Do you believe in Carl Jung’s collective unconscious? To summarise, he believed we share a common inheritance of instincts, memories and archetypes. I think of it as a universally available lending library. It makes sense, but accepting that or not, where do you think ideas come from? Do they live in us or outside? As […]
Tag: screenwriting
Writer’s Learning Curve
2019: Context, Focus, and Distraction I’ve travelled my latest learning curve in what has been a strange year for me and for most Brits, I think. I won’t be sorry to see the back of it, although things can always get worse. What writer was ever an optimist? Politics worldwide have become increasingly dystopian. The […]
Peak Performance
I can’t believe it. We’re almost halfway through 2019. Feels like I haven’t done much these past few months, but I try to measure writing progress in more than output. Thinking time is also writing time, although a working writer needs it on the page. Deadlines help, but if you’re writing on spec you have […]
Format Matters
I Hear You, I See You To begin a discussion about why format matters in screenwriting, I’m going to start with an amazing story. In 1977, NASA launched two exploration vehicles into space, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were programmed to explore around Jupiter and the outer reaches of our solar system. Voyager 2 […]
Focus or Die
Focus or die is a line from my new book, FLAT SQUIRREL, to be published on 28 June this year. It’s in the screenplay too, which I wrote just for fun, since animation studios like to write their own scripts and I’m not inside the magic circle. Yet. Blogging Indifference I don’t blog as much […]
The Small Stuff
Full of Angst Don’t sweat it, unless you’re a writer, then the small stuff becomes the devil in the detail. I’ll explain later, first I want to talk about stress. Writers are plagued by doubt and angst. Find me one who isn’t. Writers’ insecurity is magnified by our inability to pinpoint exactly what we’re anxious […]
The Process Of Writing
Decisions, Decisions I have a bunch of difficult choices in front of me. Why? I’m starting a new screenplay and I have to get it out of my head and onto the page. The first problems to hit are to do with the process of writing. Do I know what I want to say? Pretty […]
Need Space White Space
Tempus Fugit and All That Is it really seven months since I blogged? A lotta white space. Whoops. The Internet sucks time like a black hole sucks matter. Do I spend so much of my life elsewhere…online? So many interesting hang-outs these days. For movie people, there’s Stage32 and IMDB. Writers and artists have to […]
Fighting Yer Demons
On the nose? They’ll punch yer lights out If you are so unsubtle as to mention fighting yer demons, or his, or hers, or theirs. Screenwriters, don’t, please. Not unless you are strictly within a supernatural, vampire or fantasy genre, and safely enclosed in the charmed circle of salt. As a long form fiction writer […]
Ten Animation Movies With Heart
Genre-Rama Since I’m working on an adventure comedy animation story right now, I thought I’d collect ten animation movies with heart that inspire my writing. I love genre movies. They often take a bad rap. I don’t think the term ‘B Movie’ is officially used any more, but I’ve heard it bandied about in real […]