Sunday 30 March 2008

Write On

OK a naff title. But it gives me the chance to use my favourite insult. Naff. It's an age thing.

So I got my head down and did some serious writing. OK re-writing. OK in a couple of cases rip into tiny pieces and stitch together again. Lucy made sure I used the machette judiciously.

Today I'll be sending out shorts to BSSC, Supershorts and Page. Then on to longer stuff.

I've a sitcom that has sat there for 18months. Time to dig it out and give it a critical read. I suspect I will keep the underlying idea and the plan for each episode but bin the rest. If you hear any piteous screeches it will be me, horrified by on the nose dialogue, direction to actors, and a multitude of other crimes I committed back then.

Hopefully it will be redeamable enough for the BBC Comedy College. I'm not sure if I have time to write something from scratch.

I hope to also get an idea in for C4 Coming Up. But only if an idea grabs me.

All this means I need to keep writing hard. Hence I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front and expect it will be a weekly entry next week too. I am reading you all though. After all I need a sanity check.

Oh and Robin did a link to this for a checklist on how to keep that writing going.

Keep your pencils sharp.

5 comments:

Colin McBride said...

Hi Rach. Yes, it's a busy time of year for all this stuff, isn't it? I've done Supershorts, got something to put in for BSSC and also an idea for Coming Up. I don't really have anything for the Comedy Academy - I don't really do out-and-out comedy and prefer to hide slightly behind the skirts of drama, which I don't think is what they're looking for.

Rachael Howard said...

Hi Colin. It's the Coming Up one I'm struggling with.

BBC says they want narrative comedy and I went on the site to see what that means this week.

Have a look at commissioning.

It seems they want more studio based stuff and the drama/comedy bits are getting more muddied so why not give it a go?

Colin McBride said...

Thanks for the link. Yes, maybe I will, actually. They can only laugh it to derision (which is maybe what's required). Comedy is a much harder thing to do than drama though, isn't it? I kind of like stuff that comes out of the narrative anyway, like Pulling and Ideal - they're both funny and poignant at the same time.

Rachael Howard said...

I've found forcing comedy doesn't work. I have to just let my characters run with it.

And it always ends up bitter-sweet which I'm OK with because that's what I like to watch.

Oh and I've now printed off my Coming Up entry to post tomorrow. Good luck with it.

Colin McBride said...

Good luck with Coming Up, Rach.