Fictional Skies

It's not easy embarking on any ambition but screenwriting offers the newcomer a new level of difficult. Today the aspiring markets are more flooded than ever and so competition is fierce. Anyone can write by sitting down to write but not everyone can write well. Even less are willing to put the time in to improve and do their homework. Then there's the art of selling it; and yourself. As well as facing numerous rejections and disappointments that are commonplace in the creative industries. It's a long journey that requires more than discipline, passion and resilience to survive. The Art of Dreaming To constantly dream of an ambition and desirable state of being will get us nowhere. In the beginning, this is all we had once the dream was discovered . And so, compelled and obsessed as we were we turned up to write and dream. We put in years of creative efforts in order excite, thrill, feel and escape. To role play in fictional worlds. Then we come of cre...

I'm not going to talk about the present or future James Moran and his two feature films up for release this year. No - it's about that new writer on the scene and prolific blogger, and curse word user, who had just sold his first spec script we know as 'Severance' back in 2005. James has been blogging in his writing journal for around 9 years now. This tempted me to travel back in time and see what he was like in the beginning . Although, it's not the actual beginning from when he first started writing, but from when he won the Sci-Fi Channel's Sci-Fi Shorts Competition, got his ten-minute script entry made, and got an agent. I flicked through a few more early entries from 2003 - 2005 which are interesting and quite fascinating, as he talks about the umpteenth draft of Severance, then named P45, which was becoming quite a nuisance. But what interested me and thought I would pinch and share are some great and insightful words from 2005.  So I will unless ...

For the last two weeks I've had a welcomed break from writing. Specifically, script and development work. At first, I wasn't sure how it would go but soon realised it was what I needed. It's said that you should write everyday in some capacity and we should. However, I have learnt that every once in a while it's nice to step back and have a short time out. For me, the greatest pressure in my life are the expectations I place on myself. This isn't ideal. It pays to know when you're being unreasonable but it's also healthy to push yourself at times. Like anything, it's about balance. Only now am I realising the importance on easing up and taking breaks. A valid reason to take a short break is to catch up on the things that have been piling up while you've been focused on writing. Like a cluttered space things soon stack up and can pollute your mind. It's a great way to refresh, de-clutter and recharge the batteries. During the sho...