So today was spent working on the new version of the trailer for the web channel I work on. Obviously I thoroughly resented having to come up with something new after spending a day on the project but I must admit I probably prefer the new version to the old one. For one thing it is a lot simpler to film, which gives half a chance of the final project resembling what I envisaged when I wrote out. I still bear the scars from a radio sketch I wrote many years ago: it was supposed to open like an old Universal horror movie – wind, rain, the crash of thunder, the creaking of a massive and ancient door, the sepulchral sounds of an organ echoing among the buildings ancient stones – but when I tuned in to hear it I got the pitter-patter of a light shower, a squeaky hinge and the sound of a Stylophone, from there on in the sketch lacked a certain something, to my ears at least.
With that job out of the way (barring re-writes) and a bunch of sample sketches ready to head off to a “major independent comedy production company”, it looks like I’ve managed to get the deadlines I mentioned last week out of the way. This means on the one hand that I have no immediate revenue streams in site but on the other that I have room to crack on with those other projects I mentioned. Indeed, I’ve got some additional motivation in that area as my agent has asked me to knock out a chapter of “the novel” for her to pass on to a literary agent. I find this both thrilling and intimidating. The novel is dear to my heart, coming as it does from a project I’ve long had in mind and which my old agent dismissed out of hand (after making me produce three, increasingly lengthy, treatments for it over a period of some 9 months) – thus if I can get any success out of it I have the double benefit of it being one in the eye for my former agent. This may seem petty but, given that the last time I saw her she wandered up to me at a party and called me a complete shit for having had a play commissioned by Radio 3 shortly after dispensing with her services, I think I can be allowed a bit of pettiness.
A Writer Tries To Write 