View from chopping board over my workspace and beyond!

The New Zealand retreat was wonderful! I cooked and ate clean, NZ produce, drank and washed in sweet rainwater, chopped kindling and built a fire for my heating each day and I managed to slow my brain right down and get lots of writing done. The Northland winter was astonishing, equally cool, sunny, blue sky days and wild, wind-whipped stormy days which made one think in sympathetic wonder about Tasman and Cook and the men who lived through that weather out on the seas to find the place.

I was highly inspired by both the isolation and the scenery. The fiction writing mood continues, however, so the blog writing feels a little like time taken away from it – hence the tardiness and brevity of this post.

This slideshow is mostly of photos I took from my little house – you will see why I felt no need to leave and why the creative juices flowed!

In fact, this post was a little longer but I was writing it on the WordPress dashboard – which looks better than it did in 2.7 but seemingly still fails as a writing tool because when I pressed ‘publish’ it published it’s own autosave from fifteen minutes previous. I’ve written this in Live Writer which developed issues with images with WP 2.7 but frankly I’d rather have to manually insert an image than lose fifteen minutes of writing. Grrr wordpress – welcome back to technology, me

Chapter One of Shadowkeeper is as done as it’s going to be before I move on to Chapter Two and I’m pretty happy with it. The beginning and the end will change before the draft is finished but the beginning in that way that beginnings are never quite finished till the whole thing is finished and the end because the whole chapter thing is not natural for me and I suspect the first scene of what is currently Chapter Two may need to be the last of Chapter One – OR actually the beginning LOL. Swapping openings and conclusions was something I discovered at Uni – invariably (to the point that it became a formula for me) I found that I had a natural tendency to outline what I was going to say at the top in a little too much detail for an introduction and then precis my points wonderfully succinctly at the end (mostly because, having written then damn thing, I was then clearer on what my points were) so my leave-it-to-the-last-minute strategy became: write it from top to bottom; swap top with bottom; race for bus to the Ming Wing The only essays I got less than a Distinction on were the ones where I panicked and lost my self trust and didn’t do this.

Anyway Chapter Two is underway and I very well may not be back till it is done. Unless I block…

The number one question I am being asked, by those I love well enough to be willing to be seen in a half-human state, is “So, was it worth it?” The answer is a resounding YES! I can understand why they are asking – I haven’t been able to return, beaming from ear to ear, and say “Pete Jackson’s directing The Shadowkeeper!” or some such cry which smacks of obvious success, and it seems some people were genuinely thinking that was possible – but, as I tried to make it clear before I left – I was not expecting that.
What I was hoping for was to achieve what is the first MAJOR hurdle for any aspiring screenwriter in Hollywood TO BE READ AT ALL. An estimate of 50-70,000 scripts are sent to Hollywood each year so everyone is looking for the slightest reason not to have to read another script so you can imagine how many good scripts will end up in slush piles. SO, that was my goal – and it was (and is being) achieved. Shadowkeeper is still being read (or waiting in the ‘recommended’ piles) at various high profile companies and I have had requests for my next scripts (both pitches I took with me hit a mark) on the strength of my writing style. Sure, this is all still on a spec basis but just having the doors open is a HUGE step of which I am very proud.

I have had some great feedback from people who read it while I was there and who had read it before I arrived (competiton judges and the like) my favourite of which was that it is reminiscent of the work of Miyazaki Hayao – at first I thought someone must have told this guy that Miyazaki was one of my heroes but he named a couple of his films (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle) in case I didn’t know who he was so I accepted the compliment and beamed from ear to ear! Unfortunately the comparison was followed by a comment that he feared that it is “over the head of we silly Americans” and that their company couldn’t produce it – I considered offering to dumb it down but wasn’t quite sure how to put that – or how I would do it – it’s just a plain ol’ quest narrative, for goodness sake LOL!

The most important thing I have returned with is a lot more confidence in my potential as a writer and my ability to handle the Hollywood ‘thang’ if that is where my stories will take me. In fact, I found LA as a city completely un-frightening and really quite friendly (except for the occasional communication problem which was, essentially, funny and the whole, uncomfortably sad servant-class thing which really wasn’t funny at all but I won’t go into that here) so, should I need to go back on overwhelmingly exciting business I will be on solid ground!

So, what’s next? Well – writing the scripts people are waiting for while I wait upon the other readings of The Shadowkeeper. I’ve also decided to really put some work into seeing if maybe there might be someone interested in producing it from here because this is where I want to be based in the long term (at the very least I don’t want to have spend any Summers in LA – too hot for too many days in a row!) I will also, at some point, write reviews of the three books I bought in LA (there were sooo many other I could have bought given unlimited funds): “Breakfast with Sharks”; “The Script is Finished, Now What Do I Do?” and; “Writing Treatments the Sell” – the latter has the distinction of being the first source I’ve found which actually outlines exactly what is expected in a Bible for a TV show . Oh, yes – and find a job, any job, because boy do I need money now!!!

Of course we intend to do some touristy things as well. We have tickets to the Tutankhamun exhibition – something that is not expected to tour downunder so it’s magical that we have the chance. Apparently there are artifacts from the whole 18th Dynasty on display and I am crossing my fingers for something, anything, from Tut’s (assumed) father’s reign – Akhenaten will forever be my favourite (he was my first celebrity crush – strange child that I was!) We will also be taking a weekend to explore the central coast – my mother will be taking us to to Cambria and Big Sur (which I hear is a big forest but I’m not allowed to google it and take the edge of the impact it apparently has) and to a Scandinavian town called Solvang. And, of course, we’re going to explore the Academy Gallery and Library and check out theatre in the area.

So. This is it.

“Come to the edge,” He said. They said, “We are afraid.”
“Come to the edge,” He said.
They came.
He pushed them… and they flew.”
- Guillaume Apollinaire

Cross your fingers for me – I’m jumping.

Of course, the Script Pimp awards show at the Hollywood Improv is less than a fortnight away and I’m starting to get thrilling flutterings about the trip. My dear friend, and fabulous actress with whom I have worked on countless audio books, will be coming with me to LA and together we will hype each other’s worth to whomever will listen (so much easier than hyping oneself!) My mother, who lives in SoCal, has nabbed some tickets to the awards show with some friends so, as we haven’t seen each other for about 11 years, the night at the Improv will be quite an experience! Whatever the result of the competition, I am ready to network, network, network – which I’m usually pretty good at – though I’ve never done it on my own behalf, before. Basically, I’m just looking to enjoy meeting some new people and sharing my passion for writing and the Celtic culture which has inspired this screenplay.

Time to get organised, better make some lists…

The award ceremony to announce the four winning scripts will be held in Hollywood on July 28th.

Click here to go to the Script Pimp Competition Page!