Blog Hop!

I've been invited by the jolly friendly and formidably talented Jenna Willett over at Jens Pen Den to participate in her Blog Hop. Four questions....go!

What am I working on?
In between competition writing, through which I met Jen, I've been working on two main projects. The first is a short fiction anthology called "The Cartographer's Approach", which I aim to publish by the spring of next year. It's an assortment of short dark tales designed to house big questions in little formats and prompt a final check of the house before the reader retires to bed...

My other main effort is a feature length screenplay, which I aim to pitch as soon as its been through a rigorous development process. It's in the folk horror genre, is intended to be thoughtfully exciting rather than art-house and will contain some big ideas on how reality works. Not ambitious at all. To support this I'm off to the London Screenwriters Festival in October for some fact-finding, research and networking.

How does my work differ from others in the genre?
I think mainly due to the old-fashioned construction of the tales. I typically aim for slow burn suspense through innocuous detailing, which adds up cumulatively to a deep-seated sense of dread. I like the reader to be expected something different to the end product. I also enjoy adding comedy, having written and shot a number of comedy films for local festivals. One sketch show a while back resulted in an invitation by the BBC to re-film sketches at their television centre in London.

Getting comedy and darkness to knit together is a real challenge, but they are closer bedfellows in mechanism than some might think. Both rely on chaos, timing and surprise.

Why do I write what I do?
Tough one. I think anyone involved in creative work will tell you they are exorcising some part of themselves when they engage in it. "Lose yourself to find yourself" I saw as a motto yesterday. Some truth in that perhaps. I've always enjoyed format and craft when I've been reading a work or watching a film, so to practice and close the gap between quality of consumption as a fan and quality of production as a writer is a major challenge.

How does my writing process work?
I carry a black bag with me everywhere. It contains a voice recorder, a notebook, a Kindle with reference material and my own drafts on it, a few coloured pens and sometimes a mini-laptop or Alpha if I think I'm going somewhere to get some writing in. I'll get ideas and inspiration mainly when out and about (when I should be thinking about something else), and its important to capture it properly for later use.

I'll sit down for sessions at my iMac using Scrivener and rattle through first drafts quite quickly, using Scrivener's excellent chapter splitting tools. This breaks the draft down into easily titled chunks, sometimes with no more than 50-100 words in each. I can then step away and see the larger structure through the headings.

Once finished I'll leave it for a week or more and do something else, before redrafting, which I'm a big fan of. I'll usually redraft using a paper copy, some pens and a coffee - usually out at a cafe. Then I'll write it back up before leaving it for another later redraft and fact/typo check. I'll then give it out to a small band of beta readers (mostly friends and family) who I know can be ruthlessly and constructively honest. Then its formatted up and packaged as a done deal before then next one is started.

I like to write in both prose and script formats. Prose is a greater challenge in some ways as every word needs to be crafted to conjure the appropriate imagery in the reader's mind. Scriptwriting is quite different in that dialogue is king and everything else is efficient instruction or description - but the brevity the format needs is also a pleasing challenge. I try to read as much of both as I can, and don't see how a writer can neglect to read and stay properly honed. This week I've been reading "The Thing" by Bill Lancaster, one of my favourite "monster in the house" screenplays.

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For the "Blog Hop" concept to work I've got to nominate someone to write about themself and share the love. So here's a friend local to me.

Tim Clague - A recognised authority on UK Scriptwriting via his Ukay Scriptwriters podcast along with long-time cohort and TV writer Danny Stack, BAFTA-nominated Tim is based in Bournemouth and currently working on making his first feature film, Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg?.
This is a crowd funded effort and aims to bring the children's feature film back to Britain as a popular format, away from the congested markets of super heroes and CGI animation. He's a busy chap, shooting the film now, but hopefully when the dust settles will pop up a bit of info on himself on his entertaining Projector Films blog.

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