It’s been a productive day, my co-writer Scotty Clark and I having pretty much nailed the final chunk of the horror story we’re developing. The process has been highly enjoyable, and if all collaborations were as straightforward as this one I’d be doing more of them. Three is plenty, mind, and part of the trick is choosing your partners wisely.

It helps that Scotty and I are on the same page regarding how to go about developing a story. We’re very aware that there’s a wealth of detail to be discovered as we flesh out our characters and put dialogue into their mouths, but right now the job is about creating a story for them that will be fun to watch on a cinema screen. Along the way, we’ve got a few moments that will provide twisted humour, ideally so that 14-30 year old males can relate their favourite scenes to mates over a beer and get that demographic along to the cinema, or pick up the DVD later on.

All of which assumes that we’ll get the film made. And that’s something else Scotty and I have in common: blind enthusiasm for what we’re doing. Sure, we’re aware that statistically developing films is an exercise in futility, and that we may as well devote our attentions to a Mars expedition. All very well. But there is precisely zero point in coming up with concepts when you’re thinking like that: instead our output has been characterised by good (albeit dark) humour and good old fashioned pluck.

Will we get the film made? We’ll certainly have a bloody good go at it. I’ll definitely be showing our treatment to a production company I’ve already established a good relationship with. They’ve got a few features under their belt already, and if they’re into ours it could conceivably be the one that wins them some decent money, instead of the awards their projects normally garner. Hey, maybe it could do both…but this being a genre piece, that’s unlikely.

All of which adds up to a pleasantly optimistic piece to be writing this time round, the 200th since this blog started on New Years Eve last year. There are other reasons to feel good too: by Christmas I should have definitive news on what could be a multi-stranded project on a substantial scale that could keep me very busy for a year or more, and maybe even become a staff job…not that I’m sure I want such a thing. We shall see: it’s all very exciting anyway.

The animation projects I’m developing are coming on well too. Andy Tudor and I had a great meeting recently that gave us both a bigger sense of the story world we’re creating, and I had useful advice from a couple of friends working in animation on how to take the concept further. Next up, more flesh on the bones of the second animation project, a collaboration between Corrina Rothwell and myself. It’s lovely to be playing with three such talented creators: all that remains, as is so often the case, is to add money to the mix.

Hehe. That last line indicates the perennial dilemma of the gigging writer: how to attach finance to fun. I love what I do, and it’d be nice if decent fees were part of my life on a more regular basis. But if it were all that straightforward, everyone would be doing it, and the cinema and television would be awash with brilliantly realised content. And yes, that was a herd of zebras that just passed your window when you looked up, snorting in disbelief…