No emergencies here, just some affirmation

This is blog posting 999, according to my Blogger dashboard. Nine hundred and ninety-nine different bits of blather by me in less than two years. Grud knows what I've found to type about, but I do love the sound of my own voice, even when it's just inside my head. Or coming out my fingers. You know what I mean, right? Right. You'll have to excuse the tone, I'm likely to be spouting fifth generation carbon copy Neil Simon dialogue for a while, as I'm learning a part for a Neil Simon play being staged locally in October. Should make for some interesting leakage when I sit down to write the finla project for my MA screenwriting course.

In other news, my script DANNY'S TOYS has made it to the semi-finals of the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards, in the Short Film category. [Fellow blogger Jackson Pillock of Pillock's Pad has also made the semi-finals in the Comedy category, so round for applause for him.] More than 3,400 scripts were submitted to the contest, split across ten categories. These were thinned out to the top 25% for the next stage. Now it's the semi-finals, with industry professionals choosing the top 25 scripts in each category. Happily, my short film script was among those picked from the throng.

On August 30 each category will be thinned out even further, with ten scripts chosen as finalists in each. The final selection happens mid-September, with the top three scripts in each category getting prizes and a single, overall winner taking away $10,000 and a fistful of gifts. Nice. I'm chuffed to have made the semi-finals, especially as the version of DANNY'S TOYS I submitted is an early draft with some rough corners that have since been smoothed out.

In truth, getting this far means nothing more than a pleasant moment of affirmation. It won't get me representation and it doesn't turn me into a better screenwriter overnight. But it's nice to have the pat on the back, and makes the prospect of a day sat staring at a computer screen that little bit less daunting. Speaking of which, it's past time I got back to work. Onwards and, hopefully, upwards!

Evil Monkey Guide to Creative Writing

The lovely Maggie flagged up a wonderful blog posting called the Evil Monkey Guide to Creative Writing. Can't say I've experienced everything cited by its author, but I do recognise far too many of these warnings and salutary events. Here's a small extract from it, to whet your appetites...

More than half of all writing advice you receive over your lifetime will be incorrect, incomplete, or howlingly wrong. You will encounter advice driven by neuroses, bitterness, failure, ego, and arrogance. In books and in writing workshops, you will have instructors who mistake their own path to success as the only path to success. Yet others will try to impose upon you their own writing style, their own list of valid subject matter and approaches. Anecdotal evidence will loom large. Some advice, some instructors, will be actively obstructionist, driven by the belief that “toughening beginners up” – discouragement – is good practice for the real world of writing.

Let's see what's in the gallery...

Sigh. I'll be spending most of today writing to hit a deadline, so no time to write a lengthy blog entry, let alone edit it down to something meaningful and pithy. Instead, here's a few pictures of Florence from my iPhoto files...

Inside the Bargello at Florence. This monolithic building was once the headquarters for fighting crime in the Tuscan city during the Renaissance, evolved into a prison and is now a museum. You could almost believ in progress.

A weird grotto-chapel in the Boboli Gardens at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. With lots of tourists milliong around in front of it, blocking my view. Gits.

The fabled Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence at night, shot in unsteady-cam. Home to the city's gold merchants for centuries, it used to house butchers who tipped excess blood and offal over the side of the bridge into the Arno. Charming.

DeathRay gives Thrill-Power Overload 4 stars

The new issue of DeathRay magazine reviews THRILL-POWER OVERLOAD, my official history of 2000 AD, the galaxy's greatest comic. I won't reprint everything Garth Haley has to say about TPO, but it's overwhelmingly positive, giving the tome four stars out of five. Here's the first two paragraphs of his review:

When a new British science fiction comic launched in 1977, the year 2000 seemed impossible distant - especially for a title that was expected to last five years at most. Three decades, dozens of classic characters and countless pages of groundbreaking stories later and against all odds 2000 AD marches on. Ex-editor David Bishop set himself a daunting task indeed when he set out to chronicle the 'definitive history' of the comic.

It's quickly apparent that this beautifully packaged and thoroughly researched book is a labour of love. Bishop must have called in a few favours to assemble the impressive roster of contributors who recall their roles with colour and affection. But that's not to say this is a santised version of events, all sweetness and light and fond remembrances - 30 years of editorial spats and creative fall-outs are laid bare with brutal honesty. Original editor Pat Mills sets the tone when he admits he wrote many of the early strips himself rather let, "Hicks piss out a lazy story" while Dredd-scribe Alan Grant has no qualms in describing one fellow comic superstar's version of Robo-Hunter as a "Pile of crap".

Geek heaven or convention hell

Comic-Con is happening in San Diego right now. What started out as a small comics convention has grown into a multi-media behemoth, like the geek equivalent to the Cannes Film Festival but covering film, TV, computer games, all manner of other entertainment media. Oh, and sometimes comics, too. Forthcoming genre films get their first serious pimpage at San Diego, genre TV shows are now reserving their best sneaks for San Diego and it's the place to be seen if you're launching something big.

The problem is getting seen or heard amidst the wall of sound the convention now generates. Actually, it's closer to an concrete car park building of white noise than just a single wall of sound. I went to San Diego ten years ago and was overwhelmed by the scale of it. I went back in 1999 and it took an hour to walk from one end of the convention to the other. Frighteningly, the building was being expanded. I think Comic-Con now covers two or four times as much floor space as it did in '99.

You could always tell the Brits at San Diego, they were the pasty white people dressed in black, standing outside chain smoking. Finding a hotel room at the convention rate is next to impossible. You can't move for people. The waft of fanboy body odour gets pretty overpowering once you stick more than 100,000 geeks in one space at one time. Despite all of that, Comic-Con can be a blast. The pound to dollar exchange may be a nightmare for Brit creators at the moment, but at least anyone going to San Diego from the UK this year has massive spending power.

In other news, nailed a deadline yesterday morning and then raced into Screen Academy Scotland for a session with the guest mentor lined up to help MA screenwriting students with their final projects. Peter was enthusiastic about my TV project and offered lots of good notes I'll be weaving into the next stage of development. Of course, his enthusiasm may have been driven by the fact I was the first student he'd met. That may change once 24 of my colleagues have had their wicked way with him.

Got two more deadlines looming and a Phantom script to write before I can return to my final project, hopefully the end of next week. At that point I'll have four weeks left to deliver my project, and still won't have started the first draft. My hope is all this preparation and contemplation will make the scripting that bit easier. I've spent a lot of time sorting out my story structure and getting to know my characters. Now all I need to find is their inidividual voices...

Michael Caine top 10 film lists

Got another deadline to deal with this morning, so here's the last ever extract from my book about the films of Michael Caine. This got dropped from the published tome, so it's never seen print before. What follows was written in 2003, so it excludes the films Caine has made since then, such as Children of Men, Batman Begins and - shudder - Bewitched.

THE BEST AND WORST OF CAINE

Just for fun, here are several Top 10 lists featuring selections from Caine’s many movies. They showcase some of the best, worst, most underrated and hardest to find of his films. The selections are entirely subjective and listed in chronological order of release. A few of the pictures on the hard to find list also appear on the other lists, but that is a fair reflection of how unobtainable they are. With 80 Caine films to chose from, these lists offer guidance of suggested viewing and movies to be avoided like the plague.

CAINE’S TEN BEST FILMS
Zulu (1964)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Alfie (1966)
The Italian Job (1969)
Get Carter (1971)
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
The Cider House Rules (1999)
The Quiet American (2002)

CAINE’S TEN WORST FILMS
Deadfall (1968)
The Magus (1968)
The Romantic Englishwoman (1975)
Peeper (1975)
Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976)
Ashanti (1979)
The Island (1980)
Bullseye! (1990)
Midnight in St Petersburg (1997)
Shadow Run (1998)

CAINE’S TEN MOST UNDERRATED FILMS
Gambit (1966)
Play Dirty (1968)
The Last Valley (1970)
Pulp (1972)
The Wilby Conspiracy (1975)
Dressed to Kill (1980)
A Shock to the System (1990)
Blood and Wine (1997)
Little Voice (1998)
Last Orders (2001)

CAINE’S TEN HARDEST TO FIND FILMS
Hurry Sundown (1967)
Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
The Magus (1968)
Kidnapped (1971)
Zee and Co. (1972)
Pulp (1972)
Peeper (1975)
Noises Off (1992)
The Debtors (1999)
Quicksand (2002)

July 2007 update: Billion Dollar Brain has been released on DVD, but without a short sequence featuring A Hard Day's Night by The Beatles. The Magus and Kidnapped have now made it to DVD, though Kidnapped has already been deleted, re-released on DVD and deleted again. Pulp, Peeper, Noises Off and Quicksand can now be found on DVD. Hurry Sundown, Zee and Co and The Debtors remain missing in action. It's unlikely The Debots will ever get released, thanks to legal issues, but the other two might yet make it to DVD.

Making friends and affluencing people

Do you enjoy stress? Do you write best when faced with an ever-shortening amount of time in which to complete your task? Do you need a near impossible challenge to get you motivated? Welcome to the world of freelance creativity. Come on in, the water's boiling and the kitchen is hot. Darn hot. [Maybe too darn hot, but that's for you - and possibly Cole Porter - to decide. If it is for you, get out. If it is for Cole Porter, that's not your problem, he's already dead.]

The joy of being a freelancer is that you work when you want, at least in theory. The reality of freelancing is that you're at the whim of commissioning editors, producers and all those other people with the power to say yes. You get an email, a text or a phone call asking if you'd be interested in a particular job. Chances are, it's already been offered to somebody else, but they couldn't or wouldn't do it. If you're shocked to discover you weren't first choice, get over it. You're being offered the gig now and that's all that matters now.

Can you fulfill the job? Can you meet the challenge creatively? Most of all, can you do it in the time available? Not the deadline you're being offered, that's almost always negotiable, but in the time you have left in your schedule. With any luck, you'll already have a full plate of projects on the go, ideally with or for a variety of employers. There's nothing worse for a freelancer than keeping all your eggs in one basket. It only takes a moment for some git to knock that basket over and your future income gets scrambled. Without bacon. Or toast.

A friendly editor leaves a title and their replacement's no fan of your work? Chances are you won't get much work from that title anymore. [The friendly editor might well get a better job and employ you there instead, but you can't depend upon that.] In TV script editors can be quite mobile. They have their favourites, writers with whom they gel, people they can depend upon and know they'll enjoy working with. Chances are, those script editors will want to employ those writers again on whatever show the script editor graces next.

As a freelancer, you've got to nurture your friendships and working relationships with script editors and commissioning editors. That sounds mercenary, but ideally it should be a friendship as well as a working relationship. Sure, you'll sometimes find yourself working for bosses you don't always respect, but editors feel the same about a lot of the people they employ, both inside and outside the office. For the most part you can't choose your colleagues, only your friends.

I've had editors with whom I've kept in touch with nearly 20 years, because a working relationship turned into a friendship. It's easier for that friendship to blossom once you remove the employer/employee element from the relationship. I edited comics for more than a decade, but it wasn't until after I'd stopped that I could enjoy going to a comics festival or convention. [Big hello to everyone attending Comic-Con in San Diego this week, you lucky buggers!] I quickly learned who was genuinely friendly - most people in British comics, happily - and who had been sucking up.

In most creative professions, three criteria will determine your ability to get more work from commissioning editors and producers in future. Firstly, what have you done for them lately? Was your last job a success, did you meet or exceed expectations? Secondly, how professional are you? Do you always hit your deadlines, meet the required specifications - are you trustworthy, a safe pair of hands? Thirdly, do they want to work with you? Or will you drive them crazy?

When I was an editor choosing which freelance creator to employ, I applied all those criteria to aid my decisions. Track record was important, professional was crucial. I employed plenty of people I disliked - and a few I even hated - because they delivered the goods. But if somebody failed to deliver on time or in terms of quality, that's when the personal factor came into play. If a creative was too demanding, too needy, too high maintenance, I'd pull the plug. Life's too short to be working with undertalented assholes.

You want to get work? Do good work. Be professional. And be a pleasure to employ. Affleunce awaits!

Running to stand still

Deadlines are piling up like Sunday newspaper sections, and I'm utterly knackered. Did a twenty-hour round trip to that Fancy London yesterday as guest speaker for a comic making workshop at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. Rejoiced in the fact the V&A off-shoot stands opposite wine merchants Balls Brothers, who had their name immortalised in a 2000 AD strip by John Wagner and Kevin Walker. The teenagers at the workshop were good fun and it seemed to go well. I'm back for the same event with a fresh crop in a fortnight, when I'm hoping my deadline will have eased a tad.

Got a think piece to do today, but don't know how long it's meant to be until I can talk to the editor later this morning. Tomorrow I'm reviewing three episodes of a TV series. Thursday I'm into Edinburgh to meet a film producer who's helping to mentor final projects for the MA Screenwriting course at Screen Academy Scotland. Back home and I've four hours of interview tape to transcribe for the first part of a three-article feature series - that's due July 31st. And I've got an episode of The Phantom to write for Egmont Sweden. And my final project needs writing.

Lots and lots and lots to do, so best I make a start. Sympathies to all those suffering flood damage or the stress of imminent flooding. I recommend you don't read The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham anytime soon, as the final fifty pages won't cheer you up.

Random link: my perplexity at Friday Night Lights getting dissed by the Emmys gets quoted by the AOL TV website. How bizarre. Still, at least they emailed to tell me. AOL TV, that is, not the Emmys. YOu can only take democracy so far, right?

Gone to the Museum of Childhood

In London all day Monday to be a guest speaker at the V&A's Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, which is running a comic making workshop. Feel free to amuse yourselves, but don't forget to clean up the mess afterwards.

Films of Michael Caine: introductory essay

Busy with a deadline-impending project, so here's an essay from my book on the films of Michael Caine. It was written in 2003, so doesn't take into account more recent projects like Children of Men or Batman Begins. Four years later, the mentioned remake Sleuth has finally been films, with Harold Pinter writing the screenplay adaptation and Kenneth Branagh as director. It's due for release later this year in the run-up to Oscar nominations. First time round both Caine and Olivier got best actors noms for their work in Sleuth - will the remake emulate that success?

Michael Caine is one of the world’s great film actors. He has won two Oscars, three Golden Globes, a BAFTA and numerous career achievement awards. Since his breakthrough role in Zulu (1964), he has made eighty movies in forty years – with more on the way. These films have ranged from the sublime (Get Carter, Sleuth and Alfie to name a few) to the ridiculous (The Swarm, On Deadly Ground, and Shadow Run). Caine’s remarkable career longevity is underlined by the fact he is one of only three men to have been Oscar-nominated in five consecutive decades (the others are Laurence Olivier and Jack Nicholson.) He turned 70 in March 2003, an age when most people have already retired. Instead Caine was being feted for giving one of the finest performances of his career in The Quiet American (2002). He had another film already in post-production (Secondhand Lions) and was about to start work on The Statement with acclaimed director Norman Jewison.

Starring Michael Caine is a guide to this iconic actor’s feature films. The bulk of the book is devoted to a movie-by-movie analysis of those 80 movies, including useful information, intriguing facts and a range of opinion. Its emphasis is squarely upon Caine’s participation and his performances, with extensive quotes by the man himself drawn from hundreds of sources. Alas, attempts to secure an interview with Caine for this volume proved unsuccessful - hopefully that will be redressed for a future edition.

Starring Michael Caine is not a biography of the actor’s life. There are several of those already available, with Caine’s 1992 autobiography What’s It All About? still the definitive work on the subject. This book is neither a hatchet job nor a hagiography. It is an honest appraisal of Caine’s career and the films in which he has appeared. Caine has made foolish choices and has also shown moments of genius on screen. This volume acknowledges both ends of the spectrum and everything in between. Instead of presenting a chronological career overview, Starring Michael Caine concentrates on the films themselves, presenting them in alphabetical order. It tells the behind the scenes story of each movie’s production, charts critical reactions and helps you sort the gems from the dross.

Lazy critics have frequently written off Caine with the facile suggestion that the actor is merely playing himself. But he has appeared on the big screen as gangsters, journalists, spies, transvestites, murderers, psychopaths, architects, homosexuals, bisexuals, diplomats, racists and assassins, among many other roles. If he was only playing himself, it is unlikely he could convince in any of those performances. Perhaps Caine’s greatest gift is to make what he does look easy, when nothing could be farther from the truth.

But how did a South London lad with no formal dramatic training become one of the most respected film actors of the past 40 years? And why has he been so successful for so long? There is no single answer to either question that neatly explains Caine’s 40-year career near the top of his profession. Certainly he is a pragmatic actor who appears to look upon acting as a craft, rather than an art. He prides himself on being professional, and expects others to do the same, because acting is his profession.

To best illustrate the many factors that have contributed to Caine’s success and longevity, it is necessary to briefly examine his life and career so far…

LIFE BEFORE ZULU
Maurice Joseph Micklewhite was born at St Olave’s Hospital in London on March 14, 1933. His father was a porter at the Billingsgate fish market, his mother a cleaning lady. The South London family was poor, with Micklewhite Snr frequently unemployed. At the age of five young Maurice Micklewhite developed a life-long love for films, and began making regular visits to local cinemas. He was evacuated during the Second World War and later recalled being mistreated while billeted away from home. In later life the actor would use such traumatic experiences and injustices as triggers to help him find the necessary emotion for a scene. Caine can cry on demand by reaching back to those painful memories.

After the war the Micklewhite family was relocated to a district called the Elephant and Castle, home to vicious criminal and street gangs. Caine based his performances in films like Get Carter (1971) on the murderous individuals he encountered at the Elephant. At 15 he joined the drama class at a local youth club to pursue his dream of becoming a film star and to get closer to girls. He left school at 16, becoming an office boy with a small company that made tourist films. Called up for National Service at 18, Micklewhite was later sent to fight in the Korean War. The deaths and carnage he witnessed there had a profound effect on the would-be actor. He subsequently starred in several war films, but almost always chose pictures where the futility of war was made obvious.

Micklewhite left the army in 1952 and talked his way into a job as an assistant stage manager with a small theatre company, adopting the stage name Michael Scott. The young actor started getting walk-on parts, gradually increasing his levels of skill and confidence. When he was offered his first television job, Scott discovered his chosen stage name was already taken. Inspired by The Caine Mutiny (1954), the young actor renamed himself Michael Caine. Over the next decade he continued to perform on stage and in a succession of bit parts for movies. His best hope seemed to be with television, but Caine was determined to succeed in films. He even turned down a regular role in the long-running police series Z-Cars. His friends were fast becoming household names, but Caine was approaching 30 without finding a great role. That changed when he was cast in Zulu (1964).

Caine showed remarkable resilience during his first 30 years. He determined to become a film star, despite all the odds being against him. Men from his background did not aspire to become actors. Such a profession was sneered at and those who chose it were called queer. But Caine persisted with his dream. He did not have the looks of a matinee idol, nor the upper class accent used by most British actors of the time. He did not have the chance to go to drama school, instead learning to act on the job in repertory theatre, from bits parts in movies and on television. Caine’s first marriage collapsed partly because of his driven ambition to succeed as an actor. Again and again he would tell fellow actors that he was going to be a film star – but nobody believed him.

Timing was another factor in Caine’s success. He was ready to make the most of his big break when it came as Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead in Zulu. By 1963 he had developed the technical skills to cope with such an opportunity. He did not have much dialogue in the film, but succeeded in giving what he did have far greater impact than any film acting novice could achieve. Had the chance come sooner, Caine might not have been ready. Equally, a shift in British attitudes by the 1960s made it possible for creative people from working class origins to break through traditional barriers and become famous. Kitchen sink dramas, angry young men and the rise of rock ‘n’ roll all helped pave the way for Caine to become a cinema star.

THE 1960s
Luck has played a significant part in Caine’s career. His first major roles were all in hit films – Zulu, The Ipcress File (1965) and Alfie (1966). Each helped win him subsequent roles, creating and then enhancing his status. Caine’s performance in Zulu secured the lead in The Ipcress File and the financial security of a seven-year contract with producer Harry Saltzman. The Ipcress File proved an actor wearing glasses could be a big screen star – the first time that had happened since Harold Lloyd in the silent film era. It also helped win Caine the role of Alfie and his first Hollywood picture, Gambit (1966), with Shirley MacLaine. Alfie brought his first Oscar nomination and, crucially, introduced him to American filmmakers. Had any of these pictures failed, the knock-on effect could have badly derailed his fledgling career.

Other actors have divided their time between cinema, the theatre and television, but Caine has single-mindedly pursued film acting as his career. He abandoned theatre work soon after making Zulu and television almost as quickly. He grabbed opportunities to work with established film stars and major directors, always looking to improve his skills and extend his network of industry contacts. But fear of poverty pushed Caine into unwise choices, like a contract with Twentieth Century Fox that begat two feeble flops, Deadfall and The Magus (both 1968).

At the end of the 1960s, Caine was stuck in a run of unsuccessful films. Critics wondered if he could ever escape the twin shadows of Alfie and Harry Palmer. But another of Caine’s strongest assets came to his rescue – professionalism. No matter how bad the film around him may be, Caine prided himself on always giving the best performance he could. But his professionalism goes beyond that. Almost everyone who ever worked with him has said how easy he makes the job for others. In a career not short of prima donnas, Caine gets on with the job of acting. Producers never lose money because he has thrown a tantrum and refused to come out of his trailer. Directors are delighted to discover he arrives on set already knowing his lines. He is willing to help other actors achieve a good performance, staying behind to feed them lines even when he is not visible in shot. As a result, people are eager to work with him again and again. Caine’s professionalism earned him great respect in Hollywood.

THE 1970s
Another reason for Caine’s continued success was his willingness to take risks. He played a remorseless hitman in Get Carter (1971), fully endorsing the film’s brutally realistic violence. The picture horrified critics at the time but has since been recognised as a British cinema classic, thanks in no small part to Caine’s bleak, chilling performance. In Sleuth (1972) he went head to head with Olivier, one of Britain’s most respected thespians. The picture offered an unique challenge as it was one of the first movies made with a cast of just two. There was no hiding place for Caine, but he proved himself equal to Olivier as a film actor and both men were nominated for the best actor Oscar.

Many British actors of Caine’s generation lost their way in the 1970s due to drink or drugs. In his autobiography Caine recalled that he too was becoming a heavy drinker by the early 1970s, but his relationship with Shakira Baksh changed that. They married in January 1973 and had a daughter later that year. It’s impossible for any outsider to know just how influential Caine’s 30-year marriage has been upon his career, but it seems likely she has helped him through lean years when others have turned to drink and drugs.

Caine has been in plenty of poor movies, but he has also made many shrewd choices over the years. In the mid-1970s he deliberately began taking roles that could establish him as an international film star. Caine was ready when the British film industry went into near terminal decline, able to sustain his career by working almost exclusively in Hollywood. After The Romantic Englishwoman (1975), he made 15 films in seven years – but only three were British. The actor found himself spending so much time working in Hollywood, he decided to live there. The punitive tax rates imposed on high earners in Britain were another encouragement to leave his homeland.

The transition to America was not easy. To fund the relocation Caine took on ill-advised films like The Swarm (1978) and Ashanti (1979). But in between them he still managed to impress as a bisexual in California Suite (1978), proving he was a better actor than his surroundings often suggested. Caine arrived in Hollywood as the 1970s drew to a close but found himself back at the bottom of the ladder when it came to getting the best scripts and the best parts. It was like starting all over again. But he still had to earn a living and threw himself into what work was available, even if it meant the movie disaster Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979).

THE 1980s
Caine’s struggle to re-establish himself as a credible actor in Hollywood continued in the early 1980s. He made three horror films in succession, with only Brian De Palma’s controversial Dressed to Kill (1980) giving Caine a credible platform to display his talents. It took all the actor’s powers of persuasion to secure the lead in Deathtrap (1982), a minor film by Sidney Lumet that still raised Caine’s profile. Ironically, he went back to British films to prove himself. Educating Rita (1983) reunited him with Alfie director Lewis Gilbert and secured Caine another best actor Oscar nomination.

Caine was never afraid of hard work, appearing more comfortable on a soundstage than a golf course. His fierce work ethic reached new heights in the mid-1980s when as he appeared in 12 films between 1985 and 1988. Caine was determined to prove his range. Widely perceived as a dramatic actor, he took on as many comedies as possible. Some were sublime (such as his Oscar-winning role in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) or playing the cad in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)), some were fitfully funny (Sweet Liberty in 1986) and others simply fell flat (Water in 1985). By the end of this prolific period Caine and his family had returned to live in England.
When he turned 55 Caine reversed a long-standing policy of refusing all offers to act on television. He was paid a seven figure sum to star in a TV mini-series, Jack the Ripper (1988). The project was a ratings hit and Caine was persuaded to make another, Jekyll & Hyde (1990). Deciding it was time to take stock, he stepped off the treadmill of constant filming and began writing his autobiography, What’s It All About?

THE 1990s
When Caine tried to get back into acting after a year off, it proved harder than he expected to get work. He set up a production company with American Martin Bregman to make small British thrillers, but the venture failed when their first film, Blue Ice, flopped in 1992. A year later he found himself in Alaska making On Deadly Ground (1994) with martial arts action hero Steven Seagal. Caine’s career was in trouble and he knew it.

For years the actor had sworn he would never make another Harry Palmer film, having hung up his NHS frames after Billion Dollar Brain (1967). But in 1994 Caine made two Harry Palmer films back-to-back in Russia, both doomed to go straight to video. It seemed Caine’s time had passed. He was over 60 and could only find worthwhile scripts for TV projects. The actor decided to concentrate on running his restaurants, opening a new one in Miami, Florida. Just when he was thinking of retiring altogether, his lucky streak returned with the arrival of Jack Nicholson and director Bob Rafelson.

The pair were making a movie in Florida called Blood and Wine (1997). They invited Caine to play a dying safecracker. It was only a supporting role but got him back on the big screen. Within a year Caine had joined the cast of Little Voice (1998), establishing a fruitful relationship with America’s powerful Miramax studio. That led to his supporting role in The Cider House Rules (1999) and a second best supporting actor Oscar. Caine was being taken seriously again by Hollywood – the comeback was complete.

THE 2000s
In the past four years Caine has played a mixture of lead and supporting roles, balancing lightweight comedies like Miss Congeniality (2000) and Austin Power in Goldmember (2002) with dramatic films such as Last Orders (2001) and The Quiet American (2002). The latter earned him a sixth Oscar nomination, largely thanks to Caine’s own efforts to get a film perceived to be Anti-American released in a hostile political climate. He didn’t win the Oscar, but just getting his name among the five nominees was a testament to his talent, perseverance and networking skills.

So what’s next? Secondhand Lions is already in post-production and should be released soon after this book is published. Considering the harsh response of British critics to Caine’s New England accent in The Cider House Rules (1999), it’ll be interesting to see what reviewers have to say about his Texan drawl. Shooting is underway on The Statement (200?), a potential Oscar contender, judging by its cast and crew.

Caine is hopeful of two other projects coming to fruition. Production was due to start on Boswell for the Defence in 2001 but financing fell apart just before shooting began. Plans are afoot to try again towards the end of 2003, with Caine in the lead. Also being nursed towards production is a new film version of the stage play Sleuth, featuring Caine and rising star Jude Law. Both make for intriguing prospects.

A few, final thoughts before moving on to consider Caine’s 80 films since Zulu. There are only two major genres this versatile actor yet to tackle – the western and science fiction. The former is perhaps not surprising, as the western has been out of favour with filmmakers for most of Caine’s career, and the British industry doesn’t produce many westerns. Then there is the fact Caine has an oft-stated antipathy for horses, having been unseated and unsettled by the animals on almost every occasion he has acted with them. ‘I’ll never be in a western,’ Caine told GQ in 1997, ‘because I hate horses, I don’t like wide open spaces, and I’m not very keen on baked beans.’

As for science fiction, it’s difficult to imagine Caine slipping into a spacesuit these days. Most of his film roles have been resolutely contemporary when they were made, with only a handful set before the 20th century. The closest he ever got to a science fiction was facing the killer bees of The Swarm (1978). The fallout from that almighty flop probably persuaded him science fiction was a genre best left to others.

It seems unlikely that Caine will retire soon. He received the best notices of his life for The Quiet American and is still hungry to win a best actor Oscar after four unsuccessful nominations. More importantly, Caine is still hungry to act. Many of his friends and colleagues have been content to retire, but Caine wants to stretch himself. Since turning 65 the actor has produced some of his career’s best work. Hopefully there is more to come…

Still more eBay madness: Echo, Siouxsie, Bob

Busy with stuff and things today, so no time to blog. Instead I'll inflict another shameless plug on you for my ongoing eBay auctions. As well as all the comics, I'm also offering five sets of CDs in lovely presentation cases - Echo & and the Bunnymen's Crystal Days career retrospective, Siouxsie and the Banshees's collection of B-sides and rarities, Bob Marley's Songs of Freedom, The Jam's greatest hits distilled over five CDs and five CDs of The Style Council. One day The Style Council will come back into the fashion, if they haven't already, but The Jam are always cool.

Not getting my geek on for Transformers, et al

The Transformers movie's been doing gangbusters business across the Atlantic and is getting plenty of play across UK movie and genre magazines at the moment. Hell, for all I know the film has already opened in British cinemas. I couldn't care less. I'm the wrong age to have any feelings about Transformers or the movie, let alone any enthusiasm. When the toys came out in the 80s and spawned a phenomenally successful cartoon series, I was already sneaking into R16 and R18 movies in New Zealand, getting drunk and trying to get lucky. Trucks that can turn into robots? Not for me, thanks.

Fast forward to today and blokes of a certain generation are getting their geek on for the big screen return of the robots in disguise. Less than meets the eye, as far as I'm concerned. That's not to denigrate the film or the franchise, but it's not my bag. I'm equally ambivilent about the Harry Potter films. If I had kids, they would mean more to me. Now the fifth Harry Potter film is out and the final novel goes on sale one minute past midnight. But I gave up on the novels about Goblet of Fire - it was the Quidditch World Cup that did for me - so I won't be staying up all night to read the last book.

Inevitably, that means I'll get the ending spoiled for me by some would-be genius who can't help blurting. Harry Potter's publishers have done remarkably well keeping a lid on the final book this long, but cracks are starting to appear in the Cone of Silence. Hard to imagine there'll be another shared cultural experience like this again in our lifetimes, when so many people around the world will all be reading the same new book at the same time. J.K. Rowling deserves all manner of medals for getting a generation of boys and girls reading books for fun.

More eBay madness: it's [Frank] Miller time!

I've got another clutch of lots for sale at online auction site eBay. There's ten different comic lots, including a complete first edition set of Frank Miller's 300. You may have seen the film, but did you know it was originally published as a five-issue mini-series? Now's your chance to own that mini-series. Or you can bid on original printings of Miller's 1986 classic Batman mini-series The Dark Knight Returns.

If the blistering machismo of Frank Miller is not your bag, how about a complete set of Grant Morrison & Steve Yeowell's British comics classic Zenith? I'm flogging 79 issues of 2000 AD, gathering together every Zenith story by those two creators from Phase 1 through to the never-reprinted Phase IV. Or there's the debut of Wolverine's female clone X-23 in NYX, a gold logo copy of Cerebus Number Zero with an original Dave Sim sketch inside, or the mighty, slipcased and oversized hardcover editon of Watchmen.

Thanks to the joys of iTunes, I'm also offering collector's edition CD sets by Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Style Council, Echo & the Bunnymen, Bob Marley and The Jam. All of it at knockdown starting prices, all of it must go. Have a look today - bid early! Bid often!

Emmy noms: Friday Night Lights, Wire robbed!

The Emmy nominations have just been announced in America, TV's equivalent to the Oscars. The five drama series nominated were Boston Legal [more a comedy than a drama, in my humble opinion], The Sopranos [much deserved and utterly expected], House [haven't seen season three but not its best year according to many], newcomer Heroes [well worth a nod] and Grey's Anatomy. Again, I haven't seen the third season of Grey's Anatomy but I've yet to read many positive comments about it.

What's conspicuous by its absence? The wonderful Friday Night Lights, a show so good it was celebrated with a coveted Peabody Award. Sure, it's got a lot of teenage characters. Yes, it's a show ostensibly about American football. But it was one of the best drama series I've seen in the last year, and deserved an Emmy nod. Also hard done by were Dexter, Deadwood and perpetual Emmy bridesmaid The Wire. Frankly, whoever decided the nominations needs their heads checked.

Here and now stories? Not so much

Came to a curious realisation the other day: I almost never write stories set in the present. Among all my novels, audio dramas, graphic novels and TV spec scripts, hardly any of them feature contemporary settings - and those that do usually feature some twist to take them one step beyond reality. You want Second World War tales? No problem. Need a murder mystery set 500 years in the past, or a page-turning story about extortionists in the English Civil War? Easy peasy. Alternative histories, near future thrillers, sidesteps from realities - they're my stock in trade.

Partly this is a product of where past jobs have led me. I edited science fiction comics for a decade, so when I went freelance my contacts were in similar genres. One job leads to another when you're self-employed, thanks to word of mouth among editors, producers and those with the power to commission. I've had 18 novels published and the settings include: the 22nd century; the 1970s; the 1950s; an alternate reality 2004; the 27th century; the Second World War; and a middle ages fantasy empire. Bizarrely, my Nightmare on Elm Street novel is the only novel I've written set here and now.

Audio dramas? More science fiction, for the most part, although my Sapphire & Steel and Sarah Jane Smith stories all had contemporary settings. Indeed, the SJS audios deliberately adopted a torn from the headlines sensibilities, taking inspiration from newspaper clippings I'd collected over the years, to ground the drama and give it some verisimilitude. My radio play was about human drama - no spaceships, no alien worshipping cults, just ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

I write comics featuring a costumed hero called the Phantom, also known as the Ghost Who Walks. Twenty-one successive generations have fought tyranny and injustice as the Phantom, and I usually find myself writing the historical tales. I'm more comfortable scripting the Phantom when he's battling crime in another time, perhaps due to the character's 1930s pulp sensibilities; he seems a more natural fit for tales set in the past. It helps that I enjoy researching historical settings, finding a niche into which I can insert my narratives, opportunities for tall tales to be told.

Even on my MA screenwriting course, I've tended to create stories set anywhere but here and now. My short film script Danny's Toys? Between the wars. The TV pilot I wrote on the mentoring project? Taking Liberties is a near future thriller, set in a Britain that's just inroduced identity cards for all. My final project takes places in Glasgow during the summer of 1940, as the Second World War hits home for the first time. All of which begs an obvious question: why don't I write contemporary tales?

I'm not sure. I guess the past, the future and alternative versions of today provide a distance from the everyday. I can use them to create allegories for contemporary issues and study modern problems through the prism of the past or the future. My final project examines the treatment of immigrants in Glasgow during the Second World War, but it's also a metaphor for the way asylum seekers and minorities are treated today. The story's also got a lot of personal resonance for me.

I've lived in Britain for seventeen and a half years, but I don't have a British passport. I didn't grow up watching Blue Peter or Tiswas, I lack many of the cultural reference points that are ingrained in people around me. I'll always feel like I'm one step removed in the UK, but that displacement's even more pronounced when I go back to New Zealand for a visit. I recognise the places, but I don't belong there anymore either. Still, a little distance is a useful thing when you're a writer. Gives you objectivity. Perhaps that's why I draw away from the contemporary. I enjoy the objectivity other settings provide.

MA Screenwriting Final Project progress report

It's six and a bit weeks [44 days to be precise] before I'm due to hand in the final project for my screenwriting MA. Screen Academy Scotland's got 24 other students all doing the same thing and the vast majority are writing film screenplays. Me? Not so much. I decided not long into the course that writing TV drama was my ambition. Despite that, I fought my natural inclination and tried to convince myself writing a feature was a good choice for my final project. Screen Academy Scotland tries to cater for film, TV and interactive, but there's an underlying film school ethos that's hard to avoid. Nevertheless, I came out and admitted my passion is TV.

So for my final project I'm devising a returning drama series, scripting the 60-minute pilot episode and storylining seven subsequent episodes. FAMILIES AT WAR is a soapy series set in Glasgow during WWII, with a cast of nineteen characters. Designing my characters was the first step: who are they? What do they want and need? What are their attitudes? How does their backstory affect their actions? What will they do at the moment of greatest stress or danger? Characters came and characters went. Nobody will ever get to read of firstborn son Angus Douglas or neighbourhood busybody Morag, they both got dumped from the final mix. Cora's sister Lara was invented, deleted and recreated twice. Gabriella wasn't so fortunate.

Next came the sets. Returning drama series will sometimes go on location, but most of the sets need to appear again and again for budgetary reasons. Much of the filming needs to be indoors, on studio sets, where conditions can be controlled and endless hours are not wasted lighting scenes. Yes, I know the script I'm writing and the series I'm creating will almost certainly never be made, but I'm trying to apply the same rigour needed for a real returning TV drama series. If you want to be a professional, it helps to try and think like a professional. Fake it till you make it, as John Spencer's character once said on The West Wing.

Then I had to plot the pilot. I needed dramatic storylines that filled not just this episode, but also spilled onwards through the rest of the episodes. My tendency toward serialised storyline definitely won out here. Most returning drama series will try to have their main A story completed in a single episode. Subsidiary stories will have serial elements that run over multiple episodes, but the goal is creating an episode that can be enjoyed on its own merits by a random viewer who's never seen the show before. FAMILIES AT WAR is closer to soap, with a profusion of serial elements. The pilot is definitely the most complete episode, with a clearly apparent A story.

Having nailed down much of my first episode's storylines, I developed these over seven further episodes. That needed new characters and new sets to plug the gaps, some of which got retro-fitted back into the pilot and accompanying documents. Lots and lots and lots of decisions should be made. When does Tam discover one of his sons isn't his own, and how will be react? What would happen if family outcast Siena came back to the Fioravanti fold, clutching a fateful telegram and about to give birth? How many murders can you usefully squeeze into an eight-part series?

When all eight episodes were storylined, I rewrote my character breakdowns to reflect what I'd learnt about my characters. FAMILIES AT WAR features two patriarchal characters, one of whom starts as a pillar of the community but faces a tragic, downwards trajectory. Why not mirror his fall by seeing his rival rise above expectations and emerge as a hero in the final episode? One character was going to be an adulterous, selfish woman who hen-pecked her husband. She transmogrified into a caring, loving mother frustrated by the limited opportunities for women in the show's historical setting. Violetta became the glue holding her family together, a much more complex and interesting character to explore.

These evolutions meant I had to rewrite the story document for my pilot, to best reflect the way my cast was growing and changing, taking on lives of their own. Finally, after weeks of inner debate, index cards, and endless rubbings out on a whiteboard, I've nailed down my pilot storyline, plus my character and episode breakdowns. Now I need to create a scene-by-scene for my pilot, trying storylines into 60+ scenes, and I'll be ready to start writing a first draft.

Some wise person described the process of creative writing as 60% preparation, 10% for the first draft and 30% for rewriting. I've definitely given myself as much time as possible for preparation, trying to ape the processes used to create a new continuing or returning drama series. Soon I'll be ready to dive into the first draft, eager to finally give my characters individual voices. Can't wait.

No raffle ticket, no frozen chook

Submitted my entry for the Red Planet Prize yesterday. Opted for the first ten pages from Taking Liberties, my TV drama serial pilot. It's had several drafts, been through the power of three twice and is easily my most polished work to date. Taking Liberties tackles some big issues, but tells them through a small, personal story. Should the first ten pages prove good enough to get me into the next round of judging, I've already got the rest of the script in hand. It could do with a dialogue pass to punch up a few key scenes and better delineate the characters' voices, but it's in pretty good shape.

The Red Planet Prize winner gets £5000, a script commission on a Red Planet Pictures show and guaranteed representation. Much as I'd love to have all of those things [I mean, who doesn't need five grand? Besides J.K. Rowling], I'm just as interested in the contest's small print. For a start, the final judging panel includes Stephen Fry, Mark Gatiss and Julie Gardner, head of drama commissioning at the BBC. Even if you don't win, it's the chance to get your work read by some key figures within the industry. And there's more: The finalists will all spend a workshop day with Tony Jordan and receive mentoring from Red Planet Pictures.

This sounds like my idea of heaven. Over the past year I've found I love group writing and collaboration, being in a room with others writers throwing ideas around. The way one person's idea will spark off three others. The creative energy this kind of gestalt entity can generate when well motivated and well managed - it's exhilarating. I'm finding the act of solo writing an increasingly tough discipline. Maybe I'm pining for office life or simple human contact, but staring at a screen alone for months on end is somewhat soul-destroying. A necessary evil, but still somewhat soul-destroying.

That's probably why I'm a sprint writer when it comes to first drafts of novels. I try to frontload all my preparation and research, so when I need to bash out a first draft, it's as quick a process as humanly possible. Leisurely honing 500 words of purple prose a day would drive me mental. My brain simply isn't wired that way, it's why I'll never be a literary novelist or even a prose stylist. My novels are plainly written, no great poetry to be found in the pages. I'm all about the storytelling. Get that right and my work soars. Make an arse of the story and the book sucks. As an editor once told me, I have no poetry in my soul. Somebody put story there instead.

Three wonderful but very different artists

Trying to get some work done today, so no time for a lengthy blog entry. Instead here's three pieces of art by three talent but different illustrators [all images copyright the respective creators]. Found a book of images by Ragnar while down in That Fancy London and couldn't resist buying it. Here's a sample of his work:

Next is French illustrator Claire Wendling. Saw a book of Wendling art on the Gosh! stand while at the Bristol Comics Festival. Went back the next day to buy it and they'd sold out. Happily, I was due to visit That Fancy London a few days later and the wonderful people at Gosh! kept a copy aside for me.

Last but certainly not least is Ashley Wood, an Australian [don't hold that against him] artist now resident in the US, I think. He did some comics works for me while I was editor of the Judge Dredd Megazine, but his style and commerical savvy made it obvious Ash wouldn't be in the Meg for long.

Pleasant surprises from the past

Got an email to say I've made it through to the quarter-finals of the 2007 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards. This sounds a lot more impressive than it actually is, before anyone rushes to congratulate me. The competition is divided into nearly a dozen categories and these received a total of 3,411 entries. All have now been read and the top 25% were chosen for the quarter-finals. That's about 870 scripts. From these the top 25 in each category will be selected for the semi-finals. Those 25 get thinned out to the top 10 in each category for the finals, and so on.

It's so long since I entered the competition, I was struggling to remember what I'd submitted. Looks like I threw a primitive, early version of Danny's Toys into the Short Film category [defined as anything under 40 pages]. It was the only script I had worth entering at the time. I guess I should be chuffed it snuck past the initial cull, but I wish I could replace that version of the script with the current draft. Anyways, semi-finalists will be announced at the end of the month, so Danny's Toys should have been kicked to the curb by then.

The current issue of Doctor Who Magazine includes results of the 2006 Reader's Poll. People were asked to rate various spin-off merchandise, including Big Finish audio dramas, Doctor Who fiction and DVDs. The four Sarah Jane Smith audio dramas I wrote all got high scores in the 'Other Big Finish Audio Dramas' section, with average ratings of between 7.39 [for Buried Secrets] to 7.04 out of ten [for Fatal Consequences]. They came 5th-8th in their category, beaten only by the four story Davros range. If put into the main range of Doctor Who audio dramas, Buried Secrets' rating would have placed it third. That's a pleasant surprise, especially after the less than effusive reviews DWM gave the SJS audio dramas.

I do like pleasant surprises, don't you?

The three needs to succeed

I've applied for a job. Alas, I lack the key working experience required for the position, but it's one of the Catch-22 situations. Every time I see jobs like this come up, they expect applicants to have previous experience. But how do you get previous experience if you can't get the job without previous experience? If there were trainee positions, or assistant's jobs, or some sort of apprenticeship [ideally without the need to impress Sirullen on national TV], that would bridge the gap - but such opportunities are few and far between, assuming they exist at all.

But I've applied for the job anyway. The worst that can happen is I don't get shortlisted for interview and am offered no feedback on why I wasn't. Creative professionals face rejection far more than often than they bask in success. Enjoy your achievements, grin and bear your rejections, keep striving to improve. Someone somewhere wrote a wonderfully simple sentence detailing the three needs to succeed: passion, rigour, and smarts. You've got to want it, got to have that hunger, that need burning like a fire in your belly.

You've got to be ready, got to be intellectually and technically prepared. Study, hard work, sucking up every piece of knowledge and experience you can find. Find a mentor and learn from them. Pay attention, listen up and get humble. The amount you don't know will always exceed the little you do. Use your brain. Think. Analyse. Be willing to recognise your failings. Take responsibility for your actions, for the ways you sabotage yourself. You want something? Fight for it, and don't give up.

Passion. Rigour. Smarts.

Something for the weekend, sir?

Someone in Brooklyn a man's reviewing classic Star Trek, one episode at a time. The results are hysterical, but not for the faint of heart. Savour if you dare the delights of El Buncho's Balls-Out Star Trek. Thanks to the inimitable Chris Weston for the link.

Tony Jordan: "Television is my Priory"

Finally, a chance to blog my notes fromthe Face2Face with Tony Jordan event at London's Royal Court Theatre on Wednesday. The lovely Lianne has already posted her notes [and they're well worth a look], so there may be some repetition in what follows. Hopefully I'll pick up on some stuff she didn't. Tony was in conversation with Kate Rowlands, the BBC's Creative Director of New Writing, but they also considered questions pre-submitted by email and plenty of questions from the audience. Happily, I got the final question, about whether UK TV drama would move closer to the US writers' room system, something Tony's hoping to do through his production company Red Planet Pictures. Right, on to the notes. The next voice you'll read is that of Tony Jordan [photo by Harriet Barbir]...

[On Holby Blue] The BBC hadn't cracked police precinct drama since Z Cars. I was offered the Holby brand. Other writers all advised me not to use the brand; told me it was beneath me. It made me pissy, so I choose to use the Holby brand. I wanted to say sod you. In a well-trodden genre or precinct, you have to ask yourself why do we need another one? What makes it different? Holby Blue was the first uniform police precinct show since 9/11, that makes it different. To me that justified the series. There was also the issue of dealing with mass immigration.

You need to find your characters first and your story second when you create a show. It's madness to go story first, characters become story vehicles. In the case of Holby Blue, the premise came first, then we started talking about the characters. I wanted a central partnership to drive Holby Blue. I was a great fan of NYPD Blue. That told police stories, but concentrated on its central partnership. On City Central I tried to introduce 30 characters in 60 minutes - it doesn't work. In Holby Blue the central character and his conflicts drove the story, how he overcame his problems, such as difficulties with his estranged wife.

[On research] You can treat research in two ways. Producers tend to treat research as if it's the law. My reaction is "Bollocks!" Writers should use research to justify what we're doing. If the research expert is telling me what to do, they should be writing the script, not me.

You can't create a new series without doing everything. On Holby Blue I had to storyline the whole series, all the arcs. You have to find the heart and soul of the project. Lots of people have an idea for a story. That's not a whole world. You need a reason to tell a story.

[On Hustle] The premise was conmen are cool. That's it. But it needed to have heart, soul, passion to it. I did research on the great conmen of the past, particularly the early twentieth century. They talked about the art of the con. Grifters would have a moral code - you can't cheat an honest man. Conmen were called the aristocrats of crime.

Like Holby Blue, Hustle also starts with the central character having ex-wife trouble. I must have been having ex-wife trouble at the time. Both times. What can I say, television is my Priory. There's no domestic elements to Hustle, it wouldn't be cool. So I had to create a family of characters, even though they weren't related.

Great stories are great, but great shows have character. They're character-based, not story-based. Get your characters right and you'll get longevity in series creation. Life on Mars took seven years to get commissioned. My new shows Echo Beach and Moving Wallpaper were in the bottom drawer for twelve years. They could have been made years ago if I'd been willing to change the concept.

[On EastEnders] Eighteen million people watched the episodes where Zoe found out Kat was her mum. Eighteen million people crying. How many buckets would all those tears have filled? I did that. On my shows I give people a part of the series arc to incorporate into their script. On someone else's show, you have to fit their framework.

[On his new company] Red Planet is designed to bring teams of writers together. the way to success in creating shows is character, passion, emotional truth. Don't try to second guess commissioners. You should writer what you're passionate about. For Life on Mars, we talked about shows we wished wwe could have writter, like The Sweeney. Passion, integrity, heart - that's what it's all about.

Writers are always looking for excuses not to write, an excuse why they haven't been discovered yet. I didn't know anything when I started. I thought film noir was a flavour of ice cream. I thought there was a little box with a secret inside it. Just get that you're Paul Abbott overnight. Screenwriting gurus like McKee, Vogley, Field - most of it is bollocks.

A writer writes. Characters first. Know what your story is. Have a beginning, middle and end. That's about it. I think of my main story as like a big, solid coat-stand. the bottom is the beginning, the top is the end and everything else is in between. I hang other stuff on it, like you hang coats on a coat-stand.

If you're talented as a writer, talent will out. But you have to understand the politics of TV. Your script editor could one day be controller of BBC 1, remember that. Look for good guys, people who will respect your writing, your integrity.

[On his best work] Best thing I've ever writter is called Legion. It's been sat in a drawer for eight years. It's nearly been made but I pulled it because it was getting cahnged. Its got a huge voiceover and it's necessary. Adds to the narrative, rather than replaces it.

I like to write the world as I see it. It may be a little rose-tinted. If I have to look for something to say in a story, it's a problem. The moment you think you know it all, you've lost it.

[How to pitch a new series] Write the first episode. Outline the rest of the episodes, half a page for each. Write character breakdowns.

TV drama is getting more and more choppy. EastEnders will insist on cutting away from a scene when it getting going. Quality writing will overcome that.

[On Red Planet Pictures] I think of it as the sort of production company you would find behind the bike sheds, having a sly fag. Red Planet is planning to employ writers as a staff group, like the American system.

[Final advice] Sit down and write what's in your heart.

Can you feel the Thrills?

The website for independent literary magazine Dogmatika has posted an interview I did via email with co-editor Darran Anderson - read it here. It's part of the ongoing PR campaign for THRILL-POWER OVERLOAD, my mighty tome detailing the history of 2000 AD, the galaxy's greatest comic. Early reaction to the book has been enthusiastic, with Amazon.co.uk already selling out of its stock once and already racing through a second batch. Readers on the 2000 AD message board have been trading tips of where to find copies for the best price. Me, I'm just happy the response has been so favourable, having poured so much time and effort into the book.

And... we're back.

Back from That Fancy London. Had a blast, got to meet fellow bloggers like Danny, Lianne and Piers for the first time. Ninety minutes of wit and wisdom from Tony Jordan at the Royal Court. Upheld my personal motto: Live To Shop, Shop To Live [can anyone translate that into Latin for me?]. Generally had a blast and had all sorts of brainwaves for improvements to my final project in terms of its characters, what drives them and how to structure the episodes. Amazing how getting away from your computer screen can help you get a clearer vision of things. Tomorrow I'll blog my notes from the Tony Jordan session - very entertaining bloke, full of good advice.

Orff Dahhhn That Fancy Landahhnnn Tahnnn...

...at the crack of feckin' dawn, so don't expect the usual volume of wittering. Should be back and firing on all cylinders come Friday.

If I'm not back by then...

Wait longer.

Anyone for coffee in London tomorrow?

I set off for That Fancy London at dawn tomorrow so I can hear Tony Jordan talking at the Royal Court Theatre in the afternoon. The event doesn't start until 5.15pm, so I'm free for lunch or lunch on Wednesday if anybody's around in central London. Send me an email today if you're interested, here's the address: david AT davidbishop DOT co DOT uk. If you don't, I'll just end up spending a small fortune in specialist bookstores, so save me from myself and the addiction I like to call research.

What else? Comics creator Lew Stringer has some nice things to say on his blog about THRILL-POWER OVERLOAD, my newly published history of iconic British weekly 2000 AD. I've gotten lots of lovely emails from other creators complimenting me on the book, and it's been attracting plenty of praise from hardcore 2000 AD readers on the comic's message boards, too. Happily, Amazon has gotten the mighty tome back in stock, so you've no excuse not to order a copy - use the link on the right hand side of this blog. Over there, see? Just above the picture of that scary bloke with no hair.

Still grappling with the cast of the WWII soap I'm devising as the final project for my MA screenwriting course. It's about two families but I realised too much of my attention has focused on one of them, so I'm trying to beef up their backstories and give them more explosive, compelling plots. Thank goodness for wipe-clean white boards, it makes erasure and redrafting that much easier. Just wich my handwriting was a bit better, as it can be hard to interpret my rune-like scrawlings the next day when the white heat of inspiration's been replaced by the black fog of bafflement.

Not much else to report. Pretty much recovered from my trek up Tinto. Bemused by how many people are celebrating their birthday this week [hello Jonathan! Karen! Kerri! et al], including my little sister Annaliese. That's her, pictured above with some lunatic, when we were both somewhat younger. She's just hit a birthday with a zero at the end, always a milestone. Not only that, but she's also just gotten her degree after five years of hard slog while holding down a fulltime job. Hope you had a happy birthday, sis.

Freelance dilemma: spec or paying work

As a freelance writer trying to crack a new market, you're always aware of bills. It takes time to build a client base and even longer to build a reputation as someone worth employing. I've devoted large chunks of the last two years towards learning the craft of screenwriting, particularly for British TV. At the moment it doesn't feel like I'm much closer than when I started. In the meantime, I've neglected my client base for the writing gigs I do on a regular basis. Some of them I thoroughly enjoy, others are more about the fee - trust me, you'll never love ever writing job you ever do.

Time and again, you come smack up against the same choice: do I devote the next X hours of my working time to speculative projects that might - or might not - lead to something? Or do I tackle some established, paying work so I'll be able to pay the bills next week, next month, next year? You have to strike a balance. Writers who have office jobs can go part-time, maybe working three days a week while writing the rest. It's a little trickier when you're already a professional writer, because you have to take time off writing for writing. Compartmentalisation is your friend.

Perhaps the trickiest part of finding the right balance is becoming comfortable with the need to do nothing. To step away from the computer and give your creative mind a chance to breath, free of deadlines and tax bills and council tax demands and all that other fun stuff. To realise that staring out a window while mulling whether your current project needs an immoral uncle as well as an amoral father. To see the bigger picture and to let your mind wander. To feed the soul and free the imagination.

I've also been trying to get some work experience as a script editor as I can apply for jobs as a script editor. Every time I see a script editor job advertised, it requires as least two years of experience. But how do you get experience if shows will only hire experienced script editors? The solution seems to be worker as a reader, and building up contacts in the industry so people with the power to hire [or make recommendations to those with the power] will put your name forward. It's not just what you know or who you know - it's both.

Well, the sunshine didn't last long...

...but long enough to climb a nearby hill called Tinto [pictured above]. Sure I'll feel the effects in the morning, but it was good to stretch the legs and clamber over a few rocks. Apparently Tinto Hill is 711 metres high [about 2320 feet] and one guide site I found suggested you allow two hours to go up and slightly less coming down. This seems overgenerous as it only took an hour each way. Came back, had an ice cream and managed the cut the back lawn before the [inevitable] rain came.

At her wonderful blog Write Here, Write Now, Lucy is running an informal story competition. She invited writers to pitch a story as a 150-word synopsis or as a single paragraph logline. Now you can read all the submissions and vote for your favourites, one from each category. I sent in Trial and Error, an idea I had last November and something I'd completely forgotten about until Lucy's contest. To my surprise, it seems to be attacting a few votes, despite needless vagueness about the genders of the characters. Go, read and vote!

Shock news - the sun is shining

After an eternity of rainy days, the sun is shining. My advice: stop looking at your computer! Go outside, get some fresh air. Now!

That is all.

"America! F**k yeah!"

Feeling a bit happier after yesterday. Met up with half a dozen of my fellow MA screenwriting students at Screen Academy Scotland to talk through our final projects. Two of them had been to the festival at Cheltenham and gave us their thoughts on the event [well organised, Some great talks - especially Tony Jordan, and exorbitantly priced food]. I got the chance to brainstorm plot points and storylines for my final project, a soapy returning drama series for TV. It reminded me how much I enjoy colaborating with other writers, how enlivening the experience of a writers' room can be. Shame it only tends to happen on soaps in the UK.

Came home to find the TV aerial had not magically fixed itself in my absence. [The repairman is coming on Tuesday.] Having watched all of CSI season five, I couldn't face yet more blunt force trauma and auto-erotic asphixiation. So it was time for a movie. A prominent supermarket chain that doesn't need my help to make money is flogging off film DVDs for as little as £3 at the moment, so I'd bought the Oscar-winning American Beauty and Team America, a film raved about by lots of people whose opinion I trust. Wasn't in the mood for American Beauty, so puppet power won the day.

Laughed my arse off. Favourite moments - puppet fighting, puppet shagging, the North Korean leader's song and one particular character. If you've seen the film you know who I'm talking about. 'Matt Damon.' Say it again! 'Matt Damon.' After 90 minutes of such monumental silliness, I feel much happier - or at least able to appreciate the absurdities of life better. One of the two.

And here I was blaming the poxy weather...

Been feeling blue of late. Can't seem to get any traction of numerous projects, and plenty of others are sat aorund waiting on somebody's desk or email inbox, stymied by holidays and inertia. No wonder I'm prone to writing stories about thwarted characters. It's dry spells that like this that really try the patience. [That's dry spells regarding progress with my career goals, not a dry spell of weather - alas.]

Broadcast has posted a report from the talk given by TV psychologist Raj Persaud at the Screenwriters' Festival in Cheltenham. According to him, there's a link between being a creative writer and high levels of unhappiness. A study of Oscar winning actors showed they lived four years longer than average; Oscar-winning writers like four years less. That's right - the more success you have, the unhappier you'll be.

Feck it, I'm having chocolate for lunch. Right now I could do with some endorphins. Anybody got some good news they'd like to share? I could do with cheering up.

TPO: SFX calls it 'a must-read'

Got a copy of the new SFX yesterday. The magazine has indeed given five stars to THRILL-POWER OVERLOAD, my mighty tome detailing the history of acclaimed British comic 2000 AD. TPO is the only book reviewed this month [out of 16] to get maximum five stars out of five and the magazine has slapped a SFX RECOMMENDS badge on it. Nice. Here's what editor Dave Bradley said in his review:

Glorious artwork coupled with a narrative history of "the galaxy's greatest comic" means this was always going to be fascinating for fans. The tome often reads like the extened magazine article reprint it is, but this chronicle remains a must-read.

For one thing, it's refreshingly candid. One-time 2000 AD editor David Bishop has compiled an account that essentially just strings together quotes from insiders - you'll derive a certain wicked pleasure from seeing people openly described as "shit and lazy artists", for instance. Sveral of the book's anecdotes are challenged in the very next paragraph by folk who don't recall events exactly the same way.

There are accounts about the relationship between editors and marketeers, the strategies operated by the publishing businesses, and the feuds over copyright ownership. We read about NUJ strikes and failed advertising campaigns, deadlines and distribution deals. Other than those wanting to be a part of this business, it's not really clear who'll be gripped by these tales of office politics, but for aficionados who recognise the names, it's compelling.

The book accelerates slightly, making the past five years feel a little sparsely covered, but an unexpected pleasure at the end is a five-page summary of the comic's history in cartoon form, with Tharg narrating in rhyming couplets.

Writers in Scotland: apply for your own mentor!

A year ago I was fortunate enough to be selected for a place on the Scottish Book Trust's mentoring programme. Don't be fooled by the name, you don't have to be writing a book to become a mentee. Award-winning writer-director Adrian Mead mentored for me nine months' work on my first TV pilot, Taking Liberties. The experience was invaluable and I heartily recommend getting yourself a mentor, if possible. The good news for writers based in Scotland is the scheme I got on to is now open for a fresh round of applications. Read the details below and see if they could help you too...

Scottish Book Trust - Professional Development Mentoring Programme 2007/2008

Finish that first collection… write for TV or for radio… make the move from printed word to theatre…find structure for that novel… improve your dialogue - this is your chance.

For the first time, Scottish Book Trust is able to offer two phases of its hugely successful mentoring programme in one year. The first is now underway but this is your chance to apply to the mentoring programme for the phase due to start in September 07.

The Scottish Book Trust mentoring project offers you the support of an experienced professional as you work on a specific writing project over a nine month period. If you are struggling with a particular aspect of your writing – for example style; editorial techniques; finishing the seemingly unfinishable – or want to explore a new avenue for your work, then this is your chance to work directly with some of the Scotland’s leading writers, editors, literary agents, screen-writers, producers, playwrights and dramatists.

Am I eligible? There are five places available on the next phase of the mentoring programme. Writers at any stage in their writing career can apply but must be able to demonstrate their commitment to the project for the nine-month period.

What does mentoring involve? Successful applicants will be matched with a mentor, chosen by Scottish Book Trust, and an induction day for all of those involved will be held in early Autumn. The partnership will then last for nine months and will include at least four face-to-face meetings between the mentor and mentee, with telephone, email and/or post support in between these meetings.

How do I apply? You need to prepare:
* A writing CV. This should include any information which you think is relevant to your writing career so far, and should give details of other professional development opportunities you may have had to date (creative writing course, advice from writer in residence, writers’ workshops etc)
* The project and your goals. An A4 page on the project, change of direction or area of your writing on which you would like to work with a mentor and what you hope to have achieved at the end of the project
* Your ideal mentor. NOT the name of a particular person, but do tell us the kind of mentor which you would like to work with (fellow writer, editor etc.)

Email or post your application to: Caitrin Armstrong, Programme Co-ordinator, Scottish Book Trust, Sandeman House, Trunks Close, 55 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1SR
Email: caitrin.armstrong@scottishbooktrust.com

The closing date for applications is July 20, 2007. Interviews will be held in Edinburgh in early August. Travel expenses are available. Want to know more? If you would like to speak to somebody about the mentoring scheme, please get in touch:-

Jan Rutherford
Project Manager, Writer Development, Scottish Book Trust
Tel: 0131 337 9724
Email: jan.ppw@blueyonder.co.uk

Caitrin Armstrong
Programme Co-ordinator, Scottish Book Trust
Tel: 0131 524 0166
Email: caitrin.armstrong@scottishbooktrust.com

Words of wisdom from Tony Jordan

There are loads of video-blog-cast-things being posted from the Screenwriters' Festival in Cheltenham. Here's a link to Tony Jordan talking about the competition his company Red Planet Pictures has launched. The Simon he keeps referring to is script editor Simon Winstone, formerly of Doctor Who, EastEnders and many moons ago an editor on the Doctor Who fiction range at Virgin Books. Spotted at least three Screen Academy Scotland students in the Tony Jordan session - what a small world this is...

The problem with blood and bone and brains

Canadian screenwriter Denis McGrath has a brilliant blog called Dead Things ON Sticks. Often there's lots of talk about the Canadian TV industry that can fly over your head if you don't live in or come from Canada, but it's witty, droll and always worth a look. This week the blog features a wonderful essay on the giving and receiving of script notes. If you're a writer or work with writers, I highly recommend giving the essay a read. Below is an extract that made me laugh.

In Canada, we do a lot of international co-productions. And inevitably, different sets of notes come from different countries and the notes all contradict each other. I'm not sure if you can always make those notes agree...but if you've got different people in the same organization reviewing the material, you should take the step to harmonize those notes and present a unified front.

Otherwise, writers heads tend to explode. And it's the middle of the summer. No one likes to be covered in viscera.

For all those who couldn't got to Cheltenham

Andy Conway at Shooting People has created this sampler of video footage from the first day of the Screenwriters' Festival in Cheltentham. The first minute is scene-setting footage, after that you get to the real deal...

Amazon.co.uk had TPO in stock. Fleetingly.

Had to laugh yesterday. Amazon.co.uk had THRILL-POWER OVERLOAD, my history of the comic 2000 AD, in stock for about half an hour yesterday. After weeks of vague promises about when the book would be available, the online retailer revealed it had shipped copies to all those who had pre-ordered it. There were copies still left, with more on order from publisher Rebellion. I checked back 30 minutes later [authors of newly released books are not unlike proud parents of newly born babies, always checking on their offspring's health and welfare] and Amazon was down to 1 copy. Half an hour later, that was gone too. [Don't let that stop you ordering a copy using the link over at the right - Amazon should have more copies any day now.]

Normally I wouldn't pay so much attention, but the TPO project sprawled across six years of my life - seventeen if you count the time I spent working on 2000 AD and its spin-off titles. So I'm kind of precious about this book and want it to do well. It's a bit like sending your child off to university in another town or city, I guess. You can deliver them to the door, but once they're out of your sight anything can happen. I'm reliably informed that SFX Magazine has given the TPO book five stars out of five. Haven't seen the relevant issue yet, hopefully in the next day or two.

Lately I've been writing for DeathRay, a newly launched magazine that targets a similar audience to SFX. The latest issue of DeathRay [#3, on sale now] features an article of mine assessing the prospects of ten science fiction or fantasy TV shows coming to US viewers in the next six months. Future efforts include my memories of editing 2000 AD [a tie-in to the release of TPO, natch], some reviews and other reportage. It's good to flex the journalism muscles every now and then, remind myself there's life beyond the fevered imaginings in my cranium.

Plugging away at my final project for Screen Academy Scotland's MA screenwriting course. We've got another informal gathering of students in Edinburgh tomorrow, which creates a useful impetus to get stuff done. We were promised the services of individual mentors to help us with our final projects during the summer months, while tutors were away on holiday. Alas, five weeks of the thirteen have already elapsed and there's been no apparent progress. It's things like this that leave a sour taste in the mouths of students - especially those of us paying £81 in course fees for the 60 credit final project module. Thus far I've had three emails from tutors. Not sure I'd call that value for money.

It's not one thing, it's another [Dr Who spoilers]

Been having a problem with water dripping from the ceiling in the front room downstairs during torrential downpours - of which there have been a few lately. [When I say lately, I mean since the beginning of this season laughably known as summer.] Thought it was due to blocked downpipes, so went out in midst of monsoon and cleared downpipes. That removed the blockage, but not the dripping. Realised several slates above the bay window were broken, probably cracked underfoot by a window cleaner, so got a roofer to come in and fix the slates. He also repaired a joint in the downpipe.

Few weeks back the telly went bung. Took two weeks to get a repairman out to fix it. Two days after he'd been, the roofer fixed the slates and the downpipe. The lead from the TV aerial runs down past the downpipe. Ever since the roofer's been to fix the roof and downpipe, our TV reception has been unwatchable. Can still watch DVDs, but not regular TV. So now need to get aerial and associated cabling fixed. Am fearful of 'old lady who swallowed a fly' syndrome, whereby will need to build a new house to replace squeaking door hinge or something similar.

In other news, Catherine Tate has been confirmed as the Doctor's new companion for the next series of Doctor Who. She'll be reprising the character of Donna, first seen in the 2006 Christmas special The Runaway Bride. That collective gulp you can hear is the sound of a million fanboys recoiling in surprise while trying to decide if this is the best news in the world ever, or the inevitable signal that the revived series has well and truly jumped the shark. You can make your own minds up about that, can't you? Thought so.

Meanwhile, I've booked flights to and from That Fancy London for an excursion next week. I'm flying down from Prestwick, an airport so grudforsaken no would-be terrorist would ever bother with it, on Wednesday to take a few meetings and attend Tony Jordan's Face2Face interview at the Royal Court Theatre at 5.15pm that afternoon. Hopefully there'll be a chance to shake hands with him and introduce myself, followed by a natter with other bloggers at the event. Fly back on Thursday afternoon, inspired and eager to write more scintillating stuff. Or somesuch. Should be a nice break from staring at my computer screen. Now, where's my iced finger?