Monday, February 11, 2008

Good news, bad news, other news

Went to see a band called Hijak Oscar in Glasgow on Friday night, and bloody good they were too. Eventually got home after two in the morning, and checked emails to discover my short film script DANNY'S TOYS was not among the finalists for the BlueCat Screenplay Lab contest. Disappointing, but that script has already won one prize, so it felt a swizz to be in the running for another prize with the same script. I already know it's good, time I wrote something else.

Bad news can often be a crushing experience, killing you mood and making it impossible to muster much enthusiasm for writing. But the day before I'd gotten a piece of great news that made the BlueCat result seem less than significant. I can't go into details yet, but I've got my foot in a door. Now all I need do is climb the staircase behind that and I'll have made a major step forward in my career. Sorry to be so vague, but superstition strikes hard at such moments.

Across the Atlantic it seems the writers' strike is all but over. The WGA has won a fistful of things for which it's been striking since last November. The Directors' Guild got a deal first, paving the way for the writers, but the DGA would never have gotten that without the WGA. Loosening the lid on a recalcitrant jar, that always seems to be the writers' role in such things. I suspect future generations will have a lot for which to thank the 07-08 strikers.

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