Well I got the hat and the boots, so bring it on.
Writing yesterdays post didn’t take me a lot of time. When there is (Pirate in this case) passion involved, words come easily and posts get long. Most of the time, when I read it back the next day, I feel I have written something completely ridiculous, and I feel the urge to remove it again. Weird enough those posts often get a lot of comments, so I guess I should stop worrying.
I know that my writing is a bit irregular lately but I promise to shape up soon. The first week at work has been exhausting and I had to take care of some important things in the evenings (watching Pirate movies) which explains the irregularyness (nice word, not sure Oxfords knows it though).
I got the results back from my medical and D(rugs) & A(lcohol) test, and the things they measured were OK. Luckily they didn’t measure the things going on in my mind. I got my white helmet, I have my eye hurting orange security vest and my black metal nosed lets-kick-some-ass boots. In other words: I am ready to walk around rails and trains Monday or Tuesday. I have checked the list of participants for the course: I am the only girl, and it seems like the rest of the class are real (big men with orange vests and tattoos) rail workers. It is going to be interesting to spent 2 days together with them.
Things at work are going fine, there is a lot of new stuff to learn. Today I worked on a shot list for several film shoots that need to be done soon. It’s basically describing what needs to be shot (with a camera – mind you), and from which angles (closeup, wide etc.). This kind of work, even for documentary style filming like this, is as close to film making work as you can get. It’s very useful for me to get used to this kind of work and it gives me some invaluable experience. And while I was worried up front about if I was capable of doing this kind of work, it felt very natural doing it. I am more and more convinced that I am floating in the right direction, and some pieces of the puzzle called life are falling into place.
Oh, and do you remember I was using half of my holiday week on writing an application for a screenwriting course? Well I do. And I didn’t count on getting in, remember.
The thing is. Nothing ever seems to go the normal way.
First: I had to send them a 2 page outline of a complete new story that I would like to write, a story for a (90 minute – cinema) feature film. I have had this story in my head since July 2005, it has nothing to do with TGITC but that film rebooted both my mind and my life. My story is a rom-com (hey) and I can’t tell you much about it, but rest assured that one of the two main characters is a man. Oh, you want to know more. Well he is a very handsome man, he is tall, he is funky, he is funny and lanky. Now remember: this is fiction and any resemblance between the character and persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
He isn’t dead though.
But – nobody had every read my story before so I was a bit nervous: what if they hated it, or just thought it was plain stupid.
So first the bad news: The course is cancelled because of a lack of strong applicants.
“Oh, fuck, wank, bugger, shitting arse head and hole.” is what he said, and it’s also quite close to what I thought when I heard that. 2 and a half days of blood sweat and tears I put into that bloody application.
But.
A part of the course was this:
Towards the end of the year, writer students are paired with a student from the script developer course for a Final Development Project. Over the final six months of the programme the developer and writer will work together through two drafts and three development meetings. This project is closely supervised and intended to be a useful and practical experience for both the developer and the writer. At the end of this, the tutors are going to read and judge it all.
Here is the positive angle:
If the course would have gone through, I would have been accepted. In other words my rom-com story wasn’t completely crap. That’s nice to know.
They have also asked me if I would like to participate in the “joining up with an upcoming script developer” part of the course (for free!). Their problem is of course that they now have a class of script developers without writers because the writing class is cancelled. So I can see that they need writers, but that they actually asked me to join in can mean 2 things: they are really desperate or my story is not as silly as I thought (and this is a quite well established script centre!). So I am sad and happy at the same time. Mostly happy I think.
I will use this weekend to send out some new applications to other schools because I still want to be in a class with other writers too, because where else can I go for a shoulder to cry on when I am stuck in my story or have to conquer writers blocks.
I guess this is a typical case of “To be continued”.
2 things ;) 1. Congratulations! You would have been accepted, hooray!!! 2. Erm… as to that rom-com… with that main actor, I know it will be great ;)))
Now that’s a blog post title.
> “They have also asked me if I would like to participate in the “joining up with an upcoming script developer” part of the course (for free!).”
Fantastic. Anything like that is great. No matter how desperate they are or aren’t, it’s an opportunity. Awesome. Hope the upcoming script developer has some interesting input.
@Jill : well let’s see how it goes. I love the story which is a good start, and I have a fairly good idea of how I want to write it.
@Paul: I am sure this title is going to make it one of the most popular posts on this website (not because of it’s content but because of the title). Another post I have written called “Sexy Boys” (about an Air concert) is extremely popular :)
And yes I also think it’s a great project to be a part of, so I am happy about it.
This is a wonderful opportunity – though the course is cancelled, you still get the writing experience. Glad you passed the D & A – am looking forward to hearing about the course. Please post pics of your new steel-toed boots!!
I’m so proud of you! :-)
Gosh. I would never have thought you’d be stomping about on the P-Way in boots. Best of luck with it. I worked on the railway for a few years and what slight rough edges there undoubtedly are are more than compensated for by the cameraderie and humour.
I hope you enjoy Betrayal. They did it in Lancaster last year and it was one of the best nights at the theatre I’ve had in a long time. I understood it, which was quite a bonus, as I was worried that i’d get untterly confused by the fact that it’s played backwards.
@Anne: Thanks, but let’s see what happens first. :-)
@Looby: I won’t be there that often I think, but as you probably know, no access without boots. And I gladly wear boots if that’s what it takes to go filming :-)
And I look very much forward to Betrayal!
Funny… I’m just reading a book by danish author Svend Aage Madsen: “Den ugudelige farce” (Sorry no translation). It’s about a guy who loses his unconsiousness from time to time, and finds that he writes much better when it happens. Also some references to other artist who allegedly performs better in that condition – maybe that is your situation too? BTW. my daughter (13 yrs) is in London now, is there anything special going on she should go for?
@Stig – that is not unthinkable. But you probably mean that he loses his consiousness? :-)
London for kids, good question. I assume that she will visit the London Eye, and probably the Science museum, which is both great for kids
There is a kids section on visit London:
http://kids.visitlondon.com/
That might help you.
@Ingrid: Nope, i meant exactly what i said/wrote! He loses his unconsiousness. Like “it was an unconscious act” – he did something without actively thinking about it. -Takes a twist of the brain… As the author argues, no one except his mechanic would accept it, “if there is something that guides your unconscius acts, it can break – just like a part of a car”. Don’t know if you read any of his books while living in DK, but they are quite interesting (and all set in Aarhus i think). If you’d like to read it (to catch up on your danish ;-) ) i can send you my copy. Thnx for the advise, they are home again and had a great trip.