So, it looks like one particular project has fizzled.  A director I know had chanced on $250,000 American investment, and approached me about writing a feature tailored to work to that budget.  After a false start, we decided it would be best to work on a single location thriller, and I came up with an embryonic treatment that I was and remain proud of.

There’s no regret attached to the fact that the project seems to have fizzled out.  But there is about the way that the fizzling happened: after a few weeks when the director and I were in regular contact, I have heard nothing for nearly two months.  No replies to my phone calls, nor to the text I sent enquiring about the status of the project.  Not much of a finale then, and certainly no sense of class about it.  But, I am not despondent: I still have the bones of a thriller I’d love to write, and now I can take it forward with other parties.  And next week I have a meeting with some very credible producers who’ve already made one multiple award winning feature, and have more films in the pipeline.  We were going to be talking about one particular project of mine they’ve been interested in for a while, and now I’ll be able to discuss the low budget thriller too.

So, I get to stay happy: I’m not sure I can say the same about the director of the project that seems to have crashed and burned who, from my sense of him, is perhaps embarrassed that he wasn’t able to deliver the goods and feels he can’t face up to me.  Maybe, maybe not: I’m not going to waste mental energy on speculating.

The feature that these particular producers are interested in is one that’s close to my heart, being drawn from traumatic personal experience that I believe I’m distant enough from at this point to be able to write about well.  I’ve tried writing the same piece before, but at that point it didn’t work out.  Now, with time having passed and my skills sharper, I believe I can do it justice.  We shall see.

I also had a very interesting meeting with a woman who wants me to write a screenplay based in large part on her own life story.  Which, since she is a medium by trade, promises to be an interesting tale.  Mediumship is a field I have no fixed opinions on save that I am deeply sceptical about the showbiz end of the market, where middle aged men living with their mothers ask a packed hall if anyone knows someone called David, or is that Dick, or maybe Dennis?  A world away from the medium I met, a charming if dotty woman who was very sincere, clearly dedicated to her calling, and promises to be someone interesting to spend time with.  She also acted out the story beautifully, having to do so because her severe dyslexia limits her ability to communicate with the written word alone.  If we can make the finances of this particular endeavour work, it’s one I’d very much like to take on.

This business aspect of what I get up to may be of some interest to at least some of you: the trick, which I have yet to manage convincingly, is to get a number of projects funded by various sources on the go, and thus add to the pile of completed projects awaiting further development.  If that commitment to screenplays, whether originated by myself or others, can be combined with television commissions, then the consequence is, financially at least, happiness.  In practice, for now at least, other means of earning money must be factored into the equation.  But with possibilities including the BBC Writers Academy on the horizon, and a sample script requested by a primetime show that could result in regular work, the picture could change substantially within the next few months.  The best approach seems to be not to get too attached to any one outcome, instead concentrating more on a direction that will itself generate increasing possibilities.  And if that means the prospect of finding a home for one particular concept decreases for a while, then so be it: another opportunity will appear in due course.