Ag Scríobh – Writing

Well, well, well, three holes in the ground. Promised I would fill ye in on the other crazy stuff that has been happening. So…

The good people at Jam obviously didn’t learn their fucking lesson the first time because they hired me to write a few episodes of the second season of Roy for BBC. I have just handed in the final draft of me script for the first episode “Spot On.” It shoots in a few weeks I believe.  The outline for the second is under a coffee cup somewhere in a BBC office. I should get notes on Monday and then the fun and games begin. The notes I get are usually fine, I grumble for a minute or two about a cut scene or gag that I love. Then I realise I am a cocktard and just take the notes and make the script better. I have been really lucky in working with great script editors. I don’t take notes personally. You would go fucking spare if you did. All that matters in the end is that the story on screen rocks.

You do hear stories of ridiculous notes though. My favourite -  ‘Can “Witness Protection”  be written on the side of the van so people would know it is a witness protection van?’

And then of course there are notes about adding whatever is hot at the moment into the script. At the moment that seems to be good looking metrosexual vampires and zombies. Haven’t had any of those requests…yet.

It is the total opposite of writing music, which is an entirely selfish pursuit in that I write for myself only. If people like it then great, if not well that’s fine too. I cannot take notes on music from people unless I am jamming in a room with other musicians. THAT is fine. Anyone else usually gets “the stare” if they try and tell me what kind of music i should be writing. If they continue they get told to fuck themselves in no uncertain terms.

Writing for TV, I am just one part of a massive machine and you can’t be totally selfish. It is a massive collaboration. So any ego is best left at home in the freezer.

Writing is all about…well…writing. Watch movies, read books, and fucking write…a lot. You always need to have about 10 projects cooking at the same time. Because if you are very, very lucky, one of them might get picked up.

So at the beginning of 2010 I flew to London and was picked up by the very talented Jesse Cleverly. We spent a few days trudging through forests, drinking cardamon coffee and bashing out an idea for a teen Sci Fi/Fantasy show based in three different countries. We called it Keepers. I flew back to Dublin and we started work, Jesse in London and me wherever the fuck I was that week. By April we had a pilot script written and Jesse went to work pitching it around the world. To my amazement lots of companies and TV networks liked it. Finally in December, almost a year later, contracts were signed and away we went. It is now in development and it is all very exciting. Of course these things are notorious for falling off the rails along the way, but if all goes to plan we should start shooting late this year for a 2012 release. So right now I am putting in the hours at the keyboard, working out worlds and plots, fixing plot holes and answering those tough questions that headbutt you in the face as soon as you start to fill out story lines and arcs. I want it to be fucking great. I hope it will be fucking great.

As I said, you have to have lots of projects running at the same time to survive. The wastage rate is crazy. I know people who have been paid to write lots of screenplays and none have never been produced. So I am simultaneously working on another few ideas, which is not that hard as they are very exciting to me. Plus some of them are projects with my wife, which makes it very easy as she and I love the same nerdy Sci Fi dark horror stuff. Plus of course she is a very talented, experienced writer and is deadly at creating worlds.

Plus I am organising the album release, tour, video, website. Any time I do have off is spent surfing where all that matters is the wave and “Is that a shark or a dolphin?” And training MMA where all that matters is hit the other fucker first and don’t get choked out.

So it is, quite frankly, mental at the moment and it looks like the rest of this year will be the same. Life is stupidly, annoyingly, too fucking short and I am really happy to be this busy doing things I actually care about. Anything beats being a bouncer or selling shite door-to-door. Been there done that and burned it in me brain.

Okay well I should get back to it…if i can get enough done tonight I can sneak a few hours surfing in the morning.

Thanks for reading this. I hope you and all those you love are well.

Declan