Weekly Roundup Vol. 9
Redrafts, Art, Ghosts and Kindness
Welcome to this roundup! I feel thanks is once again owed to my loyal subscribers - your support means the world to me! Now, onto a downer; I’ve been ill this week. It hasn’t been a total loss, though. In fact, staying in has of course led to more writing time!
Screenplay Competitions
The first half of this week was dedicated to a new draft of the TV pilot screenplay I’m most proud of, the one that I wrote on my course at MetFilm school earlier this year. With feedback from my peers and two tutors, this was the eighth draft. I hope this refinement - a few paragraphs chopped there, a tweak to a scene here - will give me the best chance in the competitions I’ve entered. The screenplay is somewhat based on the self-published series I’ll be talking about next week in My Writing Journey posts, just with any Minecraft elements removed…
The first port of call for this new draft was the BBC Writers Open Call. This’ll be the third time I’ve entered - and third time’s the charm right? Every winter the BBC opens up their submissions to find new writers to develop - it’s not a competition in the traditional sense. If you want to learn more I’ll link it here.
Thousand Films is also accepting script submissions at the moment, looking for pilot screenplays from unrepped writers to be developed. So, I entered that perfect competition. If any of you readers have a screenplay to go, now’s the time!
London Experiences
I was feeling well enough on Friday to go to two special experiences with my family. The first was the Monet Immersive Experience. I think I’ve visited Monet’s gardens and home at Giverny three times, the latest of which was last year. While the sets could’ve been more faithful, it was still special to walk around (and a lot quieter than the actual gardens).
The experience itself was amazing. We sat in a large room with images projected on the four walls, a central pillar of cloth, and the floor. I saw some paintings I hadn’t before, and some of the combinations of music, moving paintings and lights were transportive and transportative! (Maybe?)
After some more exploring we headed to Waterstone Piccadilly, which I had no idea was the largest bookshop in Europe but now can confirm - it’s big! We went there as they had a display for the BBC show Ghosts which we all love - plus there was a signing with the cast/writers for the launch of their new book. It was great to see the costumes and props form the show, and get a picture on that little set.
While I didn’t get a ticket as I thought I’d be meeting them at MCM Comic Con (cough, cough - that’s not my illness, that’s me casting aspersions at that event’s organisers), we still got to see the cast (or at least, five of the six) as they jollily marched in and started signing. One of the cast, Matthew, even waved at us!
The staff at Waterstones were very nice too, but the real thank you has to go to the random stranger who we met before the signing who offered to give me their spare signed book (as they’d already met four of the six at MCM, cough, cough). They even got it personalised.
So that was a great turn of events, reminding me of the kindness of strangers, and the fact that if you show up, good things can happen.
(Other) Writing Update
As for my crystal short story, it’s well into Roman London. I’ve collated all the notes and references photos from last week’s visit to last week's visit to the Mithraeum, from visits to the British Museum and from various books I’ve read. I’ll be writing more of that later today!
This week’s books
This segment showcases the new additions to my research and fiction collections. We have the aforementioned Ghosts book, and a guidebook from Rome (from our local charity shop) which will come very much in handy later on in the story I’m currently writing.
Plus
was kind enough to give out codes for a free audiobook in his latest post, for his YA Spider-verse novel. It’s definitely high on my TBLT list. (To Be Listened To? Is that a thing?)
I think there’s still codes left if you comment on the post I’ve linked below. And while you’re there, subscribe to Alex’s newsletter for creative insights, updates and essays on a range of topics in each post! He recently was featured on Substack for his essay on ‘new; Beatles song.
Thanks for reading! Let me know how your week went, if you feel like it.
Cheers,
Harvey