Archives: Writing

There are two great articles I want to highlight today, from two Twitter/LSWF buddies of mine.

Daniel Martin Eckhart writes on his blog about what it takes to make it as a screenwriter, his biggest insight (and no doubt point of debate) being:

The two most essential elements for a screenwriters are discipline and stamina. Talent is a distant third.

Daniel Martin Eckhart, Write, write, write.

Lucy V Hay, of Bang2Write fame, then goes a little further in her post, which references Daniel’s, talking about the paradox of the lucky/unlucky writer:

You’ll get no argument from when if you’re of the belief it’s TOTALLY about hard work, first and foremost; I think it’s important to recognise our own success as a writer will come as a direct result of that. However, I also think it’s important to realise it *could* have worked out very differently, despite our best efforts.

Lucy V Hay, write here, write now

What do you think? What makes a writer successful? Luck, timing, talent, hard work? All of the above?

Just before Christmas, Seth Godin, über-leader of tribes and the man behind the seminal ideavirus revolution, created the website for a new publishing project aiming to launch in early 2011, in association with Amazon.

If you haven’t already, go subscribe to their newsletter and have a look around the site. The Domino Project is, in their own words ((and I emphasise the “their” in that sentence – it’s truly a collaborative effort)), “reinventing what it means to be a publisher”.

These are exciting times for global publishing; when someone with Seth’s ability, influence and forward-thinking partners up with such a global powerhouse as Amazon something exciting is likely to happen, whatever it may eventually be.

If you want to be a part of it, they’re also looking for a Domino Street Team across the world to help them roll out their plans throughout the next 6 months or so. You can read more about the role and the people they’re looking for here or head straight over to the application form and dive right in ((you’ve got until this Friday, 28th Jan 2011)); I already have.

The Domino Project is named after the domino effect—one powerful idea spreads down the line, pushing from person to person. The Project represents a fundamental shift in the way books (and digital media based on books) have always been published. Eventually consisting of a small cadre of stellar authors, this is a publishing house organized around a new distribution channel, one that wasn’t even a fantasy when most publishers began.

The Domino Project, thedominoproject.com

According to just about everyone ((or everyone in the media at least)) today (17th January) is the most miserable day of the year. Every year.

But why? And since when?

I’m sure the original assertion was based on hard data, but how hard can that data now be if we all know we’re supposed to be at our most miserable today?

If we’re told every year that 17th January is the most miserable day of the year, that makes 17th January make us feel miserable.

Telling people something as fact will make it just that, but we can tell ourselves differently.  Whatever you want to be – happy or sad, jubilant or miserable – just be it, because living it will make it so.

My most productive time of day is very early in the morning. I’m used to being up at 6.30am to take K to the station for her commute to London and I know I work best in those 2-3 hours immediately I get up.

I have another burst of focus around the 5-6pm mark, where I tend to push myself into completing things before calling it a night.

Finding these productivity peaks not only helps you be more productive, but is much less likely to allow you to become distracted by other things. Just remember to close down Twitter and Facebook while you’re trying to make the most of your peaks.

When is your productivity peak?

Ben Craig, a Scottish director who made his short film MODERN TIMES for a budget of tea and sandwiches, has been taking some heat on his Vimeo page for the definition of “no budget” given the very nice Sony EX3 he shot it on and the studio space he used for a flick that’s now gathering some major buzz from Hollywood agents and execs ((as per yesterday’s Hollywood Reporter blog piece here)).

The truth is that Craig shot the entire film using equipment and a studio borrowed from a photographer when it was free at the weekends. He then set about doing all the visual effects himself, learning the software as he went.

The bitterness of the commenters is hard to fathom ((although sadly all too common)). If we as filmmakers want to make the projects we’re passionate about, we need first to focus on building a contacts book of creative collaborators – a network of mutually beneficial relationships.

By asking first “What can I do for them,” before “What can they do for me,” we can not only start relationships on a positive footing, but also potentially open doors to exciting opportunities that will never come the way of those filmmakers who spend their time bemoaning the fact that they don’t have the resources that people like Ben Craig or Gareth Edwards ((the director of the similarly home-made (effects-wise) MONSTERS)) had.

Sometimes selflessness and generosity is the best way of being selfish and getting what you want. I guess that’s what they call Karma.

My body decides that 6.30am is a good wake up time this morning and, as the room is freezing and the wind is rattling the door, any chance I have of convincing myself to go back to sleep is thrown out of the window, so I get up, close the window over lest the same fate should befall the lovely K ((although that’s hardly likely as she sleeps like the dead once she’s nodded off)) and head downstairs.

I make myself a cup of tea with the penultimate tea-bag in the house ((naturally leaving the other for K the tea monster)) and sit down to catch up on emails, news and blogs from the last two days since I’ve been out of the office for most of them. I promptly let my tea go cold and debate whether to walk to the shops but a) it looks freezing outside and b) I’m digging too far into the news blogs to leave my laptop.

By late-morning I’m all caught up on everything I’ve missed and have worked my way through two scripts that were in my To Read pile. I fire off an email of feedback to the writer/director of one of them, but promise myself a second read of the other, since it’s being pitched to me as a possible new producing project and I think it needs a more careful evaluation. ((the first of the scripts is another project i’ve been producing that’s been slowly working through numerous drafts over the last few months)).

K eventually rouses herself and announces (shock of all shocks) that she actually had a good night’s sleep and feels rested and happy – not a common thing for K of a morning. She also informs me that we’re popping next door at 2 to give Wee C ((the neighbour’s 3-year-old)) his delayed Christmas present that various events colluded to prevent us handing over pre-Christmas (or even pre-New Year).

Back from that we take a stroll down the road and pick up some tea and milk, then K hits the sofa to dig into some statistics homework while I clean up the kitchen, including mopping the floor from Thursday’s jumping cider incident (it’s been a bit sticky since).

That done, I head upstairs and have a chill out in the bath, followed by some relaxation, then make a few phone calls that I needed to catch up on, including chasing up a commission that came my way yesterday.

Phone calls finished, I try (and fail) to wrap my head around K’s statistics stuff to see if I can be of any help, but drawing a blank on that I instead fall back on my dinner-cooking talents and rustle up some griddled pork and accompaniments.

After dinner, K hits the sofa again and I head up to the office to check messages and update the blog. When K’s brain has exhausted itself and her mind is a whirl of statistical mess we play a quick game of Bananagrams before heading to the movie room and throwing in the original BBC STATE OF PLAY series, which K’s never seen. I realise I’ve forgotten just how much I love this show as we get through two hour-long eps back-to-back and could quite easily have stayed up and got through all 6 in one straight marathon, but I’m keen for K to rest up before Uni starts on Monday, so I drag us both to bed for sleep.

The alarm wakes me at 8am, which is the latest I’ve been up all week (I figure I deserve it). I get out of bed, shower and rouse K so we can make our 9.35 train to London.

We get in to Town and K heads off to Angel to Uni, where she’s meeting her study group to polish up their joint project while I head down to Waterloo to meet up with HC, a filmmaker friend of mine. It’s good to finally see her as we live a life of constant “we must meet up” messages and rarely manage to find time that both of us are free to actually do it.

We pick each other’s brains about various work-related thing, as well as chatting about new projects we have on and our hopes and plans for 2011. The hour-and-change we spend in a lovely little South Bank café ((Earl Grey for her, green tea for me, both served in little bowls)) passes way too quickly before I’m back on a tube and headed North to Angel.

I meet K to accompany her to a meeting with her Uni that she’s organised to try to sort out arrangements for her placement this term, which goes very positively and we’re in and out inside half-an-hour.

K smuggles me in to the uni library using one of her study-mates passes and I stick my head into their room to say hello to the group and thank Sc for her card. They carry on working and I sit in the main library study area and battle (unsuccessfully) with the WiFi before giving up and settle into preparing a business plan for the new project I’m working on with CR that doesn’t require ‘net accesses.

While I’m working I get an email from a Twitter contact who was involved in Danny Lacey’s LOVE LIKE HERS offering me a Line/Co-Producer role on her new short. As it’s on my Blackberry, I can’t read the script, but I file it away to come back to later once I’ve got chance to access the ‘net and read it.

I also get an email from THE PRODUCTION OFFICE commissioning me for 12 new eps of THE LOWDOWN for them this year, which is a really nice boost. I’ve had great feedback in the past on the videos I’ve done for the show and it’s always flattering to be asked to come back and do it again. I accept without hesitation.

When K wraps up her study group, I pack up my things and we stroll back up to Angel and grab the tube to St Pancras, where we’ve just missed a train home. There’s one every half-hour, though, so it’s not the end of the world and we hit Foyles bookshop to kill some time, with me wading through the business section as a bit of market research.

We hop the train and ride some, K zoning out with tiredness while I read an eBook on her iPad for the first time. I’m impressed at how nice it is to read on it, as I’ve only used it for games and “useful” apps before. The workflow for reading PDFs is a little fiddly, but once they’re on there, it’s great.

We get home and swing by KFC for K and I whip myself up some chicken mayo sandwiches from the leftovers in the fridge ((K’s not a sandwiches kinda girl)). We watch some SIMPSONS while we eat, then head up to the movie room and the PS3 to stream the first ep of FAMOUS AND FEARLESS that we missed on Monday, which we jump through the key moments of before coming back down to tonight’s Sky+’d final. It’s such an odd show – potential to be very, very good, but the live studio format necessitates quite a lot of padding. That said, if it weren’t live it wouldn’t have the same edge to it, so it’s a bit of a conundrum for the producers. It’s great to see Chris Evans doing good TV again, though – I miss TFI FRIDAY.

It’s late once F&F is over (well done Charley Boorman) and we take ourselves off to bed where I read for all of 10 minutes before conking out.

The story goes that wherever he performed, Elvis insisted that his dressing room was placed 1000 yards from the stage.  As he walked those 1000 steps to get to his arena, he would slowly focus his mind and get into the head space he needed to perform to his best abilities.

Do you have your own 1000 steps? A routine or system that helps you get your head into gear?

For me, it’s making a hot drink ((green tea at the moment as I’m desperately trying to cut down on my caffeine intake)) and walking up the stairs to my home office. As soon as I close the office door and place the hot drink on the mat on my desk, my brain is in work mode and I’m focused on my To Do list for the day or the week.

Routines and systems are brilliant productivity aids, especially for freelancers working from home. They keep you focused on the task(s) in hand and keeping you from becoming distracted.

If you want to do more, achieve more and make the most of your day, find your own 1000 steps to performing your best.

New Year started, as most do, at midnight. K & I were down at the Black Bottom Club in Northampton for the second year running. This year was a little different, with a rocking indie band as opposed to the more chilled jazz band of last year. Different, but not worse.

After seeing in 2011 we eventually rolled back home after a detour to drop S&G off at theirs around 2.30am. I drove, which meant sobriety for me, but K was not so hampered by the restrictions of driving laws and just about managed the stairs to bed before crashing out.

Being in bed after 3am, I was pretty disappointed that my body decided to wake me at 10am. Granted, 10am is a pretty good lie in for me, but I felt like I could do with at least a couple more hours.

I get up, grab some brekkie and make some tea and sack out on the movie room sofa to explore the 007 game K picked up for me this week to go with the free PS3 she got on her new phone contract just before Christmas. I get one stage in (the pre-credit sequence) before her ladyship awakes and comes to join me.

I shut the PS3 off and come downstairs, making us both tea. We opt for a movie and flick through the Sky planner, eventually settling on SAVE THE TIGER, a Jack Lemmon flick from the 70’s that neither of us have seen or heard of. Turns out to be pretty good, but halfway through K’s not liking it and heads off to catch some more Zzz’s. I finish the flick while updating the blog and being sure to pimp it on Twitter before shutting down to head up for some kip myself.

I realise as I’m getting upstairs that I’m not actually tired enough to sleep, so I wonder what to do with myself. I to-and-fro up and down the stairs, make some coffee and a cuppa for the not-sleeping-either K and leave her to try out her new Mario 25th Anniversary edition game on the Wii.  I head upstairs to the movie room and throw on WAR OF THE WORLDS as background while I do some stuff online.

No sooner is it on, however, than I change my mind and decide it’s about time I sort the DVD collection out. It’s been randomly thrown on shelves since we moved in August and it drives me nuts having to hunt out the film I want to watch when I used to be able to grab it from my stack without a bother in the flat.

I empty the shelves and discover I’ve got enough DVDs to entirely cover the floor and I set about constructing a heavily-geeked up system of storage, based on genre, director and other random categories.

Around 4,30 I finish up the sort, although still with minor adjustments to be made, and jump into the shower before we head over to my ‘rents for a New Year’s dinner of roast lamb with all the trimmings. Awesome meal down, we chill with the ‘rents and play some Bananagrams ((an awesome game that both Mum and I bought for presents this Christmas, based on our deep love of playing a friend’s version)) before heading back to ours and getting in just after 9.

K retreats to bed, nursing a delayed hangover and over-eating-itis ((a sad curse of my Mum’s extraordinary cooking)), while I jump on the corner sofa downstairs, legs up, old episodes of ED from Sky+ playing the background while I download the NYE pics and write this, the very first ‘new’ post on the combined archive blog.

I note my paunch staring at me as a look down on the laptop screen and realise just how important my fitness goals for this year are. The belly will be banished.

Despite aiming for a 2 ep max, I end up on the sofa until nearly 1.30am at which point, 5 eps in to a mini-ED-a-thon, I close up shop and head upstairs.

Some of you may know ((and some of you may not)) that before olilewington.co.uk came SmileThroughIt.com, a blog that charted the progress of my life in the uncertain times leading up to my life-saving double-lung transplant in 2007.

The old blog was hosted over at WordPress.com (http://smilethroughit.wordpress.com) and served as a way for me to keep a little perspective on the things going on in my life.

Long story short, I’ve migrated all of the old SmileThroughIt archives onto the olilewington.co.uk servers so I have an easy-access archive of my entire blogging life. You can check out the old blog’s archives ((and the latest daily updates, starting this week)) right here.

I’ve just re-read my very first post on the blog and it makes for insightful–if scary–reading. Baring in mind the fact that we all know it ended happily, it’s odd to look back and see just what kind of head space I was in at the time.

Browse and enjoy at your leisure ((or don’t – it’s more an archive for me anyway!)). The updates on my professional and creative life will continue on this site, business as usual, so you can readily ignore everything on the other page if you so wish.

Happy New Year, one and all – here’s to a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011.