plaque

This may be as close as I ever get to seeing my plaque. However I finally have the euros in my bank - yippee!!

So be warned - when it comes to chasing up money owed - if polite enquiries fail - then a stream of increasingly rude and threatening daily emails will probably do the trick.

Laters

Preciousness

Long rambly post ahead.
What is the point of having a blog if you don't use it occasionally to blow your own trumpet - albeit anonymously (and even for minor successes)? Well my first radio play didn't win anything but was very highly commended in the BBC International Radio Playwriting Contest (reached the top 50 out of 1200 entries worldwide - the names are now up here for a short time). So a pat on the back there. I kind of knew my play was 'busking it' with way too many characters (after a massive culling from the original film script). You were supposed to have only 6 and I think I had 8 and a half.

Plus certain elements had to be completely re-worked for radio. Sex and death probably work better on film. But as a re-writing and craft exercise - turning a film script into a radio play was fairly illuminating - particularly in regard to writing and 'preciousness' (more of which later).

So would I do another radio play? Yes probably but only for a ready opening like another contest - as it seems for Beeb radio drama you have to submit via a dedicated producer. They did re-launch radio drama over here a year or so ago but all seems to have gone quiet in the interim. Anyway there's another half hour radio competition deadline at the end of the year (though it's for 'Africans living in Africa' and I'm unsure whether I fit the criteria - will have to confer with Barbee there - tee he)

So what did I learn from this exercise? That I prefer writing for film and I think visually rather than aurally.
But I settled on a better title for the play. That stays. Thinking about making a story work for radio as opposed to film was a good exercise to hone the story. Now I'll take all the improved story things back to the film script. The key character was originally an artist. This didn't work for radio and was changed. But now I'm going back to the artist. One big plus for radio is that you can convey thoughts. Plus radio has to pack a punch from page 1. The film script has a kind of 'slow burner' opening which I'm going to have to work on.

In the film script there was a key scene where 'a pitched battle ensued' (where did I read that line on a blog recently?). Anyway mine was kind of inspired by that scene in 'Once Were Warriors' when the Maori mentor delivers a Haka and twirls a sword (and the whole audience flinch in expectation.) I wanted to capture that strange energy and the sense of not knowing whether what is happening (on screen) is true or not. Anyway of course this 'pitched battle' - being totally visual had to be severely curtailed for radio.

The main thing I learned from the whole exercise was about 'preciousness'. One key issue for many writers (me included) is a lack of ability to dispassionately assess what you've written after you've written it. We become precious. We hold on to things that should go and are unable to see what doesn't work well which is why we need to hand it out; get it read, do PO3 or whatever.

When I was at art college in Leeds (across the road from the Merrion Centre), we used to do life drawing once a week - our easels arranged in a circle around a large, lardy, naked woman who had perfected the art of smoking without ever dropping the ash from the end of her cigarette.
One day after we'd been busy with the charcoal for about half an hour, the tutor stopped us all. He told us to each take our drawing and hand it to the person on our left. We were then supposed to carry on sketching the life model - working with someone else's drawing. Everyone was stumped. Some were horrified. One girl cried. Most thought 'what can I do with this pile of *?'

Then we just had to stop being precious and get on with it.

Hmmm..

Today I was wondering what ever happened to that prize that I was supposed to have won a while back. I jaunted around the internet and found myself here. There over on the right hand side there's mention of the 3 winners and even a photo (!) (not of me of course because I didn't go) But someone is holding my plaque! - it has my name on it - I ENLARGED it and saw. Aha proof!
I'm due some euros - but where are they?
And where is my plaque?

Hasty emails have been despatched.
Watch this space...

Fat 100

Yes the 100th blog post today! Wooee!

Give yourself a pat on the back,
pat on the back,
pat on the back,
give yourself a pat on the back
100 posts today
far away!

Seems to be that quiet time of year when script somebodies are not at their desk or they're at Cannes or not at Cannes or on their way or pretending to be.

Now is probably a good time to take stock of what's happened so far this year. I've submitted scripts and synopses left, right and centre that I've yet to hear about. I did a crash course in Xhosa (although far from fluent, I did gain an 'overview'.) I stepped off a lucrative scriptwriting job (for jolly good reason) and won 2nd prize in a script competition that no one has ever heard of. I had 2 rejections from Beeb drama that were so fabulously positive they could be mistaken for acceptances - almost (ha!). I wrote and submitted a short I haven't heard about yet, reworked a feature drama into a radio play for a comp and found a UK producer for another feature drama submission. Also did plenty of honing, tweaking, refining and re-writing and am now working on these jazz stories. Plus an SA producer is in Cannes with my 'hot' project - let's see.

Distant shores beckon perhaps.

(any other Shiny Show fans out there?)

woo hoo!

It may sound like I'm making this up but……

Yesterday the phone rang. It was long distance and quite a bad crackly line and a woman with a West African accent asked to speak to Barbee*. Now Barbee is my Sierra Leonean middle name which I never use and so in two minds I answered hesitantly 'Yes...speaking?'. Then the lady asked me to hold because she was putting a call through from Lagos School of Studies*. I waited for 20 seconds while the line crackled, then suddenly imagining that either this was a new type of 491 spam telephone scam or that I'd somehow agreed to accept a reverse charge call from someone I didn't know in Nigeria, I slammed down the phone. Yes - a bit unfriendly I know but I'm from the yookay.

The minute I slammed down the phone I had a blinding realisation. You see I'd thought the only people who ever call me by my African middle name are some or all of my eleven half brothers and sisters from Sierra Leone (not that I'd slam down the phone on any of them I must point out). EXCEPT I suddenly remembered that nearly 2 years ago I had gone in for some poorly advertised 'panafrican' scriptwriting competition and had posted my entry to - wait for it - an address in Lagos. In an Afro moment I had decided to use my middle name on my entry because it seemed appropriate for this contest. Though I must point out that I have never done this before. Anyoldhow the closing date passed, no winners were announced and the original competition details and website disappeared off the face of the web within 6 months. So I thought 'Ahh well' crossed it out of my script log book and carried on with my life.

Recalling this, I rushed eagerly to the PC, googled here and there and lo and behold! there was evidence of the long forgotten script competition and unbelievably - the winners were due to be announced at a ceremony THIS FRIDAY in Lagos!!
Of course my mind started whirring like a frantic thing and spinning all sorts of delicious outcomes in my head. I immediately rattled off a polite but cautious email noting that from my perusals of the web, the results of the 'panafrican' script competition seemed imminent, and would they please keep me informed etc. since I had in fact received a call from Lagos that very afternoon but unfortunately the line had become disconnected. (Ahem ahem) and signed off with first name, MIDDLE NAME last name - just in case there was any confusion.

First thing this morning I received a response informing me that the competition assistant 'Begonia* will respond shortly' Hmmm.

Later on this afternoon I received an email saying that they had tried to contact me over a month ago and "Please note that the jury has long concluded on the selection process and the first five scripts will be recognized during this April 27th conference. I am not very sure you will be able to attend and I am glad to inform you that your script took the second position. It would have nice to have you present during the award presentation. All the same, if you have someone in Nigeria whom you think could act as a proxy that will be honoured."

Woo hoo perhaps or woo who? Maybe there's a small amount of money involved or maybe not - (there's supposed to be). 2nd prize. That is affirmation of sorts isn't it? I don't think I'll be getting on a plane to Lagos though.

Watch this space.

* All names have been changed to protect the innocent

..fast forward. Stop.

Well I've been putting it off and putting it off (broadband being down was a good excuse) but here's the next instalment. Maybe I feel that this one is less about writing and more about 'getting on' with life - in fact I could sum it up in a single sentence:

I went and did all the things I wanted to do, before it was too late.

I packed up living in South East London, ran 5000 miles away across the sea to be in my (new) long-distance South African relationship, had a baby, got married, bought a nice house with a nice garden, renovated, made biscuits and here I am blogging about it.

Oh and I started writing rapidly for money - anything and everything and everywhere and as quickly as possible. My whole new approach was 'this is the only way I can stay at home with a baby and earn money and so I have to do it'.

The rapid writing thing actually started when my daughter was about 6 months old. Sitting in front of a PC is in fact a perfect occupation for a new mother. The baby, tucked into an armpit, quickly adapts to somniferous tapping (if kept regular).

If they paid, I wrote it. Deadlines became challenges. I wrote faster and faster. I tried to beat my own best times. I wrote internet travel video guides for places I'd never been to. In 3 months I wrote 22 half hour long scripts for the Ethiopian National Curriculum - schools TV. I churned them out. I wrote pitch documents for production companies for all kind of programmes and formats. I wrote articles for newspapers - (hub did the photographs) 2 hours to finish a script - or half an hour to get a rewrite in, I'd do it. I lost the ability to be precious.

I got work developing a brilliant drama series set in Namibia and mentoring new writers and flew to Namibia for workshops. Three months later the company dissolved. Then a children's series on African Sky stories was commissioned. I wrote and directed it.....
I wrote new feature scripts and blah and so on and other stuff...

And what happened to that script - the one I completed on 3 months sick leave? My long-standing 'friend-in-scripts' thought it was the best ever. Before I packed up my life to move to South Africa I sent it to Beeb Writersroom. Five months later in sunny Cape Town I opened a lovely letter saying they were recommending me to CBBC - who promptly lost the script and then when I re-sent it were a bit curious as to why I had. Being one of the chosen 10/10,000 per annum doesn't necessarily amount to much. Maybe a name added to a list in someone's office somewhere. Who knows?

Anyway here I am - still writing scripts and living hopefully ever after...

The End
(ha ha)



Happy Valentines day everyone!

The party years

Someone asked me to blog about 'how I got started'- but since I don't necessarily feel I have 'got started' I thought I wouldn't - but then I thought I could blog in stages about how I got to where I am now and then maybe blog about how I got started sometime in the future when it happens (are you still following?)

Let's start with the party years - the whirl of fun and irresponsibility and what-have-you when the mood is blasé and spontaneous. The party years are lucky - things happen easily - opportunities abound - drink flows - dancing goes on til dawn. (ha!)

I finished art school and started being an artist making massive charcoal drawings on pieces of brown paper in my bed-sit in East Dulwich. There was a small advertisement in the local newspaper offering a free video course and I went on it. The small group of us messed around, animating beans and lentils under caption camera and in the edit cut it up with interviews with artists. I was called 'the laughing director'. That video became support material for an application to an Art Council scheme to encourage minority filmmakers. I made a half hour doc about 5 British artists - most of whom have now gone on to great things. With another award, I made an 'anti-narrative' experimental video - shown on C4.

It was a time cram full of private views and launches and parties and openings and previews and screenings and rushes viewings and talks and discussions and so on.

I applied for a one minute film grant and didn't get it. Disappointed I packed my bags and went to Sierra Leone and saw my father again after 20 years. When I came back I was told I had a green-light - the 'lucky' 13th since one of the awards had to be overturned. It was my best yet. Soon afterwards I successfully submitted a 'proper' short film script for a New Directors award.

By now I was certain that making films was what I really, really wanted to do. Ironically this was the time that it started to become difficult.
The free flow of opportunity that I had become accustomed to started to evaporate...


tbc