You can only write so much before wondering why you’re devoting so much of your time and attention to a pursuit that pays off for such a small number of its practitioners. It’s something I’ve been thinking through again lately, having decided that I won’t be putting in an entry for this year’s Red Planet competition.

Why not? After all, it’s a brilliant showcase for writers, with unsurpassed prizes. True, true. But in terms of where I am and where I want to be, I don’t currently have a new pilot script in me that’ll be sufficiently distinct from the one I entered last year, set in the world of drugs work. Sure, I could write something, but the only new project that’s close to me writing it is one that’s not too far away in subject matter.

Why is that important? Because I feel I’m at an interesting stage with my writing, with a strong pilot script for the drug worker series that’s already attracted professional interest, and which I want to circulate further around the industry. And when I do, it’ll be accompanied by a feature script that I’m happy with.

So, how come it’s taken so long to get these scripts sorted out? Well, I’ve written all kinds of work over the years, some of it commissioned and paid for. But somewhere along the line I got sidetracked by my relationship with a particular filmmaker. We made a short together that got to tour internationally with the support of the British Council, and he turned up on a regular basis with other opportunities following that initial success. Which was great. I developed any number of treatments for shorts and features alongside him, and learned a lot in the process. Great to a point, except you can only work on projects for no money for so long before weariness starts to set in. And the projects being dangled were further and further away from my true interests.

Things came to a head when I was coaxed into writing a treatment set in the world of American cage fighting. It was reasonable enough, a perfectly professional piece of work that would have made a solid film of its sort. Only, my heart wasn’t in it. Even less so when a meeting was arranged in America at which the story was pitched (thankfully not by me) to Jean Claude Van Damme. At which point I realised that I was participating in some kind of cheesefest that didn’t represent me in any way.

Since then, I’ve taken a different tack. It took a while to sort out exactly where it was taking me, but what matters is that I can honestly say every project I’ve been involved with since those days has been one I’m fully engaged with and committed to. Yes, I can turn round a competent and well executed story of various sorts - but for me, with my background in advertising, that’s really just a demonstration of copywriting skills. And I’d still be working in advertising if that’s all I aspired to.

Instead, I’m finding that I’ve regained the enthusiasm for writing I had in my early days, before I knew quite what I was doing. Some of the sample scripts on this site come from that period; the play Breaking In for instance. God only knows what the structure of that play is, but it’s not one you’d find recommended in any book on writing for theatre. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a story about two people in a relationship that seems to be doomed, but where there’s the hint of light if they can only stop for a moment and see what they’re doing to themselves and each other. Simple as that. And funny, too. The core is what matters, and that’s what I’ve realised anew in the range of stories I’ve been developing in recent years.

The seed for the stories I’m interested in can be all kinds of things. It can come from knowing drugs workers and being fascinated by how they keep going in the face of overwhelming odds. From wanting to tell a modern day fable with a talented illustrator. From finding an original way to tell what might otherwise be an imagination-free genre tale. Whatever it is, there’s got to be a kernel there, a challenge I’ve not taken on before that can inspire me to keep working, whatever else is happening. And if that challenge is there, and I can meet it, then I can honestly say I’m doing the best I can at writing what matters to me. And believe me, that feels a lot better than knowing your cage fighting yarn is being discussed by the Muscles from Brussels.

There was a news item I snagged for my research files a few years back about a Japanese trend for older people to hire actors to pretend to be family members and come and visit them. Interestingly, having paid all this money for the faux-family experience, typically the grandparents used the time on the meter to berate their pretend kids for not coming to visit them often enough.

That’s a lovely example of what happens when social changes crystallise around a particular group with economic freedoms but not the emotional experience they believe they’re due from family obligations. Societies change, in Japan and beyond, and some fascinating developments are outlined in the book Microtrends by Mark J. Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne.

The book is utterly fascinating, and if you’re at all interested in writing drama you can’t help but see the potential for stories to come out of the wealth of research that’s between its covers. Drama stems from conflict, and this book provides plenty of insight into the lifestyles that some of us are now leading. Cougars are a phenomenon I’d already heard of - successful career women in their 40s seeking younger playmates on their own terms - and this is the book that outlines the social and economic reasons for their existence. As I was reading the chapter on them, I realised that one key character in a story I’m working on could well be defined as a cougar, and the piece on them here usefully helped shape my thinking about who she is and what she does.

What about other subgroups though? Did you know that in America, more than 3.5 million couples are living apart much of the time thanks to having jobs far enough apart that the sensible thing is to maintain separate households? Think of the potential for stories that emerge straight from that fact. How do you keep a relationship alive when you’re spending so much time apart? Does absence make the heart grow fonder, or are evenings away a temptation to stray?

Further afield, 14% of marriages in South Korea were to foreigners in 2005, compared to 4% in 2000. A little poking around into that statistic, and you’ve got the makings of a film: you could feasibly have 2 marriages to foreigners within one family, and the upsets and surprises of being wedded to a European or American could provide plenty of story fodder.

A third of American cosmetic surgeons are dealing with requests to do work on both partners in couples, and the number of mother and daughter combos wanting assistance is increasing. And while Asia in general is anti plastic surgery, Korea has 1200 plastic surgeons, 300 more than California. Clearly something interesting is happening in Korea at the intersection of marrying foreigners and getting cosmetic surgery, and film is a good way to tell the story.

The above examples are just a few pulled out of a fascinating book. I’m all in favour of circulating widely to get experience of different social worlds, and Microtrends is a way of supporting that attitude with research breaking down trends around the globe into statistically significant social groups. If you’re at all interested in telling stories about the world we live in now, and the one that’s round the corner, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of this book.

Where the dynamic of art and society is concerned, I’m very much of the belief that art can have social value. Not that all art should seek to have social merit, but that it can absolutely be a valid part of the debates that society has with itself about issues affecting some or all of its members. Today’s Guardian features two stories where art and politics have intersected with interesting results…

Over in America, Indiana teacher Connie Heermann has been using the book The Freedom Writers Diary, filmed recently with Hilary Swank, to inspire a class of underperforming teenagers. The stories it contains are written by young people from the inner city, whose lives have been turned round partly as a result of their creativity. And, guess what, it contains some swearing. Despite getting the assent of 150 parents to using the book, one of the school’s board members objected to some of the more potty-mouthed content, with the result that Connie has been suspended from her job without pay for 18 months, and the book effectively banned from the school.

I was lucky enough to have had an English teacher with Connie’s vision. We were bored to tears by the first few pages of Stevenson’s The Master of Ballantrae, and responding to our agonies he went and got us Kes instead. It was a breath of fresh air, and reading something concerning the life of a boy our own age living in what was recognisably our own world was a liberation. I’m pretty sure there was a bit of swearing in there too, but thankfully the school board never intervened. That same teacher was passionate about the work of George Orwell, and it’s maybe because of that baptism in socially engaged prose by a committed and articulate advocate that I became fascinated by the interaction of the world and the writer.

It’s always interesting when an interest group claims to be unfairly represented by a work of fiction, and this week it’s the turn of that underprivileged bunch, barristers. Their bone of contention is the excellent series Criminal Justice, which unfortunately for them is written by one of their number, Peter Moffatt, who could be fairly said to know a thing or two about the horsetrading that goes on in the legal system.

Timothy Dutton, the head of the bar (which itself is an interesting choice of language to describe what is in effect a cartel for bewigged justice dispensers) claims that Criminal Justice in no way, shape or form resembles the way that yer actual barristers conduct yer actual law. And you’d like to think he’s right, what with the tactics used by the show’s barrister to stall, to persuade, and bamboozle its youthful protagonist.

Unfortunately, there’s a wealth of evidence to suggest that this portrait is in fact highly representative of what goes on in Britain’s legal system, and that Dutton is flipping his wig about someone with inside knowledge writing about it in a show that’s attracted respect in part for the authenticity of its detail. Funnily enough, there have been no complaints from jailbirds about the portrayal of the brutal anthropology of incarceration. Sure, as Moffatt acknowledges, he’s writing a piece of television drama that is enthralling and entertaining, but there’s no denying the research that’s gone into it.

Where these two stories are concerned, I’m hoping there’ll be more to come. It’d be lovely to think that public outrage could help Connie Heermann get her job back from the knuckle-draggers who took it from her. And I’m sure further elegantly worded asides will be exchanged between Peter Moffatt and his former lords and masters about Criminal Justice, which continues until the end of the week.

Asked by a follower what makes for good spiritual practice, one guru said ‘A hard job, and a lousy marriage’. The same thinking applies where writing is concerned: the only genre in which we enjoy someone else’s fun vicariously is pornography. In any other form of writing, readers are there to see the protagonist suffer in artful ways, and it’s the writer’s job to choreograph their miseries.

Now, that description may sound mean. But it also contains a lot of truth. People follow the adventures of characters that interest them, and want to experience them going through hell on their behalf. Somewhere behind this notion, perhaps, is the understanding that if someone else has a dreadful time and comes through it, then maybe you the audience can experience the payoff without having to go through hell personally.

And yes, there’s a strong religious streak to this, which explains why some very successful writers have religion in their lives. Jimmy McGovern is a classic, and look what he puts his characters through in the first episode of The Street. A man and woman living in the same road start having a casual affair behind the backs of their partners. The man knocks down the woman’s daughter in his car when he’s preoccupied by memories of their lovemaking. Now, that’s shitty enough, but where McGovern’s Catholicism takes this beyond the realms of The Jeremy Kyle Show is in what happens next. The man is let off in court for what happened as it was an accident, but the woman still wants to punish him. So she reveals first to her husband, then to her lover’s wife, that they were having an affair, so he can experience some form of suffering, one which brings in a notion of divine punishment for their adultery. Nice one Jimmy: I’d love to read The Catholic Herald’s review.

Not that guilt is confined to followers of Rome. Comics writer Brian Michael Bendis is Jewish, and describes his basic approach to plotting as putting the characters in the worst form of situation for them as individuals, and making it worse still. And with all the baddies in the Marvel Universe available to torment his heroes with, you can believe Bendis enjoys putting his protagonists through the wringer.

All very well, but what’s the point of all this suffering? Once again we’re back in the realm of spirituality: the function of torment is to help people learn. There’s a line in a Robert Fripp song that David Byrne sings: ‘Remain in Hell, without despair’, and that pretty much sums it up. However dismal this place is, we can learn to find something of value
outside us or within, that enables us to keep functioning.

So, suffering is about learning, and learning is about developing capacities that you lack. One particular take on it is to be found in the Tarot card The Tower. It looks pretty scary, showing two people being flung out the window of a tower that’s struck by lightning. Now to decode the image…

There’s a long tradition in dreams and art of buildings representing people, so a building being destroyed is to do with the destruction of a personality that’s been built up over the years. Pretty scary stuff to experience. But where that leaves those who’ve been flung out is with the opportunity to rebuild, this time choosing the building blocks of their life rather than just cementing in the ones that nature and nurture provide. It’s about beginning again, unshackled by the past, basically.

So, quality suffering enables its victims to make new choices in their life. Something we’d all want, to some degree or other. And which helps explain why we find the suffering of others so fascinating in our fiction. Not to mention, depending on the genre that the suffering is happening in, that it allows for the possibility of exciting car chases and giant gorillas. And who doesn’t love a big monkey?

Centuries ago, communities had a very different relationship with their local churches. Think about it. Any given church may have taken over a century to build at a point when that represented maybe three generations of people in the same family. Imagine that: your grandfather started work on a building that your father spent all his life constructing, and which you got to finish off. In our world of constant change, such continuity is unthinkable. Not only that, but this would have been at a time when you’d have been lucky to see what passes for a local town: the world was a smaller place.

And what happened in that church? It was a special building, and the only place you’d get to see something amazing: the effect of light coming through coloured glass, through windows depicting stories that a preacher said were integral to society, even though you couldn’t understand the language he told those stories in. But you knew those stories were about someone called Jesus, and that he died for the sins of humanity. And because he’d done that, he could offer mortals redemption for what they’d done too.

All of this would happen in a place where people were quiet except when it came to signing hymns and saying prayers. And that, and the stained glass, gave it an atmosphere unlike anywhere else you’d have known. It really was a special place.

At this point, some of you will be worrying that I’ve gone and got religion and will be changing the name of this blog to something less occult, but have no fear. This is all by way of articulating something about the experience of cinema that interests me.

The church is pretty much defunct as an influence on society. But we still want or need stories to live by, and the experience of redemption. And we can get it, again by going to a building that’s set apart from others, where people are quiet and stories are told by light playing through glass…

People go to the cinema for all kinds of reason. But if you think about the commonality of the stories they experience there, one connecting factor is that many of them are about redemption. One of the most popular films with the public is The Shawshank Redemption, and how many films feature redemptive character arcs for their protagonists? As viewers we can’t get enough of that stuff, and experience redemption vicariously by watching others go through it in their own fictional journeys. Only, the nervous system can’t detect the difference between fact and fiction, and - to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the artistry of the film in question, and the way it resonates with our own lives - we respond to what’s happening as if it was happening to us. Doesn’t even have to be a recognisable human for us to feel that empathy, as the success of Finding Nemo and Bambi indicates.

All of which puts the experience of making and watching films in a different light. Films offer the prospect of redemption in a secular society. Somewhere along the line, we all feel bad about stuff we’ve done, or stuff that’s been done to us, and want to be absolved for it. Churches frankly don’t cut the mustard with their limited repertoire of devices, which only appeal to believers. Leaving it to filmmakers to perform a function that was once seen in spiritual terms, and with our growth into a more complex society is viewed more as a function of psychology…even though to most of the people involved, as makers or audiences, what really matters is entertainment. Which kind of begs the question, what is it we want from our entertainment, and why is it that redemption features so heavily as an aspect of it?

For a talented singer, Amy Winehouse is a one-note character. At least as portrayed in the media, she’s caught in a loop of dodgy relationships, substance abuse, and abandoned concerts that keep her in the headlines. It’s sad, but above all it’s boring, to see someone go through the same stuff again and again without seemingly learning from it.

What Amy needs is a character arc, and today’s PR professionals are adept at spinning their clients’ stories in just that way. Only, what do you do with a problem like Amy? Some situations you can’t spin your way out of.

All this raises the question of whether character arcs are actually something we experience in life, or something we’d like to see, and that we lace into our fiction to give us hope that we too can change, and get the partner of our dreams, earn that promotion, lose that twenty pounds, or whatever it may be. And it’s not just fiction that we seek that kind of solace in. Trinny and Susannah are there to change our lives by dressing us differently, Paul McKenna will zap away your fear of flying, and any number of people will redecorate your home as long as you react with tears or horror to the result.

Film writing guru Robert McKee’s seminars are attended not just by writers, but people from advertising and marketing and journalism. For a few days, they’re pumped full of the lore on character arcs, and then go and roll it out into the pieces and campaigns that they’re involved in. Even products have lives of their own in today’s marketplace, the likes of KitKat developing brand extensions, limited edition spin-offs, and so on.

Interestingly, the changes that most people are interested in are prescribed for us. Boy to man, man to husband, husband to father, employed to self-employed. Those transitions are expected in the society we live in, and are the ones some people measure themselves by, the stuff of soap opera. Other transitions are frowned upon, especially when they encroach on social roles. Female to male. Straight to gay. Fascinating stories, that some writers handle with sensitivity and confidence, but still not tales that are likely to get a big audience, at least as long as we have the tabloid press trumpeting morality on our behalf and we continue, tacitly or explicitly, to support that stance.

But hey, isn’t this about writing? Yes. And writing is about people and the social worlds they inhabit and move between. Or, maybe, that they fail to move between. Not getting what you want is a story too, even if it’s one that Hollywood frowns upon. But with a little ingenuity, and juggling of the what a character wants vs what a character needs equation, even that can be turned into a tale of someone moving on, in the fashion that mainstream cinema approves and expects.

No one likes a loser, as Amy Winehouse has found out to her cost by association with the James Bond brand: she wrote a song for the next film that’s now apparently been turned down in favour of one by Leona Lewis, whose story arc of ordinary girl to pop siren is a lot less messy than Winehouse’s, featuring Simon Cowell and proposed duets with Whitney Houston rather than front page photos looking like a drowned rat on the way back from another court visit to see an addicted thug of a husband. Amy better had go to rehab - again - and I hope next time it sticks: she deserves a second act.

I popped out earlier, and passed the corner shop at the end of my street. Among the various cards in the window was one from someone wanting spare HRT patches. And it made me think: we’re living in a science fiction world now. Which begs the question: what do you do if you want to write science fiction in today’s world?

Science fiction was my genre of choice when I was growing up. I devoured Asimov, Heinlein, Silverberg from the local library, quite often reading three books at the same time. Later, I encountered Philip K Dick, and thinking about it, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see one of his stories kicking off with HRT patches being offered in a local shop window. Only, the ones in a Dick story would initially seem to transform people into aliens, before the realisation kicked in that they were actually keeping you human, and it was everyone else changing into something non-terrestrial.

An underground movement of people trying to stay human in a world populated by aliens posing as human: I’d read or watch that story, at least to discover how well executed it was. Coronation Street mixed with Alien Nation. Now there’s a pitch! Norris Cole putting up the cards in the window of the newsagent, a lizard’s tongue flicking out the corner of his mouth. Sally Webster, thinking it’s time of life that’s got her unsettled, when actually it’s aliens tampering with her DNA causing the upset. No wonder she gets stroppy with Kevin: and what will she do when she discovers he’s one of the saurians?

OK, forget the aliens: what else in our present world is evidence that we’re living in a science fiction world?

CCTV everywhere, fulfilling the promise of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta that we’re living in a police state.

Plastic surgery: men getting implants that feel like muscle to go where a sixpack would go if you had one.

The Dalai Lama: I was at a party last night where a good few of the guests had been to see him speak at an ice stadium where I saw Arcade Fire play last year. There were even merchandise stalls.

I was looking at a website earlier for an artist I got talking to in a cafe recently. She says her work in inspired by angels, and now she paints them and reproduces the pictures in different forms, all of which she’s making a decent living from. Bet your art teacher never mentioned that as an option when you were messing about with poster paints at school.

With all of this going on, it makes science fiction and satire two forms that become more difficult to write. We’re already living in a surrealist film: what can you write to draw peoples’ attention to that fact in useful ways?

Less than an hour ago I received an email from people associated with A Popular Evening Drama confirming that the sample script I’d written at their request was not going to be commissioned. Sigh. There were some positive noises made about the script I wrote, but bottom line is that’s the end of that particular adventure, at least for the foreseeable future.

So, what do I learn from that experience? Well, it confirms the difficulty of getting onto Britain’s top television dramas, which is no great surprise. I learned a lot planning and writing that script, and thoroughly enjoyed the process of doing so. The lessons I’ve learned about writing in a more linear fashion than I’m used to will be of real value in the future: having to stay with a story because that’s the way the show works, rather than cutting away to another plot as I’d often be inclined to do, stretched me in useful ways.

I’m also confident that I did a creditable job at writing some established characters, staying faithful to their personalities as previously portrayed and hopefully playing with them a little to show some of their less familiar aspects. And I can honestly say that I did the best possible job I could on the script, which is the most important thing. Of course, that raises an awkward question: if my best possible job wasn’t good enough, can I actually write to the standard required of shows such as A Popular Evening Drama?

Hmm. Yes, that really is an awkward question. And my gut answer is ‘Of course I can write for those shows, and more importantly write ones better still when I’m writing what I want instead of being constrained by someone else’s characters and format‘. Which then begs the question of how I get the opportunity to get those shows seen by anyone if I don’t first go through the hoops required to script existing programmes.

See how easy it is to get sidetracked into notions that can undermine your confidence? Fortunately I’ve been here before, and am robust enough to take it on the chin, drawing on feedback I’ve got from people who’ve read various scripts and commented favourably on them. Plus, damnit, I’ve been commissioned before and I’ll be commissioned again. Right now, a small and cool production company are asking me to write a feature, and another interesting outfit are waiting for a treatment for a tv drama from me…so all is not lost. And beyond those immediate prospects, there are two people wanting me to write features with them, and some animators asking me to develop a multi-platform concept.

So: the non-appearance of A Popular Evening Drama commission is a setback, but it doesn’t stop me in my tracks. At this point, I seriously doubt anything could: I’ve been in much much worse situations before now and come up smelling of roses, and that notion of rebound is hardwired now. I bounce back.

Plus, if I look at the statistics concerning this situation, I’m reassured. I know how many people were asked at the same time as I was to write sample scripts, and I know how many people are being brought onboard. Sorry to be vague there, but I don’t want to risk compromising confidentiality for anyone involved in the project.

So it goes. I’ve enjoyed and learned from watching A Popular Evening Drama these last few months, and will continue to do so. And, as ever, I’m waiting to hear back regarding another application which could do my career the world of good…or, maybe you’ll be reading another post like this one in a couple of months.

I had lunch with a writer friend today, and it turns out he’s increasingly seeing himself as a filmmaker rather than a screenwriter. He’s just completed a short course in direction, and he views his future career as one in which he will be the producer and perhaps director of his own scripts. It’s an absolutely valid route for some people, and I absolutely understand why he’s taken that decision - but is it for me?

A few years ago I filmed a pilot for a regional short film scheme, so I would have the bones of a showreel to present to the panel. It was something I learned a lot from. The piece was around 80 seconds long, an extract from the ten minute film I planned to make, and thinking it through from story to script to visual style to performances and sound was a fascinating experience.

Some aspects of making that sequence came to me more naturally than others. I was pretty good at getting the general look and feel of what I wanted in terms of still images, but found working with a camera that works in realtime and 3d space a stretch that I couldn’t cope with well at the time. Fortunately I was working with a seasoned cameraman who had directed several of his own pieces, and he was able to outline what choices I had available so I could make whichever one seemed suitable. I managed, but it was my least comfortable part of the process, and my lack of fluency with this part of what we did showed through in the finished piece.

Working with actors was a much more natural experience for me, not surprising since I’ve done it plenty of times before in a theatrical context. It helped that I’d got two talented and patient performers who I knew, and took my novice status into account. So, I was pretty happy with the performances we got.

Editing was the phase where I felt most at home. That surprised me, but I really took to it. This was my second time in an edit suite where I got to make the decisions, and I had learned valuable lessons from my first experience. Most importantly, for my approach at least, was the practice of editing in line with the soundtrack I’d chosen: the story was about the relationship between a father and daughter who connect through astronomy, and the audio backdrop came from NASA recordings of sunspots or other cosmic activities. Anyway, with the audio in place I found a rhythm to work to that suited the piece just fine, and overall it’s probably the audio and editing of that short sequence that I’m most proud of.

So, overall I found it a stressful but enjoyable experience that I liked a whole lot more when we took the raw material into the edit suite to shape it into something that, for the first time, I turned from a concept into a film, however short. And while I did enjoy that, I’m not convinced that I want to get that involved again with the mechanics of filmmaking.

More than anything, I’m someone who can come up with ideas and develop them into fully realised stories. I’ve spent many years learning how to do that, and I love doing it. Taking the next step to directing is not something I feel comfortable doing, if only because I’m not sure that I could realise my expectations in that regard. And yes, I recognise that as a self-fulfilling prophecy, but a bit of realism is no bad thing: if it’s taken me years to become happy with my ability to write a script, how long would it take for me to feel comfortable as a filmmaker? Why not instead pair up with people who are skilled in that regard and like my stories? I’m fortunate in that I know people who do have that opinion of my work, and it’d be churlish not to make the most of that situation.

That said, ‘filmmaker’ embraces the production as well as direction side of taking a concept from script to screen, and I can envisage myself getting involved in that aspect of the process for various reasons, since - to use an Old Labour analogy - it’s basically about taking control of the means of production, distribution and exchange, rather than assuming they’ll be passed on by wealthy benefactors. Maybe that aspect of what I do won’t happen for a while but, as the saying goes, watch this space…

It’s a Bank Holiday, and that can mean only one thing. Ray Harryhausen. Growing up, the association between flying carpets, animated skeletons and minotaurs was cemented by the Harryhausen films that would be shown on tv a few times a year.

Stories about Sinbad and crew have a deep resonance with me, tapping as they do into the many hours I spent reading about the mythologies of different cultures in my early years. My principal source was a set of brown bound encyclopedias with embossed covers that had been given to my father as a child, and even then they were second hand and out of date. So by the time they got to me, I was a good fifty years behind the curve, reading about the British Empire and its great engineering and exploration feats without irony.

Some things never go out of date though, and those books are where my love of mythology kicked off. There were different sections for Norse, Greek, and Roman myth, and maybe some other cultures were included too. It’s hard to be sure because once this interest in myth was cemented, I followed it up by getting books that rounded out my collection of tales from other times and places. Usually that took me to sensible sources such as Henry Treece’s anthologies for children, but I was also led to buy a Jorge Luis Borges collection of tales about imaginary beings, pretty whacked-out for an 8 year old, but still a book I relished.

Anyway, the Ray Harryhausen films - how many movies are associated indelibly with the name of the man who provided their special effects? - only confirmed my love of all things fantastic. Better yet, they’re still films that are thoroughly enjoyable to a modern eye: this isn’t like going back to Blake’s 7; these really were great and well-executed stories.

In turn, that depiction of legend led me back to the source material, in this case the Tales of One Thousand and One Nights, an anthology which I now have several editions of, and which for a while I was besotted with. I wrote a play consisting of nested stories that was my own take on those tales, and have fond memories of it being performed in a local community centre, complete with Middle Eastern buffet, DJ, singer, and lights, as well as three actors and two dancers. And I went on to adapt the central tale in that piece for a childrens’ story with an illustrator friend, only to discover that despite a noted editor loving my words and her pictures, they weren’t inclined to put the two together and publish the result. Hey ho. Another day…

One of my dream projects would be to write some new take on the Thousand and One Nights: the tales are rich, tell a lot about human nature, are full of magic, and sometimes very funny. It couldn’t, on the surface, be further away from my interest in social drama, another important strand of my writing, but I’m someone whose passions are pretty broad, and would like to spend some time on scripts related to all of them in the years ahead.