Hokay - that's the archives temporarily recovered. I'll worry about the layout and design of them later.

Some good news; my editor, Peter Lavery, down at Pan MacMillan, has swung me a hardback release for Stealing Light. Now I know he likes it. Mm, hardback.

Now the whole palaver with the screenplay is over, I can worry about finishing the edits on SL - maybe a hundred pages to go, despite a major systems crash last week that lost me three or four days worth of edits.

Things have finally started to get a little quieter the past couple of days after more weeks of fairly intense activity. We did the pitch for funding for the short movie on Monday morning, and I'm not sure it went startlingly well. We were actually previously given a workshop on how to pitch, at which the person speaking told us (and here I vaguely paraphrase from memory),that 'she knew nothing about pitching, and didn't feel qualified to discuss it, so wasn't going to.'

Despite which, she proceeded to tell us how to pitch, regardless. I figured she was winging it - I'll take a guess whoever was meant to be doing the workshop hadn't turned up, and she drew the short straw - so I didn't feel wildly reassured.

The whole concept of a pitch still doesn't entirely make sense to me. I spent more than a week trying to figure out, what do you say? Why do you say it? And even with extensive notes provided by Kolin Ferguson from the GFT screenwriting group, I still didn't understand it - unless you assumed the people to whom you were pitching knew nothing about your movie. Yet we'd supplied copies of the script, visual reference sheets, detailed breakdowns of cost, summaries, synopses and character analyses in triplicate prior to the pitch, and so I sat there, on Monday morning, thinking ... what the hell else do you want me to say that I haven't already said?

We struggled through, but it did seem a very odd state of affairs ... there were questions we thought might be asked, which we weren't, in the end. Typical questions might be:

Q: Why set this in Scotland?
A: Because if we don't, you might not give us the money.

Q: Why film this as a ten minute movie?
A: Because if it's a fifteen minute movie, you won't give us the money.

Q: Why do you want to make this film?
A: Why would I not want to make this film?

Etcetera.

Fact is, the moment you open your mouth and say 'I've written a short drama about a girl escaping from a near-future religious community where the lives of the inhabitants are controlled by semi-autonomous two-foot tall robots disguised as soft toys' there's a part of you which believes - and not necessarily without justification - that whomever you're saying it to mentally and automatically imposes a pair of plastic Spock ears onto your head and a complete back catalogue DVD of Blake's Seven into your hand. When it comes down to it, the person to whom you're pitching is either going to be on your side on some level - through shared tastes - or they're not.

On the other hand, I ran into Morag McKinnon, a TV director with several series under her belt, while wandering around the West End. And what do you know, she loves her science fiction; particularly Dick and, what do you know, Heinlein. We ended up chatting about the weird, contradictory relationship the two men had with each other, despite their apparently radically opposed outlooks. So there you go.

The Queen IV: Mission to 'Nam

I've been watching the TV trailers for the Helen Mirren movie 'The Queen' - not exactly high on my viewing priorities, being a long-term anti-royalist (my views perhaps best expressed by various Sex Pistols songs), but the voice-over guy on the trailers has that gravelly, Hollywood voice you so often hear over action movies: 'Helen. Mirren. IS. The Queen."

Except in my head the next thing I hear is a shotgun being cocked with that classic 'click-clack sound, and the same voice continuing: 'And. She's Mad. As Hell."

Now that movie I would pay to see.

Oh. Great. Now the freaking archives have disappeared from my blog page. One more thing to have to fix.

So last night I wound up at the Centre of Contemporary Arts in town with H/al and Guitar Andy for the open-to-all launch for the Ballads of the Book cd, which puts together local bands with local writers. H/al in particular wrote the lyrics for a song by a band called Aerogramme. I'm aware of Aerogramme, though I hadn't really heard anything beyond the song H/al wrote with them. They were pleasingly ... hairy. In fact, there was one brief moment where I thought, 'why are The Magic Numbers here, and why are they talking to H/al?'

One of them muttered something about playing Xanadu in a Rush cover band, and my estimation of them went up immediately.

I'm back in the CCA later this afternoon, for a workshop on directing actors, another in the series of workshops provided gratis to members of the GMAC Talent Pool. Apparently it's intended to be 'interactive', which fills me with dread. I'm just a writer, can't I just ... sit in the back and take notes?

I'm struggling to do three things simultaneously right now: finish the edits on Stealing Light - two-thirds of the way there, and jumping onto it at every spare moment - trying to get some kind of day job sorted out - and also attempting to put together a complete pitch package for 'Personal Jesus'. So far myself and the director Shona (from STV) have:

• Taken pictures of Phil Raines dressed as a televangelist

• Contacted shitloads of producers in the hopes they're interested in helping us

• Contacted shitloads of actors in the hopes they're interested in helping us

• Hunted down possible locations for the shoot, if, if, if they give us the money (an old military barracks just outside of town, all Nissen huts, is looking favourable)

• Talked to a puppeteer who worked for ... Jim Henson, or something

• And a whole bunch of other stuff my fragile little mind is completely blanking on at the moment

And all this, for a cheap ten minute flick, shot on video and transferred to 35mm, that we don't even know we're going to get to make. Eh.

Things not quiet now. I've been insanely busy the past week, so busy I spent most of a party at Chris's on Saturday night slouched on a sofa with a stunned expression wondering why my body refused to obey simple orders like: go to kitchen, talk to people, eat free food. Mostly my body stared with a confused expression at anyone passing by who appeared to be attempting to engage me in conversation.

Mostly it's been the run-up to pitching the short film. For the moment, it's called 'Personal Jesus'. I've been thinking of another title, 'Machines of Loving Grace', given it's about a near-future community where the lives of children are ruled by semi-autonomous, sixteen-inch tall robots disguised as cuddly Jesus Christ soft toys, although it is the name of a band. On the other hand, it's also a line from a Richard Brautigan poem, so I'm still thinking about it.

I've met with the director pretty much every evening this week for some purpose or other, often meeting up with other people like Emily, the script development person, and Karen at the Glasgow Media Access Centre to explain exactly how the hell we think we're going to pull off knee-high robots on a budget of no more, probably, than eight grand.

But there are ways. And in fact, the robots might be the simplest part of the whole equation. The script - all two thousand words of it - has been through at least four drafts in the past six weeks. The latest is an ultra-el-cheapo version, aimed primarily at convincing a commission board we have a financially feasible project.

All this, and absolutely no guarantee we'll even get beyond the next stage. In the meantime, I've been taking advantage of various free workshops available to everyone invited into the GMAC talent pool, including a couple of direction workshops. Even if we don't get to make the movie, the amount I've learned about what you can or can't do, or what's feasible, is invaluable.

One of the best pieces of advice I've heard is this: find your location first, then write your story around it. There's another direction workshop next Saturday, I'm going to try and go to: this one is about dealing with actors.

Not surprisingly, I've not had much time to work on the Stealing Light edits. I'm still about halfway through the edits anyway, and I'm praying things loosen up the next week I can get back to them. And on top of that, I've got to come up with some outlines for possible sequels. Busy, busy, busy.

Things are quiet. At the moment, I spend a lot of time fighting fairly intense cabin-fever, and still looking for some kind of regular day work. There's the writing, but when it comes down to it I'm one of those people who needs fairly constant external stimulation in order to keep from running down - and that external stimulation usually comes in the form of part-time work. It gets me out of the house, talking to people, and making some extra money. I've applied for a couple of dozen jobs in the past month alone, but no success so far.

But, at the very least, I can get out in the evenings. This is a relatively quiet week, however, the first since the start of the year. Prior to this I've been out pretty constantly since post-Christmas with friends, and that's helped me at least retain my sanity a little bit. To this end I'm thinking about doing a little voluntary work of some kind, simply to get me out of the freaking house for a day or two a week.

In terms of actual writing, things are at least going pretty well. I'm halfway through my editor's edits on Stealing Light, and Tor/Pan MacMillan are generally making exceptionally positive noises concerning the book. This bodes well.

Then there's the ten-minute movie script, currently still caught in its own special form of development hell. It's been through another three drafts since it was first submitted to GMAC, and I think it's improved. The real problem facing myself, Shona (director) and to a certain extent Emily (development), is the cost of the project.

The script is set in a remote Scottish religious community. I've described it as a farmhouse surrounded by caravans, and beyond that a wire fence with surveillance cameras. There are other considerations, but as far as outside shooting goes, that's about it. It's only a ten minute movie, but in that space we have to show a lot.

Until now, it's only been a question of developing the script. But once that part has been done, myself, the director and a producer (assuming we can find one) are going to have to pitch this whole thing - again - to the people with the money, and if we can't prove we can make this movie for the available funds, then our chances of getting any funds at all are pretty much screwed.

Part of the problem is my own unfamiliarity with what it takes to make a movie. Because the idea is science fiction, this of course brings its own wealth of problems in terms of costs of shooting, and if anything trips us up, it's almost certainly going to be this. Other people will be filming scripts set in living rooms, suburban streets, or whatever. But we need ... an isolated community, robots, surveillance gear, you name it.

Next time, I write a story set in someone's living room.

So This Is Development Hell

The script ('Personal Jesus') continues to be redrafted, closer and closer to something that can be pitched in order to get the necessary finances. Between now and the initial meeting at the CCA, I've had several meetings with the director, with the development officer, with both of them, going over the story and refining it and getting it closer and closer to something like a shooting script (as opposed to something which merely describes the story with added dialogue).

It's a lot of work for something that might not happen, but it's better not to think that way. It might well happen, it might well not. Part of me wonders if it's better not to detail all the to-ing and fro-ing in case it does all fall flat on its face, but, eh.

A new review, this time from a German online site. Not too shabby, though given the aforementioned link is run through a translation engine, perhaps also unintentionally amusing.

A week or so ago, I made it along to a spoken-word performance night put together by one or two of the GSFWC-ers, under the name 'Word Dogs'. Some of the performances were excellent. Gavin Inglis was great, having come all the way over from Edinburgh to perform 'Fall of the House of Fraser'. I wish the guy would hurry up and get a video of one of his performances up on YouTube or similar so you could see how good he is, although perhaps some of the more 'Scottish' humour might be lost on our overseas brethren.

I'm Ready For My Close Up, Mr DeMille

Saturday before last I went up to Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) in the centre of town and sat in a room with about forty other people who had also gained entry to something called the GMAC Talent Pool. GMAC is the Glasgow Media Access Centre, whose purpose is to 'bridge the gap between the local community and screen industry'.

So there I was with about forty people I've never met before, all of whom are involved in or interested in film making on some level. And let me tell you, the range was impressive: producers and directors who'd worked for the BBC, or the Discovery Channel, or had worked on a range of movies including the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films, along with several other writers in a position not unlike my own. The idea is by getting all these people together into a room - people who might otherwise never get to meet - Things Could Happen. Open, brazen networking might even take place.

Out of these forty or so people, about a dozen projects will be put together consisting of, I think, a director, a writer, possibly a producer, with a development officer negotiating between them all. Out of these dozen projects, five or six short movies will end up being commissioned, to be eventually transferred to 35mm for showing at film festivals as well as receiving some level of potential, perhaps limited syndication in the national cinema chains (or so I understand it). In other words, it's a kind of shortlist. I've got a short script in the running called 'Personal Jesus'.

Towards all this, we get various workshops on stuff like scriptwriting, direction, etc etc, thrown in - free. The whole process should take a couple of months. First there's getting a project together, then there's the commissioning, and then, if you're lucky enough to get far enough as getting the moolah to direct the damn thing, there's directing the film.

I talked about my script until I was hoarse. Same for the rest of them. I got maybe half a dozen email addresses, and a rapid enquiry of interest from a local director who's previously worked in documentary.

The one thing that really frightens me is figuring out how to visually create some of the ideas I've come up with on the script without actually hiring Industrial Light and Magic. The money available for each commissioned film is somewhere between five and fifteen grand, which is terrific if you're filming in someone's living room or street, but ... well, put it this way: there are robots in my script. Little knee high robots that look like soft toys. And a remote religious community, somewhere up in the North of Scotland, all with a vaguely 'Children of Men' atmosphere. And all kinds of stuff I'm (er, we're) going to have to think of a way to do really, really cheaply.

I spent part of Sunday afternoon wandering around Toys R'Us wondering if there was a way to rip the plastic carapace off one of those RoboSapiens toys and stuffing it inside something that looks like a two foot tall cuddly mannequin.

One of the things that interests me about all this, is that the script that got me this far is only about two and a half thousand words long. That's nothing, if you've written a novel. That's like some writers shopping lists. But those few pages of script have taken me to some interesting places.

Early days yet: but we'll see.

If, by any chance, you have emailed me anytime over the past few months and failed to receive an answer, feel free to resend: until yesterday, my domain was set up to redirect all messages to a single hotmail account which, I have come to suspect, may have been bouncing a lot of mail. I've now set up my main email address (the one on the left hand bar of this blog) to redirect to both a hotmail and a gmail account as well; so if your message doesn't get through to one, it should definitely get through to the other. Cheers.

I got a letter through several days ago telling me the short script I'd submitted to the Glasgow Media Access Centre's Cineworks project got to the next stage. I'm still not sure what it entirely entails, but as I understand it GMAC can fund short films, presumably on a government development grant of some nature. I've been told to expect a letter in the next few days, and then to be at a meeting taking place at Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts shortly thereafter. Again, I'm not sure what this will exactly entail, or even if the initial letter means I might (hopefully) see a short film of Personal Jesus being made.

Since I'm still new to a lot of this kind of thing, I make no assumptions; as far as I understand it, GMAC's primary focus is as a kind of networking facility for local film-makers, both professional and amateur, a way for budding or actual directors, actors, writers and so forth to meet and share ideas. In the meantime, I decided to bite the bullet and submit the script to the monthly screenwriting workshop I've been attending since the beginning of the summer.

While browsing the screenwriting workshop's website, I tripped across details of what very much appears to be an ongoing production of a science fiction movie set in Glasgow. There are some filmed sequences which appear well acted and at the very least to offer great potential; the story outline is perhaps deliberately sketchy. You can find it at www.thesimulation.co.uk, along with a great deal by the way of production notes and blogs. They also maintain a presence on MySpace.