Every now and then you have an idea that doesn’t fit with the others you come up with. I’ve got used to developing writing projects on my own, though am involved in a couple of collaborations, both with people known for books rather than scripts. But I’ve had a desire to develop something interesting with a designer and illustrator friend, and a few months ago the right concept appeared.

The trick to collaboration, I suspect, is to devise something that has a hook with relevance to the particular pairing. In this case, it comes from a combination of the artist’s way with drawing characters, and his fascination with space: this is someone who works with the latest NASA news in the background. And it’s from that concoction that our collaboration emerged. I’ll spare you the details since these are early days still, and some confidentiality is in order.

What’s been interesting is the necessity for this partnership to spawn ways of thinking and doing that are new to us both. We’ve formed a company that we’re jointly directors of. We’ve spoken to media lawyers, a postproduction company, and a producer. In other words, this is something that we’re taking seriously, and has big implications.

At first, we thought we were developing an animated series for children. And that’s still the outcome we’re aiming for. But what form will that series take, and how will it be shown, given the way that digital media is going? That set us thinking about possibilities other than the obvious television route. And in particular it made us consider how the world of games could be an interesting place to pitch our wares.

I’ve had some experience of the gaming world, having written a whole bunch of supporting material for one the other year. That hopefully means I can go back to the company who asked me to do the work and suggest a partnership. What we have in mind is offering the world and characters we’ve created to games developers. That way, products using our concepts get out there to consumers, to generate income and awareness — both pretty handy if we’re going to stand a chance of realising the goal of an animated series.

This putative multimedia ambition may be all very naive, and is entirely unsupported by anything resembling a business plan. But it is at least interesting, and so far hasn’t taken that much time and commitment from either of its developers. And people who’ve seen the visuals and listened to the concepts are very impressed with what we’ve come up with. Which in turn could be opening other doors, for instance to someone who works in the world of licenced characters. These days, it’s perfectly possible to make toys and maybe other products for well designed characters even if they don’t come with a show. One example would be the cute/grotesque toys developed by cult artist Jim Woodring.

There’s a long way to go on this particular journey, but it’s worth committing to. We’ve come up with a concept we’re proud of that — all being well — could take us to the fabled world of residual income via partnerships with interesting people around the world. What’s not to like? And unlike screenplays, which I am very particular about, this is a project where I’d be happy to be at the helm and not have to sort out every little detail personally: part of the attraction is of creating a sandpit that others get to play in too.

In the next few months, we’ll be having some meetings and putting a website up there to show the world what all this maddeningly unspecific stuff is in the service of. At which point, you can judge for yourself whether we’ve got a winning idea, or we’re barking up a tree that bears no fruit.