UK Scriptwriter's Survival Handbook

For practical and proactive tips to make it as a writer, get the UK Scriptwriter's Survival Handbook, available on Kindle and paperback!

To visit my new site, follow the link.

Red Planet Prize 2013/2014

This is just a reminder to redirect to my new site really, especially in the wake of the news that the Red Planet Prize is back for 2013/2014. You can get the full details on my new blog and/or Red Planet's website (where you can submit your script).

This blog is kaput, still accessible for handy reference, but my new site is where it's at.

New site!

If you subscribe to the blog (thank you!) then you might have noticed that the latest blog updates have been coming to you via my shiny new website. This has been me testing the waters, slowly building the site prior to launch. Well, I think it's about ready, so you can head on over and check it out now!

This means that the blog is retiring from Blogspot and relocating to the new website. A few email subscribers were lost in the transfer (flagged up for spam and so on) so if you are a subscriber and haven't received any update in a while, then you may need to resubscribe over on the new site.

Anyways, service will continue as normal, not a major change of blog procedure, just a different site. This blog is going nowhere but will remain static, although the download/blog archive section on the new site is easier to navigate than here.

So, come on over, have a nose around and let me know what you think. Hope to see you over there, and thanks for all the support over the years on Blogger.

10 Writing Observations

(image found here)

Here are 10 quick writing observations, a mixture of my own experience and what fellow writers often tell me:

- Fridays are always very quiet for emails (just me?).

- the worse you think you're getting as a writer, you're actually getting better.

- those feelings of writing insecurity get bigger the more your career develops.

- achieving a reliable (and admirable) professional quality to your work is great but sometimes not enough; making a script read well is not always the same as telling a good story.

- sometimes commissions will go awry, despite best intentions from all concerned (writer, producer, script editor, etc).

- getting fired from a script sucks balls.

- rejection will always feel personal no matter how much you're told the opposite is true.

- rejection is rarely personal.

- having an online profile as a writer is essential. Everybody Googles, so be in control of what comes up in the search results.

- you don't need an online profile as a writer; just write. Google schmoogle.

How about you? Any interesting observations/quirks?

After School Club at Purbeck Film Festival

After School Club, a short film I directed, is screening tonight at Purbeck Film Festival, so I'll be popping down to the awesome Rex Cinema in Wareham to watch it, along with a line-up of other fab short films. If you're in the area, and never been to the Rex, then come on down, you're in for a treat.

After School Club is a comedy about two under-appreciated mums who escape to the woods and stage a playful stand-off to liven up their domestic lives. Written by Nell Denton. Produced by White Lantern Film. Here's the trailer!

Trailer: After School Club from Danny Stack on Vimeo.

Going Again: Creating and Developing Returnable Drama Series

My old screenwriting pal, Philip Palmer, is running a cool TV course at London Film School called Going Again: Creating and Developing Returnable Drama Series. The underlying idea of the course is to bring in established writers/showrunners to run masterclasses, and also work with the writers on practical exercises. For the writers doing the workshops, it’s about learning from the best, in this case Lucy Gannon, Ashley Pharaoh and Stephen Gallagher. A great bunch. And there’s a structured networking event in January which merges the writers from the course with the writers who’ve done the LFS’s other course on showrunners.

This isn't an entry level course. It's professional training workshops for writers with experience & ability who are trying to crack the glass wall that surrounds the industry. Philip himself will work with a pool of 8 writers max on developing their own series idea.

If this sounds like something up your street, then check out the link for further details and book your place. It starts on Weds 6th November, so not much more time left!

UK Scriptwriters Podcast: Recently Graduated?

Last month, Tim and I went on a Mediterranean cruise with a few film graduates (it was WORK! srsly), so while we were sipping cocktails at sunset after a hard day's shoot (all will be revealed soon), we had a chat about what it means to have a writing/film degree, what comes next and what you can do to get ahead now that you've graduated into the real world.

Don't forget you can download our UK Film Funding Guide for free or sling us a £1 donation to help us pay our bandwidth, thanks!

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