I’ve spent the last few months at the lathe. Honing, smoothing, cutting myself, wiping the blood off the creation… It’s been very interesting. 2012’s been a year of muscle, driven without a doubt by the rigour of Channel 4’s 4Screenwriting course, which I was fortunate enough to get a place on this year.
Every sinew of my writing ability has been broken apart on the treadmill – an experience far less traumatic than it sounds. The course gave me two drivers: to prove myself worthy of winning that place, and to learn as much as I could about completely new territory in just six months, through writing a pilot show with the support of my script editors. With the job, the 1 year-old and the tweenagers, the pressure was on – and I loved it.
What I submitted wasn’t quite “there” by June. I went away, read lots, practiced lots and tried out a new way of writing that might short-circuit my flaws. I did a complete rewrite that way and am massively happier with the results. (I could tell you, but your flaws ain’t my flaws, so there’s no obvious reason that would work for you!) That rewrite was itself driven by wanting it to be an amazing script; one that might hook an agent. (It did – the superb Julia Wyatt of Berlin Associates).
So I keep working at that, at some new ideas, have spent time with theatres like the Soho (who organised an excellent “get to know you/us” sesh for some writerly bods at the end of November) and – come January – am going to plunge into another writing exercise – a coll-laboratory* – but more on that as and when it happens. I might well seek your involvement, so we go interactive!
*collaboration in a ‘laboratory’. You may decide this pun’s so awful I need a colllobor-otomy…
Gill Kirk, scriptwriter 