one door closes

I've just rediscovered my password for this account, having left it dormant for a couple of years! I'm not going to write any more here as I'm starting again with another blog - josiemelia - which may or may not have a longer life than this one had. The important thing is I've been successfully getting the writing out there in between. Which is good....

getting feedback from a writing group

Sometimes feedback is so spot on that it's almost funny. Amongst positive responses to the writing style of my short film script, the following elements were picked up: that there was a key scene that was too reminiscent of a particularly striking advert a few years ago (everyone in the group remembered it, and so did I once it had been pointed out - I think they call that unconscious plagiarism) and that the two main characters were written at different levels of character development and complexity and almost belonged to different films. This was really funny once I saw it. What had happened in the frenzy of writing the whole thing straight off was that I had started writing a funny, snappy five minute film, featuring the first character, and then once it became clear to me that the film was more like ten minutes long, I had allowed the second character to steal the show. He was a warmer and more complex character and elicited more audience response.
I got the feedback a while ago and have left the script aside for a while. I came back to it today and, with the help of the detailed feedback, I think I can take it back to a five minute script and work a bit on developing the main character. What a privilege it is to have a group of people giving such astute feedback. It could have taken me ages to notice all the things they picked up.

short film script

It's such a good feeling when you get on a bit of a roll. I sat down today and wrote the first draft of a ten minute short film, straight off. I'd been jotting down notes for a few days after getting the idea last week, and now I've sent off a whole draft to a few trusted people for comments and feedback (which helps me to put it aside for a while so I can see it better myself). When I say 'a few trusted people' maybe I should point out that I'm in a writers' group that meets regularly for feedback and discussion of whatever work we are doing - so I've sent it to them. (I was going to say 'a small writers' group, but that conjures up quite the wrong impression.)
I know I'll regret sending it out as such a rough first draft when I see all the inconsistencies and jarring, clumsy over-written stuff. But if I didn't send it today it would be too late for the next group and I'd have tinkered with it so much I might have abandoned it by then. All this is irrelevant to me at the moment because I'm just so pleased to have got in the zone again. There were a million other things I should have done today but instead, once I got writing I just couldn't stop (heaves deep sigh of contentment).
Not only that but, thanks to the delights of frolicking in my private blog and the happy coincidence of talking to a director/actress /friend who wants to do a one-woman show, I have also had a great idea, complete with title, for a one-woman show, all full of light and dark and all that, and I've been writing daily snippets towards that with suspicious ease.
Long may it continue.

new online screenwriting course

I recently found an anonymous Google video version of 'Feis' (a 10 minute film I wrote) that's totally out of synch, sound-wise, and pre-dates the final grading. No big deal, but it's prompted me to get a better copy out there. If you're interested you can view it via this link on my sidebar.
Feis is also to be included, amongst several other short films, in 'The 'Craft of Screenwriting' online course to be run by New Writing South, tutored by Julie Everton and accredited by University of Sussex. The course, that provides support for writing a short film script, is in two modules and starts this October. I went on the 'live' version of this course some time ago at Lighthouse and this is where 'Feis' was first developed with the lovely, helpful Julie as tutor.
There's lots of useful material in the online course, including different drafts of the scripts and original ideas, to compare with finished products. I found it really interesting to look back at my own early versions - very different from where it ended up.

private blogging

Yesterday I set up a totally private blog. I am the only person who can read it or write in it and it is not available on search engines. Why does this feel like I've stumbled upon a secret garden? It's as though I just have to enter the password and I'm striding through acres of untrodden ground, exploring dank primeval forests, tumbling into corners of undergrowth where the little people carelessly offer me their crock of shining gold. In short, I've discovered creative paradise. It's early days yet but I've gotta tell you, I feel unleashed.
My idea was that the private blog would be somewhere to jot random and undeveloped thoughts, observations and images with a chance of being able to retrieve them via labels (retrieval of jottings has aways been a problem for me). But I discovered a contrary freedom too in being contained within that neat little blog post box. And the fact that it's private and still a blog makes it an ambiguous liminal space between public and private worlds. I like it. I want to scatter it with words and see which ones take root. Does everyone have one?

golden age of screenwriting blogs?

As a new blogger embarking on my first feature length screenplay, I've spent some time recently reading screenwriting blogs. And I have to say I'm deeply impressed. There's an enormous amount of useful advice, analysis, information and goodwill out there - huge generosity and openness too. And now that TwelvePoint.com is online, with a host of articles, an imminent archive and a round up of weekly blog commentary, it's like a golden age of online support for screenwriters. Thank you bloggers, everywhere (blows kisses and tosses flowers into the blogosphere).
And now there's really no excuse but to get on with it, which is why I started this blog - to keep myself on track with writing projects and have one place to keep commentary and useful links.
I've been working my way through Philip Parker's 'The Art and Science of Screenwriting' in the last few days. Sometimes a particular book or resource is exactly the right one for the stage you're at with a piece of writing. Having progressed from short treatment to long treatment to a sort of step outline on post-its, through a long hiatus to an exciting breakthrough and some scene writing, I've realised I need to revisit my outline and make some fixes before I go any further. And working through Philip Parker's book with reference to my own screenplay has really helped at this stage. The way I connect with some of his points makes me realise too how much I actually learned by writing and being involved in the making of a ten minute film ('Feis' Screen South/UKFC). Observing the ins and outs of how your screenplay turns into a film is invaluable learning - and then it's useful to read the theory to clarify what you have learned. Sadly, none of this actually gets the next screenplay written.
More on this later. As I said. great stuff going on out there. I thought I'd let you know how it's appreciated.

the language of stories

Further to my enthusiastic outpouring about Kneehigh Theatre (previous post), I was struck by these words in the programme to their show:


'In the language of stories, we are able to examine the bargains that human beings make. We see how we bargain our own needs, the needs of the self, for various reasons.....'


Now I don't know about you, but I had to stop reading at this point because statements like this light up a whole set of neurons in my brain and set me off thinking about stories and why we need them and the shared human experiences that are at their heart. It's like being given a key to story writing - a way of accessing a whole set of story ideas, by thinking about how and why we bargain our own needs and how we deal with the consequences. I feel an ideas list fizzing up......