Have a good Easter/Passover/Spring Break

Right, that's me off to New Zealand until early April. Try not to trash the place while I'm gone, yes? Before I go, just time to offer a few links, hints and what have you. Lee "Budgie" Barnett runs a project called Fast Fiction each year, whereby he writes 200 words stories - lots of them. People send him story titles and a random word to be included in the text. I gave him the title The Kindness of Stranglers and the word imbroglio. You can read the results here.

I'll miss the final 2008 episode of Inspector Morse spin-off Lewis this Sunday, what with being on the other side of the world and all. I think the second series has certainly matched the quality of the first, and it's a sign of the programme makers' growing confidence that they don't feel the need to namecheck Morse at every possible opportunity. [All of this is probably just an excuse to pimp my tome THE COMPLETE INSPECTOR MORSE, the new edition's on sale now.]

In other news, the hardcover first edition of THRILL-POWER OVERLOAD had nearly sold out. Publisher Rebellion says stocks of my official history of iconic British comic 2000 AD are all but exhausted. Once they've sold out, you'll have to pay premium prices to get this mush-praised tome in its original first edition. Rebellion is still deciding when to go back to press, so don't delay, buy today.

Other than that, I just want to wish everyone a happy and healthy few weeks. I'll be back in early April, full of the joys of spring and whatnot. Mostly whatnot, I suspect. [What a great word whatnot is - not as wonderful as somesuch, but still a prince about words. Or princess, if that's your preference.] [You can't tell I'm demob happy yet, can you? Thought not.]

Anyway, later for you.

Shame I despise the music of John Denver

Off to New Zealand on Wednesday. Obviously, I am departing on a jet plane - or at least on a plane that travels with some considerable velocity across the sky - but I refuse to quote an obvious choice of couplet from the music of John Denver. Why? Well, I don't like the music of John Denver, for a start.

Also, I've just been watching YouTube clips of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe and am now channeling his angry middle-aged duffer persona, unable to get his whining yet witty voice out of skull. Is there some kind of Brooker-exorcism available? No? Thought not. Moving on.

I depart the UK on Wednesday but don't arrive in New Zealand until Friday, thanks to the vagaries of international time zones and just how long it takes to travel halfway round the world. For a start, I have to get to Edinburgh airport - that's an hour gone. Have to reach the airport at least an hour before the plane's due to leave. That's two hours.

Assuming the flight in on time [ha! ha!], that's another 1.5 hours to Heathrow. The actual flying time is closer to 50 minutes, but you need to allow another 0.5 hours for circling round London and ten minutes while they drive halfway across the city to get from the runway to the terminal.

Then there's several hours of waiting at various Heathrow terminals - 3.5 to be precise - before boarding the flight to New Zealand. So that's seven hours to get on a plane in London. Next comes the big flight, with a stop at Hong Kong en route - that's twenty four and a half hours. Yes, it takes more than a day of real time to reach New Zealand from the UK.

Total traveling time to reach Auckland: about 31.5 hours, all going well. But we're than flying on to Christchurch, after one hour and 45 minutes switching from international to domestic terminals at Auckland. Throw in a flight of 80 minutes to Christchurch and that's 34 hours and five minutes.

But the fun still hasn't finished. After travelling for the best part of a day and a half inside tin cans or trapped inside airport terminals, there's still the joys of waiting for bags, clearing customs and immigration, and - finally - getting from Christchurch airport to a nice B&B in the centre of the city.

All in, somewhere around 36 hours of fun, fun, fun. No wonder people are always grumpy in airports. They're either just experienced a hellish journey or else still have a significant proportion of that journey looming ahead of them. Bleurgh.

On the plus side, by Friday I'll be savouring the late summer sunshine of New Zealand, rather than waking up to snowstorm as I did this morning. So 36 hours of torment is not that bad a trade for what awaits at the other end. Fingers crossed.

Today is about packing and preparation, knowing that without a doubt I'll forget something of significant importance. So long as I remember to take money, plastic, passport, driver's licence, iPod and comfortable walking boots, everything else can be replaced without too much trouble.

Plus I need to contact everybody who might get the sudden urge to offer me work and let them know why I'm out of contact for the next three and a half weeks. It'd be less of an issue if I could deduce how to set up an Out of Office reply for my Hotmail account, but that's beyond my puny brain.

I will be able to access emails occasionally in New Zealand, but am trying to cut the cord as much as possible. I won't get another holiday of this length for another five years in all likelihood, so best to enjoy the break as much I can. Come April 7th I'll be gagging for work, but now I just want to switch off.

If Saul Bass did the titles for Star Wars...

Doctor Who vs Slim Shady vs Benny Hill [really]

She'll be coming round the mountain...

Race For Life is becoming something of an institution here. The last two years my wife has joined thousands of other women as they run and/or walk round Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, raising money for Cancer Research UK. It's a five kilometre course with an added bonus of pain - at least half of the distance is uphill. A lot of the Race For Life runs take place in gentle, modest parks that wouldn't trouble an average jogger. Running round Arthur's Seat feels more like jogging up Mt Everest [I'm told].

Nevertheless, training has begun and this year my wife's determined to make it the whole way round while still running. I'd say, 'You go, girls!', but I'm not sure I can carry that off - so I've sponsored her instead. Now it's your turn. If you've ever read anything useful, or entertaining, or insightful on this blog [unlikely, I know, but a boy can dream], please sponsor my wife's assault on Arthur's Seat. Doesn't have to be a lot of money, every fiver helps the cause. Let's face it, who hasn't lost someone they care about to cancer? Give a little. Go on. Go on. go on, go on, go on.

27 is my lucky number

27

Listening to that little voice that says 'Stop'

Deadlines can be wonderfully motivating things. I pride myself on being professional, rarely missing a deadline. Indeed, for a long time I struggled to write anything that didn't have a deadline attached. That makes developing speculative work difficult, because there's no deadline and therefore no ticking clock to help provide motivation. So you have to find motivation from elsewhere.

I've written a lot of licensed genre novels featuring other people's characters, concepts and universes. I'd like to write novels featuring my own characters, concepts and worlds of imagination. But if I want to get paid for that, I need to put in hard work upfront without promise of payment or publication. I have to do some speculative work first in the hope it will accumulate enthusiasm from others leading to a commission and a nice accumulation of money.

I want to write broadcast drama, but people don't offer those opportunities on a plate, especially if you've no track record. So I studied for a MA in screenwriting, using the course to learn and experiment and network and improve. Now I'm trying to build on that, make best use of those lessons. One thing the MA helped me grasp was the importance of theme in any kind of narrative. It also taught me to listen to a little voice at the back of my head.

There are two questions to be asked of any story. First, what is the story about? That's asking for a precis of the plot, the mechanics, what happens when and to whom. Second, what is the story really about? That's finding the theme, a meaning, asking the writer what it is they're trying to say. When a narrative misfires, it's easy to get bogged down fixing plot mechanics, rather than the underlying problem - treating the symptoms, not the cause.

Yesterday I wrote a two-page treatment for a story, and was fairly happy with the results. It ain't perfect, but it's got some juice. I moved on to another two-page treatment, but couldn't get happy with it. Tried tweaking this and twisting that - still not right. At that point, the little writing voice in my head told me to step away from the story with my hands in the air. Better to sleep on it, see if my subconscious couldn't solve the problem.

Woke up this morning and realised I wasn't sure what my story was trying to say. It's got plenty of incident, a decent structure and some characters I'm eager to write - but where's the theme? Not so evident. I need to put this narrative to one side and develop another in its place. I'll come back to my misfiring effort in future, when time will have given me a solution. For now I need to leave it alone. Put simply, when you're in a hole, stop digging.

Huge names from film and TV - and me

The third annual Screenwriters' Festival in Cheltenham will be announcing its programme soon. Launched in 2006, this event is growing into a key fixture for aspiring scribes and those who've already got on the industry ladder. I fancied going the first year, but wasn't sure where I'd fit into the mix. Last year I couldn't justify the costs, not while struggling to make ends meet on my screenwriting MA course. Better to stay home, say the money and concentrate on my final project instead.

But this year I'll definitely be going. You want to know how I'm so sure? I'm one of the guest speakers. The festival has already announced an impressive line of commissioners, writers, directors, producers and others. There's Jane Tranter, head of fiction at the BBC, and ITV director of drama Laura Mackie. How about writer-directors like Guillermo Del Toro, Julian Fellowes and Peter Kosminsky? Not to mention acclaimed writers like Peter Morgan, Lucy Prebble and Deborah Moggach.

And then there's me. Wondering how I came to be listed alongside such distinguished company? Ten years editing graphic novels and comics, plus another seven [and change] writing them. A them of this year's festival is the relationship between screenwriting, and writing for graphic novels and comics. Seeing this online, I got in touch with the festival organisers. Before I knew it, my name was added to the list of guest speakers. Nice work if you can get, get it if you try.

But there's a serious point to be gleaned from this anecdote. [I heart the word glean. I want to visit Jamaica - or Fredericton, New Brunswick - just so I can buy a copy of the Daily Gleaner.] It never hurts to have a field of expertise outside screenwriting. Trained as a doctor or nurse? Then you've first-hand experience that could inform a medical script. Pounded the beat as a policeman? You can turn that into gold, because you'll write about it with authority.

Having been an editor at iconic British comic 2000 AD gets me meetings and enquiries I'd never have otherwise. Just last week a recruiting agency called about whether I was interested in a computer games gig, thanks to my science fiction and comics background. That same expertise has gotten me on the guest speaker list for Cheltenham. Your life and your perspective upon it is unique, just like your voice as a writer. It could stand you in good stead.