Gill Kirk, writer

Category: writing

  • My under-nourished child: writing

    I’m writing again. After a year of office work fee-earning, a lot of high heels and suits, mind-shredding guilt and doubt, 800 commuting hours and a host of very unexpected experiences, I’m writing. Again. And of course, a bit of writing stuff happened in the last year – one stageplay rewrite, a couple of 1-page TV…

  • Catch & Kill the Clock-Eaters? Or live now, write later?

    I’ve never before seen the clock as a tyrant the way I do (ironic pause) now. In February, I binned the full-time office contract- great for funds, appalling for my just-4 year-old. My extraordinarily understanding client got out her net, dragged me from the slough of despond and offered me fewer hours. The results are…

  • Leslie Crowther & The Red Pen of Time

    I’m catching up on the quantum script after moving house.  As you’d expect, I had put the annotated script “somewhere really safe”…. far too safe, it turns out. Almost four months later, it was still “lost but obviously not lost”. Panic was forbidden. It was just not lost. Right? The irony of this is not lost,…

  • Magic Beans & The Myth of Artistic Poverty

    Poverty paralyses art. It doesn’t inspire. It murders. For twenty months, while my life was fat with “material” (running away from domestic abuse with a freshly-two year-old), it was thin on cash. As the months went by, the rent went up, the flexible hours vanished and the hope of ever getting a mortgage and stable…

  • A bad writer…

    Before you leap in, protesting, writing letters to the Queen, setting up Change.org petitions, I’ll say I don’t mean I’m a bad writer….just an appalling blog writer. Phew. The country heaved a sigh and put down its quills. On the 1001 excuses list, the top one is I’ve been writing. Loads. All of it (fanfare)…

  • A quantum of an update

    Just a very quick cheat of a posting: click here for the first update for supporters of the quantum play. News on our support from Old Vic New Voices Lab, how we beat the fundraising target by 25%, a piece in Arts Professional on what not to do and the skinny on this month’s big…

  • Does this make me a Marxist?

    Busy, good times. Last week saw the London VAULT Festival outing of Passion, thanks to  Allie Butler and Helen Cuinn at tidycarnage. I’ve also been working up the notorious ten-page treatment (and other stuff) required for ifeatures and proposals for Screen Yorkshire’s Triangle. And we’re moving towards the development day for the all-consuming quantum mechanics…

  • And as if by magic, the story structure appeared

    There are a million books on story structure, especially in the screenwriting world. You can leap from Joseph Campbell, through Christophers Vogler & Booker, to Robert Key, Syd Field, Viki King, Blake Snyder and most recently, the excellent Into The Woods by John Yorke (if you want a reading list, I refer you to the…

  • 12 hours

    I’ve just had an astonishing 12 hours. Overnight, the talentbacker campaign for script development for the quantum script (see previous post) hit and then exceeded its target with 6 days still to go. It’s not like running a race, cheered on by friends. It’s like asking them to run for you, while you keep yelling…

  • To fund or not to fund? A Q&A on QM with actor Annette Chown

    To fund or not to fund? A Q&A on QM with actor Annette Chown The thoughtful and thought-provoking Bristol actor Annette Chown has a bit of a thing about quantum mechanics. Which is lucky for me. Annette has very generously given over a blog posting to a Q&A with me about my quantum mechanics script…

  • Raising cash with Upsy-Daisy & the Quantum Suicide Rifle

    I made a film! I’m relentlessly asking people for MONEY! And it’s all about that terrier of a play on quantum mechanics (what? you missed me talking about it? Let me help you out: The heartbeat of an onion, Developing this oniony play – in pictures, and Gnash, gobble, splat: the sounds of a new script hitting the genre wall)…

  • DIY is never DIY! Funding the ink to jump onto the stage…

    I’m fundraising. Applications, grants, trusts and now some crowd funding (watch this space..) through the lovely people at www.talentbacker.com. Of course, it’s never DIY when it comes to money. Or any part of getting art out there. In this case, talentbacker are going to help me get lots of people to donate dosh. That will…