professional journeyman often gets more work - and more regular work - than the genius.
The sad fact for me so far is I've made a decent living but I haven't written many stories featuring just my own characters. I've got a long list on credits but they're nearly all media tie-ins. There's no shame in that, but I also want to write my own shit as well as somebody else's.
To achieve that ambition, I've just started an MA in Screenwriting at Napier University in Edinburgh. I'm doing it part-time, so it'll take two years and fitting that in around my freelance work is proving problematic, but I'll find a way. I'll be 40 when I graduate and I've got a list of things I want to achieve in my 40s - writing a bestseller, getting my first original crime novel published, that sort of thing. Hell, Doctor Who's back on TV, I might even crack that nut one day.
So, that's the story thus far. A modicum of talent, a bit of luck and a lot of hard work.
Come to think of it, there's one thing people never mention about being a writer: there's a hell of a lot of typing involved. If you don't type with all ten fingers already, go on a secretarial course at nightschool. Trust me, the amount of time you'll save, it's worth that little bit of effort. I was lucky, my journalism tutors demanded we all be able to touch-type at 30 words per minute, so I was forced into acquiring that skill.
I am to write 4000 words a day and you don't tend to do that tapping at a keyboard like two hens in a farmyard fighting over the last piece of corn.
Arms of lead
Off on holiday this weekend and the semi-exotic location requires innoculations. So, a quick trip to the health centre yesterday, one needle in my left arm (tetanus, polio and diptheria - you can't just get tetanus anymore, they have to give you a cocktail), hepatitis A in my right arm. There shouldn't be any significant side effects, I was told.
So why do my arms feel like they're been injected with lead weights? Most of my joints ache, my neck feels funny peculiar and my energy levels are near zero. Of course, how much of this is real and how much mere hypochondria is hard to tell. Argh, now the muscles in my back are playing up too. This better be a good holiday.
In the meantime, I'm trying to finish yesterday's work (Part Five of the Judge Dredd Megazine's history articles), prep to interview screenwriter Timothy Prager about his involvement with the film Quicksand for a case study (part of my The Business of Screen Project Development module) and focus on starting the final script of four for the Project Whose Name I Am Contractually Obliged From Mentioning (PWNIACOFM - another crap acronym). Almost all of this work has to be completed before I go on holiday this Saturday.
So, no time for work displacement here!
Later for you...
So why do my arms feel like they're been injected with lead weights? Most of my joints ache, my neck feels funny peculiar and my energy levels are near zero. Of course, how much of this is real and how much mere hypochondria is hard to tell. Argh, now the muscles in my back are playing up too. This better be a good holiday.
In the meantime, I'm trying to finish yesterday's work (Part Five of the Judge Dredd Megazine's history articles), prep to interview screenwriter Timothy Prager about his involvement with the film Quicksand for a case study (part of my The Business of Screen Project Development module) and focus on starting the final script of four for the Project Whose Name I Am Contractually Obliged From Mentioning (PWNIACOFM - another crap acronym). Almost all of this work has to be completed before I go on holiday this Saturday.
So, no time for work displacement here!
Later for you...
Saturday, October 15, 2005
You know it's Winter when...
You have to switch from wearing Converse All-Stars to Caterpillar boots to prevent frostbite.
You spend five minutes scraping ice off the car windscreen before driving anywhere.
You have to turn on the bathroom light to avoid urinating on the floor.
You spend twenty minutes trying to remember what you did with your gloves.
You spend five minutes watching the steam rise from your knees in the bath.
You abandon your diet because all animals put on weight for the winter.
You wish you could hibernate.
You start counting the days to December 21st.
You write blog entries about knowing it's Winter.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
But enough of that. Time for a bracing walk in the sunshine.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One last 'You know...'
You know it's Winter when you use the word bracing in conversation and you're neither a 19th Century miner nor digging an escape tunnel from a German prisoner of war camp.
You spend five minutes scraping ice off the car windscreen before driving anywhere.
You have to turn on the bathroom light to avoid urinating on the floor.
You spend twenty minutes trying to remember what you did with your gloves.
You spend five minutes watching the steam rise from your knees in the bath.
You abandon your diet because all animals put on weight for the winter.
You wish you could hibernate.
You start counting the days to December 21st.
You write blog entries about knowing it's Winter.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
But enough of that. Time for a bracing walk in the sunshine.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One last 'You know...'
You know it's Winter when you use the word bracing in conversation and you're neither a 19th Century miner nor digging an escape tunnel from a German prisoner of war camp.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Twelve Hours of Stuff
Yesterday was Week 3 of my MA Screenwriting course at Napier University. Since I'm a part-time student, I have only one day a week on campus. For the first two weeks (and the Kafkaesque Matriculation and Induction Day a week before), I drove into the Edinburgh, a 60 mile round trip. Thanks to recent events, petrol currently costs close to one pound sterling per litre. Our car, a Toyota Rav 4, gets about 330 miles to a 50 litre tank. That means it costs about eight quid to drive to Edinburgh and back from where we live. Parking near the campus can be tricky and I don't always have access to a car, so I needed to find an alternate means of getting into Napier.
Yesterday, I got the bus.
Gotta say, I've had more fun. For a start, the only bus that gets me into college before classes start at 9.30am leaves Biggar at 7.05am. That means getting up at 6.30am and doing some advance prep the night before. Then there's the long, tortuous journey into Edinburgh. Right now the main route, the A702, is completely closed for a 6-week long stint of roadworks so the coach has to take a painful detour via Netherurd, Blythe Bridge, Bogbank and other quaintly named places. That adds another 15-20 minutes to what is already an 80 minute journey. The seats are torture, the passengers sullen and exhaust fumes constantly leak into the bus.
Can't wait until it's the depths of winter and the journey gets even slower.
Coming back was much the same, but a smaller bus and less room. Plus the driver plainly thought he was in a Formula One Grand Prix or perhaps he aspires to NASCAR. Whatever his motivation, we got tossed about like 43 corks in a can of Dr Pepper. Can't say I enjoy long coach journeys much, but one word best describes that trip home: bilious. Staggered into the house at five to seven last night, exactly 12 hours after leaving, in much the same zombified state.
Happy happy joy joy.
Yesterday, I got the bus.
Gotta say, I've had more fun. For a start, the only bus that gets me into college before classes start at 9.30am leaves Biggar at 7.05am. That means getting up at 6.30am and doing some advance prep the night before. Then there's the long, tortuous journey into Edinburgh. Right now the main route, the A702, is completely closed for a 6-week long stint of roadworks so the coach has to take a painful detour via Netherurd, Blythe Bridge, Bogbank and other quaintly named places. That adds another 15-20 minutes to what is already an 80 minute journey. The seats are torture, the passengers sullen and exhaust fumes constantly leak into the bus.
Can't wait until it's the depths of winter and the journey gets even slower.
Coming back was much the same, but a smaller bus and less room. Plus the driver plainly thought he was in a Formula One Grand Prix or perhaps he aspires to NASCAR. Whatever his motivation, we got tossed about like 43 corks in a can of Dr Pepper. Can't say I enjoy long coach journeys much, but one word best describes that trip home: bilious. Staggered into the house at five to seven last night, exactly 12 hours after leaving, in much the same zombified state.
Happy happy joy joy.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Student Daze
So, after twenty years working with words for a living, I have became a student once more. Three weeks ago I matriculated at Edinburgh's Napier University as a part-time student on the new MA Screenwriting course. Last time I was a student, it was a six-month journalism diploma at ATI in New Zealand. (It's so long since then, ATI is now known as the Auckland University of Technology, but I digress...) Now I'm trying to cope with set texts, reading lists longer than my arm and interacted with 30 fellow students. Life as a self-employed freelancer doesn't prepare you for this. I spend most of my days alone in a room with a computer and my imagination for company.
The course has a weird three-way dynamic going on. For a start, being part-time means I only spend one day at week at college, where as the full-timers have two days a week at Napier. That immediately distances and, to some extent, disenfranchises us part-timers from the rest of the students. A further complication is the fact the course mixes Scrrenwriting students with Screen Producers. There's a fair degree of crossover between the two streams, but again it's a them and us situation. At least in that case it's probably a reflection of the real world divide between scibes and moguls.
Matriculation Day was a Kafka-esque torture involving long hours of waiting, then being lectured on website issues while being starved. Week One was a get to know you thing for everyone, with the course leaders oing their best to scare everyone with the workload ceiling. Week Two was last Thursday for me, and we spent (or wasted, depending on your POV) 45 minutes on computer problems that still haven't been resolved. Then we did a writing exercise that was supposed to introduce us to how a premise works. In fact this because a five-minute fact-ramming lesson at the end of the morning. That wasn't the course leader's fault, but it didn't work that well either. In the afternoon we had several hours with Scotland's leading entertainment lawyer. I was fascinated by his insights, but the student next to me fell asleep. Each to their own.
I'm not sure how committed I am to this course yet. I've been trying to do reading outside class, but deadline pressures and external activites are fighting for my time. I guess the crunch will come when my first assignment's due in a fortnight.
The course has a weird three-way dynamic going on. For a start, being part-time means I only spend one day at week at college, where as the full-timers have two days a week at Napier. That immediately distances and, to some extent, disenfranchises us part-timers from the rest of the students. A further complication is the fact the course mixes Scrrenwriting students with Screen Producers. There's a fair degree of crossover between the two streams, but again it's a them and us situation. At least in that case it's probably a reflection of the real world divide between scibes and moguls.
Matriculation Day was a Kafka-esque torture involving long hours of waiting, then being lectured on website issues while being starved. Week One was a get to know you thing for everyone, with the course leaders oing their best to scare everyone with the workload ceiling. Week Two was last Thursday for me, and we spent (or wasted, depending on your POV) 45 minutes on computer problems that still haven't been resolved. Then we did a writing exercise that was supposed to introduce us to how a premise works. In fact this because a five-minute fact-ramming lesson at the end of the morning. That wasn't the course leader's fault, but it didn't work that well either. In the afternoon we had several hours with Scotland's leading entertainment lawyer. I was fascinated by his insights, but the student next to me fell asleep. Each to their own.
I'm not sure how committed I am to this course yet. I've been trying to do reading outside class, but deadline pressures and external activites are fighting for my time. I guess the crunch will come when my first assignment's due in a fortnight.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Shiny and New
Like the rest of the known universe, I've decided to start a blog. How original. In reality, I've tried twice before at other hosts but found the experience a bit shit. But several people I like and admire (and many I don't) are already here at Blogger, so it's time to give this home a try. Hopefully, it'll be more successful than previous attempts. We'll see.
More as it happens. Or, more accurately, after it happens and I've had time to write it down here.
More as it happens. Or, more accurately, after it happens and I've had time to write it down here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)