I was lucky enough to be interviewed by guitarist Matt Stevens, from the band The Fierce and the Dead for their YouTube channel. It premiered yesterday.
We discuss comics, screenwriting, and music and you also get an exclusive reveal of what my next comics project is. It’s a childhood dream come true! Give it a watch and make sure you listen to The Fierce and the Dead and Matt’s solo work, they are great and have been the backdrop to many a writing session.
Writing
2020 - the most unusual of years /
Back at the start of the year when Covid-19 was first mentioned we had no idea how surreal the rest of 2020 would be. Outside of the trials and tribulations of a global pandemic, it was a good chance to take stock, prioritise, and reflect. I grew a beard, got to know my neighbours, took some virtual singing lessons, and got fitter with the help of a personal trainer! It’s also been an important year on the writing front, as I used the time to write more and to focus on my overall goals. Here’s a little round-up of a very productive twelve months.
The Screen
I’ve taken some huge leaps forward in 2020, largely thanks to the two mentors I was assigned this year. Through BAFTA Cymru’s Share Scheme I’ve been working with BAFTA-nominated TV writer Robert Evans and via ScreenSkills Mentoring Program I’ve been coached by script development consultant Mar Vila Barcelo. They’ve both given excellent notes on the various projects I’m working on and helped me to rebuild my confidence as a writer along the way.
Mentors Robert Evans and Mar Vila Barcelo
Short film - Shortest Day
As always I like to keep myself busy and I do my best work when I’m spinning multiple plates. Short film Shortest Day, an idea from just before lockdown started, has come on leaps and bounds since working with both mentors. I’ve also made the decision to direct it myself and I’m currently working with a producer to help make that a reality. More on this project early in 2021 as things start to take more shape.
In tandem with this, I’ve worked up a TV pilot and after completing a number of versions it almost feels ready to take out into the world.
I’ve also been working on a Feature Film script with my longtime collaborator Steve Aryan and we’ve reached around the halfway point of our first draft. I’ll be working on the next few scenes in the coming weeks before handing it back to Steve.
Comics
The companion comic to Robert Reed’s Cursus 123 430 album that I worked on with Matt Rooke was completed this year and came out recently to a very positive reaction.
Dave Clifford and I have continued working on our supernatural Western series Seven Shades through this difficult year. Issue 1 of our second season is complete and Dave is currently painting Issue 2, our seventh issue overall. If you’d like to catch up before the second season is launched you can get our first four issues here and our over-sized season bridging story Hell’s Belles here.
Flux, which I co-write with Steve Aryan hit a bump in the road this year. We completed Issue 2 and were set to launch our Kickstarter in March, just as the pandemic struck. With so much uncertainty around things, including how to post out issues, we’ve had to put things on hold. We should regroup in 2021 to come up with a new plan, hopefully.
In better news, I am currently working on a project for a Licensed Property that sits squarely on my bucket list. I can’t say much yet, but my plot has been approved by the editor and one of my favourite artists is collaborating with me on the strip. I’ll be scripting it fully over the festive period and there will be more to follow on this early in 2021.
In amongst all the negativity, uncertainty, and sadness that this year has brought into our lives, I’m pleased to have been able to get so much done. With a bit of luck and a prevailing wind, there should be lots of exciting things happening in the coming year.
Writing and not writing /
I try to adhere to the ‘write something every day’ school of writing. Sometimes that’s driven by pure inspiration, sometimes by specific deadlines and on others by a ‘place your bum in the seat and get something done’ mentality. The last one has been a big part of my approach in 2020, for a variety of reasons including reading THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*** book by Mark Mason. I’m glad I read that just before all this kicked off, that’s for sure.
Before CV-19 had such a big influence on our lives, I’d actually been very productive. Too productive in fact to actually remember to keep things updated here. Revisiting a few comics projects paid dividends and I have three mini-series pitches in with one publisher and one in with another. Some of these are co-written by my longtime collaborator Stephen Aryan and I’m hoping to hear about them all soon. I also finally took my horror screenplay idea and worked it up from the initial one page synopsis into a full twenty page treatment and sent that off to a producer to look at. One week into March I was on a writing roll with lots more planned for the coming months too, and then things changed.
There’s nothing like a global pandemic to knock your muse off course and to make you unable to get your head into the right place to get things moving. Things became overwhelming very quickly and the bit of my brain that comes up with ideas went into shutdown almost overnight. It wasn’t just due to mental space, physical space played a part too. My home office, where I do most of my writing, has become my weekday 9-6 actual office which has made me less inclined to stay there in the evenings or to get in there before my working day starts. So my usual write every day writing routine ground to an abrupt halt.
Thankfully things loosened up for me last weekend and not beating myself up for not writing actually helped with that. Making use of housebound weekends now seems like a far better plan than trying to force something out Monday to Friday. Last Saturday I wrote the dialogue for the first half of the next issue of Seven Shades, that book is done Marvel style so having Dave Clifford’s pages in front of me was a gentle way to ease myself back into creative thinking. The second thing that I managed to do last weekend was a short script for the BBC Writer’s Room’s InterConnected opportunity.
““*New Opportunity* We want original scripts, 5-10 minutes in length whose 2-4 characters now find themselves in isolation, but connecting via video conferencing. 4 will be produced with professional actors & released on BBC platforms.” ”
I spent about a week thinking of ideas for a script, all of which just didn’t quite feel right and seemed either contrived, too obvious, or not really workable with the constraints of what was needed. In the end not thinking about it allowed my subconscious to work it’s magic and then forcing myself to sit and write it meant that I got it done before the pending deadline.
With over 6800 scripts submitted my chance of having mine produced is extremely slim, but I’m pleased with what I came up with and it was a cathartic process from a writing perspective and also as a personal way to say something about the crisis too. Re-energised I have a couple of other potential new things on the horizon, it’s very early days on both projects and they might come to nothing, but it’s good to have things to focus on during these uncertain times. It’s also ok, I keep telling myself, to not write today and maybe even this weekend at all, as it’s just as important to switch off occasionally as it is to try and keep getting things done.
Work very much in progress /
As September has crept around I thought it was a good time to take stock on some of the things that I’ve been working on in 2019. As ever the times when you have the least to share tend to be your busiest periods of writing, so there is quite a bit to update you on. The folder in this photo contains artwork from comic pitches my co-writer Steve Aryan and I have worked on over the past few years, so we’ve definitely been keeping ourselves and our artist collaborators busy.
And there are plenty of things going on outside of what’s in that folder too. Much of this year has been spent on developing completely new projects. Steve and I are in the early stages of development on a fantasy comic mini series idea and are also starting work on a TV series proposal for another concept. (Check out Steve’s award winning fantasy novels here)
Steve and I are a bit further along with a horror adventure comics mini-series, that’s all plotted out and we have an artist working on the initial pitch pages. I can’t say much more about that at the moment, but if you follow me on instagram you may be able to see a sneak peek as I occasionally post some work in progress there.
I’ve also been pitching quite a bit of non comics work that I’ve written solo. I’ve worked up a series treatment for a sci-fi audio drama series/narrative podcast and written the first two episodes, written a standalone straight up/non genre audio drama and also worked up a proposal for a horror screenplay too. I’m not sure where any of those ideas will go at the moment, but I’ll post here if they do go into development anywhere. Alongside this I’ve also been pitching comic series to some new contacts at a couple of publishers, including reworking some ideas that were already a little way along.
As well as all of these newer things, some of my longer established writing projects Seven Shades, Flux and Chalk are starting to gain traction and you’ll be hearing more about them in the coming months.
There is an over-sized one shot coming for supernatural western series Seven Shades, following on from the first four issues that series creator/artist Dave Clifford and I put out last year. Hell’s Belles is currently being lettered and a release date will be available soon from Deadstar Publishing (hopefully at Thought Bubble in November). And we are working on our next four issues for release in 2020 too.
Flux is a sci-fi book that I’ve co-written with Steve, with art by Maysam Barza, lettering by Sean Rinehart and logo design by Paul Nicholas. We have all four issues written and the art is currently taking shape on Issue 3. We’ll have more information on what we have planned for this series in the next few weeks and keep an eye out for the #FluxFriday hashtag on social media where we’ll be sharing things each week too.
Chalk is an urban fantasy series, which I’ve been working on with artist Diego Simone set in the city of Winchester in England, ten pages are fully completed with letters by Sean Rinehart. If you liked my work on The Interactives and how that book blended real world locations in Monmouth, Bristol and London with fantasy elements then I think you will really enjoy it. Comparisons to Rivers of London have already been made by one editor and I’m currently reworking the overall proposal and doing script rewrites. I’m hoping that in some shape of form you’ll be able to read it next year.
Not bad for the first eight months of the year as a part-time writer with a busy day job and there is more to come on the horizon too. I’ll try to update things here more frequently alongside social media as things progress.