feeding the five thousand » blue cat

A boy, William Peter, born at 7.24am this morning in Helston, weighing 8lb 3oz, hurrah! Patroclus got to have peanut M&M's for breakfast (there were some left over from the Scott Pilgrim viewing) and we got home before they closed our road for Penryn Fair Day, which we intend to tell Will is entirely in his honour.



He has maintained this expression pretty much throughout. I can't really blame him.

UPDATE: just discovered Patroclus' knackered old laptop from downstairs is also missing. Now narrowed it down to sometime in the last two weeks, which makes me wonder if 1) one of the previous occcupants' lodgers still has a key, and 2) they took advantage of everyone in Falmouth and Penryn going into town to see the Red Arrows the other day. Hmm, lock-changing time, I think.


Just realised that the laptop in my downstairs office, which I use mostly for accounts rather than exciting creative thing, has gone missing sometime in the last two weeks. I was clinging to the hope that I'd just moved it somewhere and forgotten, but now I'm running out of places to look.

Thing is, Patroclus and the Blue Kitten and I are home, or at least two out of the three of us are, almost all the time, so if someone did come in and nick it, they must have done so at night. Eurgh, it's horrible to think about, and most un-Cornish-like. Anyway, people have been kind enough to retweet my mention of this already, but if a white Powerbook (without power lead) has been hawked about at carboots or dodgy pubs in the Falmouth/Penryn/West Cornwall area in general, it may well be mine.

*feels rather vexed and let down in general*

In baby news, there is currently no baby news, as child 2 appears to be taking his own sweet time to arrive and we must respect this, and not let any irritation show until he is about fifteen, when we can suddenly ban him from going to that really important party for apparently no reason. REVENGE.

Not much blogging for the next couple of weeks or so, as Child 2 (AKA 'the boy one') is already overdue, and soon the sitting around waiting and going 'tch' will turn into OH GOD WHERE ARE THE NAPPIES WHY WON'T HE GO TO SLEEP OH HE'S GONE TO SLEEP I CAN'T STOP SHOUTING.

So in the meantime, lookie, my childrens' book is now available on Kindle!

'The Cabinet of Curiosities - Kindle edition'

For the grand price of £3.63 (I set it as $4.99 in US dollars, which of course then transferred to a rather odd-sounding amount in stout english pounds). Of course there is still a completely free version on pdf

... and finally a rather lovely actual physically pick-up and read in the bath 'book' style book available from lulu, if you click on the piccy below:



While I'm sticking stuff up that might hang around for a while, here are the various interviews I've done with people working in different bits of the TV industry. Got some more lined up, but if there are any job titles which mystify you, put them in the comments section (this is not the time for amusing 'best boy' jokes thank you) and I'll see what I can do.

INTERVIEWS:

BBC script editor - Joe Donaldson

Agent - Matt Connell

Childrens' Television writer and fantasy novelist - Alex Williams

Composer - Garry Judd

In many ways, Chez Blue Cat/Patroclus is like a literary salon of the olden days, where they had big hats and gas lights. Consider the following conversation.

CONSIDER IT:

ME: ... although I never liked the Sherlock Holmes books that much to be honest, there were always umpty-tum reasons people might have a bit of pale mud on their turnups or summat, didn't automatically mean their sister was having an affair with a interior decorator just back from the Crimean or whatevs, anyway I always preferred Edgar Allen Poe's Dupin, who totes preceeded Holmes and invented the whole 'deductive reasoning' thing, although he called it 'ratiocination', 'The Adventure of the Purloined Letter' is great, someone hides a letter in the last place you'd expect, completely the last place, where do you think the last place anyone would look for a letter is, where do you think he hid it?
PATROCLUS: UP HIS ARSE.

A shocked silence ensues. Finally:

ME: Well!

(I think it's a letter rack, it was ages since I read it)

After a year and a half of development, and positive reactions all the way up the BBC Drama food chain (well, right up until it got the Really Big Desk) Cornish Cop project for BBC Drama has been turned down for a series commission. Early indications suggest the tone of it just didn't click with the last person who had to make the decision. Which is gutting, obviously, but there we are, can't be helped.

It's not the end of the line - the script's now going over to Comedy to see if it's something that would sit better over there - but even if they embrace it with open arms, it's very unlikely to be picked up unchanged, and the procedural element (it's a proper cop show, with crime plots, and investigations) is likely to have to go. Which would be a great shame - the show was a direct attempt to have something with a real dramatic base, but a bit more wit and fun up top than you tend to get in that 9pm slot - and more to the point, I was loving working with Sarah the producer and Joe the script editor (with whom I developed my similarly fated teen drama pilot) and was thinking this was finally going to be the time we all got to take something right into a series.

I was just starting dare to compile a little list of other writers I would have loved to get in to write episodes, and working up a spreadsheet of plot arcs, and all that. As I said, 'Gah'.

Still, after having a weekend to get over it, I can laugh Rejection in his fat stupid face, and without wanting to sound too Pollyannaish, here are some reasons why:

1. Dude, I still totally got paid moneys for writing wordses, and they're never getting that back NEVER.
2. The script got an incredibly positive response from the senior BBC development bods, who I know are just as gutted as I am it didn't make it all the way to the top.
3. I now have a really strong hour long crime drama (okay, with comedy bits) script that my agent can show around, which might open a few new doors.
4. The comedy department person who's looking at it has a very good track record with comedy dramas, so even if Bandit Country (that was its name, sigh) isn't right for her, that's still someone who hasn't read my stuff before, so, you know, new contact.
5. While I was waiting to hear back on Bandit Country, I finished the first draft of the US superhero pilot script AND IT WAS GOOD (which, of course, you always feel about the first draft, the idea of the script editor ever coming back with anything other than 'OMG this is the bestest thing I have ever read you are AMAZUNG!' is laughable, but still).
6. If you aren't laughing Rejection in his fat stupid face at least once a month YOU ARE NOT A PROPER RITER.

Thought this was funny, and very well put-together (particularly the Facebook bit). Also WARNING CONTAINS RUDIES:

Sitting in local coffee shop with tiny daughture, now nearly two years old, reflecting on the pleasantness of the weather, the fact that the last draft of my cornish crime drama thing has now made its (possibly) final voyage to BBC Commissioning Chap, and generally feeling well-disposed and peaceful towards the world in general.

DAUGHTER: DEATH!

Slight pause.

ME: Hmm?
DAUGHTER: DEATH! DEATH! (pause) DEATH!

Coffee shop manager looks over in an amused-but-also-slightly-concerned sort of way.

DAUGHTER: DEATH!
ME: I think she's actually saying 'EGGS' or something, and it just sounds like 'DEATH'.

DAUGHTER: DEATH!

Another pause.

ME: Well, it's probably time we went to the supermarket.

In the supermarket:

DAUGHTER: SIX SIX SIX! SIX SIX SIX!

Cashier looks at me.

ME: (weakly) It's her favourite number.


IN OTHER NEWS: Orbyn has kindly put up my contribution to her Curious blog

35mm from Pascal Monaco on Vimeo.

From Drawn

I had a call from a large broadcasting company last week (the following conversations are approximate, but thematically accurate).

PRODUCER: We've had an idea for a series, and we think you'd be the perfect person to write for it. We are REALLY excited!
ME: Now I am excited too! What's the idea?
PRODUCER: It's about sex addiction.
ME: Erm.

Later

AGENT MATT: I mean, they have met you, haven't they?
ME: Yes.
AGENT MATT: I still don't understand.
ME: Well, I'm going up for some meetings anyway, so I may as well talk to them about it.

In fact, the more I think about it, the whole sex addiction thing is a really good hook to get a load of different characters together. It might work. I do a few pages on it.

At the meeting before the sex addiction meeting (not like that) I am talking to a different producer.

DIFFERENT PRODUCER: ... they have met you, though?
ME: I know!
DIFFERENT PRODUCER: Who's the producer?
ME: (the name)
DIFFERENT PRODUCER: Wait, isn't she the one with whom you told me you acted out eighteenth century sex against a wall having?

I think about it.

ME: Oh.
DIFFERENT PRODUCER: Yes.
ME: Hmm.
DIFFERENT PRODUCER: By the way, I like your new look. Sort of tweedy.

(I am wearing a proper actual shirt and suit jacket, and my hair has sort of gone a bit short and spiky with gel these days, although it's flopped a bit at the front, so the sides are the spikiest bits, shut up it's a look.

ME: Thank you! I was going for a Doctor Who sort of vibe.
DIFFERENT PRODUCER: Yes, I see that. Kind of... crossed with an owl.
ME: OH MY GOD OWLS ARE SO IN RIGHT NOW.

Later I have a meeting with the sex addiction Producer (not like that). We talk for a while about the concept, and try and figure out how it could work as a series, how you'd go in and out of the different characters' stories. And it's all really working quite well.

PRODUCER: This is really coming together! Why don't you talk with script editor over the next couple of weeks and we'll see about moving this on?
ME: Yes!
PRODUCER: And don't be afraid of making it quite edgy and graphic.
ME: (immediately) Okay, wait, I'm not the right person for this.
PRODUCER: Really?
ME: Mmm.
PRODUCER: You have had sex? I thought you said you had a second child due in six weeks.
ME: Yes. But I'm not actually very good at writing about it. I go all silly.
PRODUCER: Okay, no problem - the other thing I'm doing at the moment is trying to develop some science fiction concepts.
ME: WOOHOO!

All of which goes to show.

Different Producer, by the way, TOTALLY commissioned a pilot script about superheroes for an american channel. On the train on the way back I was all like 'oh hey sorry, I think I got a bit of awesome on you when I brushed past just then, sorry about that' and later when I had to walk down the corridor to get a thing, I was all 'tch, sorry, bit of awesome might have drifted onto your paper just then, not to worry, I have a lot of awesome to spare, what with being LITERALLY covered in awesome right now'. And I haven't even mentioned the Aardman meeting by the way, about which I should say: AMAZING.

However, I always find it a bit annoying when writers blog boring about how INCREDIBLE and COOL their new projects are, but can't say any details other than the INCREDIBLENESS and the COOLNESS, so I'll leave it there.

Because I am never afraid to tread in the footsteps of those just slightly ahead of me on the career curve, I have taken Boz's advice and enlisted the Blue Kitten (age: 22 months) to embark upon a Offspring vs Parent interview challenge, a la Moffat vs Moffat. I carefully wrote out a quick ten-page fact sheet for BK, including interesting quotes, career highs (not all Bob The Builder based) and some prompt questions, what I'd take out of a burning house sort of thing (rpg books, lego, family, obviously, if there was time). LET THE INTERVIEW BEGIN!

BK: WAZZAT?
ME: It's a banana.
BK: WAZZAT?
ME: It's a plastic cow.
BK: WAZZAT?
ME: It's me, your dad.
BK: WAZZAT?
ME: It's a shoe.
BK: WAZZAT?
ME: It's your mum.
BK: WAZZAT?
ME: It's your mum again.
BK: WAZZAT?
ME: It's a Spot book.
BK: WAZZAT?
ME: It's the cat.

Long and somewhat thoughtful pause. I quickly take the opportunity to run through some of the difficult and life-changes decisions I have had to make for my career (basically saying 'yes' whenever someone asked if I felt like writing something for money). Finally:

BK: NNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG!
ME: (wearily) It's a pooble.
BK: Yes.