Play Time

My playwriting tutor, Hilary Bell, thought my idea for the ten-minute play we have to write for the course had legs. There was just time at the end of our class this week to listen to somebody's homework, which was to peruse the papers and pick a news item that could make a play and then give an outline. And Hilary picked on me. I chose an article in the Financial Times about evictions and forced displacement to make room for urban development in Beijing. I think its going to be a hard one to tackle in just ten minutes, and Hilary was of the view that there was enough material in what I sketched out to make a full-length play. We have to decide by next week which idea we're going to go with, based on either the writing exercises we've been doing in class, our homework assignments or any other idea. I've settled on this one.



I had a good chat with my sister-in-law yesterday about my writing. As you probably know, I've been a bit despondent recently after the heady success of gaining a 'RECOMMEND' for TABLE FOR TWO? from Extreme Screenwriting was followed by a 'PASS' from a different coverage company. Anyway, I was given a good pep talk and told to keep going and don't give up (which is what my wife says too). So, starting from today, I'm putting all that negativity behind me and am going to dig deep and soldier on. The challenge is to decide what to tackle next (apart from my playwriting homework, that is).

I've got a couple of short play ideas, a full-length play idea, a couple of short screenplay ideas, there's the abandoned novel festering in the corner of my mind and there are a few short story competitions coming up too. So lots to think about and get stuck in to.

In other news, got another 'thanks, but no thanks' from a production company to my query email regarding LUCK'S RAN OUT and TABLE FOR TWO? I also got a message via the Talent & Production website from a South African producer sounding me out for a project, but the email address and the IMDb profile he gave were bogus, so I'm not sure what the story is there. I also emailed David Raynor, my collaborator on and the director of the short film DARK ANGELS, to ask what could he offer me payment-wise for the feature version that we've been talking about and on which I've already done some work fleshing out the synopsis. It all's gone quiet from David, so he's either busy rounding up a package he can put to me or he's speechless with rage that I've indicated that I can't write the feature script for nothing. We'll see soon enough. And speaking of Melbourne producers, I still haven't heard from Deborah her views of my treatment for 'DeCodeMe'. That's probably still out for consultation but I'll chase that up soon (I'm in Melbourne next week anyway).

And lastly, I'm thinking of creating a different website, actually a replacement for this one, to showcase myself a bit better. The functionality on Blogger isn't great and I think this site is getting a bit too messy. I'm currently experimenting with Wix, but if anyone has any views on which website host I should use, please let me know. Cheers.