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Back! Finally finally sorted out the problem that took the blog offline. A nice support person at my hosting company tells me it was all to do with memory allocations and PHP files being in the wrong directories. Sounds plausible enough. Anyway, sorted.

Now, where was I?

So as far as I am concerned, the radio shows are written, bar the tussling over lines. I finished them off in a mammoth 29 hour writing session on Wed/Thur. Not the most professional way of working, and something I’ve never done before, but curiously effective. Normally I wouldn’t have had the staying power to work more than 12 hours straight, but something about these plays kept me awake and focused. I think it’s because of the subject matter, the fact that they are based heavily on the life story of one young offender, and I feel an obligation to make them as honest to some of the terrible things that happened in his world as possible, while bearing in mind their slot - breakfast radio - which means they have to be as accessible and entertaining as possible to compete with all the demands of households in transit to work and school. It’s a strange hybrid, but, you know what, I think I got there.

Let alone that they get three nights in different theatres on this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and the cast need the final scripts for their intensive rehearsals on Monday morning - something that focused my mind wonderfully. I have to talk to the producer later this morning to get his take, but I’m hoping all that’s needed now is a dialogue polish.

One thing I want to do this weekend is run them past a couple of teenagers from a local Young Offenders Institute to get their comments on the dialogue and tell me where I am out of touch with the way they would say things. As I’m a lot older than them, and as their language seems to change every couple of months, and every time we do this they come up with lines that are just so much better than I invent for them, I’m thoroughly expecting them to rewrite most of it.

I just wish I had that resource for everything I write - but it’s a serious point, and goes back to the way I go on and on about research in the Screenwriting Goldmine book - I heard someone say the other day words to the effect that they write by reining in real life to a point where it is believable fiction, and this project has proven that to be absolutely true. I’ve had to leave so much out of these dramas because the real events of these young peoples’ lives just didn’t seem dramatically believable when assembled en masse. Very interesting.

So what’s next? Nothing as yet. I need a break. I’ve had a heavy couple of years writing, been absolutely full on since November 2005 [corr. from 1995. Need sleep!] with only one week’s break in all that time.

What’s really interesting is the fact all that writing time has only produced 6 hours of drama. The lead times in this industry are colossal, and the way you are forced through rewrite after rewrite while all the chefs have their say is not good. Can be very draining in fact.

So I’m going to take weeks off to recharge. I also am amazed by the response this site and the book is getting, and I want to spend some more time developing what is available on here.

For example. A forum. Quite a few people have written to me saying this would be good. I’m not so convinced - I’ve looked around, and there are quite a few screenwriting forums (fora?) out there, and most of them seem pretty quiet. I’m not convinced the screenwriters actually like chatting in forums. Aren’t we often solitary sorts happier on our own?

Would you email me at info@screenwritinggoldmine.com if you would be interested in me adding something like that to the site? I need to know seriously how many people there are actually actively interested in contributing and talking to each other in that environment before I do all the work to set it up.

Finally, I know I’ve been promising that new bonus package for ages now, and the buying the book options have been disabled while I get all that together - well, really, seriously, now my life is my own again I hope to have some news on that by the end of this coming week. Honestly. Promise.