"You have a careers appointment booked"...

Why is it, most of the time, whenever people ask me what I want to do as a career, I say I don't know? I know perfectly well what I want to do as a career, and that is to write scripts and novels. But, nevertheless, I probably have many distant relatives, whom I have met at obscure family dos, that think I am clueless about the future!
So, the title of this post - I suppose I should explain it. Earlier this week I had a "careers appointment" at school. What's that? It's a large building where people under sixteen go to learn and earn qualifications, but that's not important right now.
Oh, what's a careers appointment? Basically, anyone in year ten/eleven in my school can have them (or it might just be year elevens) and you go to this meeting with the school's careers teacher/advisor (I'd better not use names, just in case!) and discuss career options. At some point in our school lives, students in my year had to fill out a form giving four career options we would consider, so that was used as a starting point in the meeting. Of course, on mine were author and script writer.
And so, I finally had a serious conversation with someone I don't know particularly well about what I want to do as a career. And yes, we looked at the negatives. The fact that screenwriting is very competitive and many writers only do it as a part time job, but we did look at how it would suit me and what it was like, covering positives and negatives. And, strangely, despite all the negatives, I feel far more confident about going into screenwriting than I did before. Maybe it's because for one of the first times, I've actually looked at it as a serious career, rather than just something I want to do. The negatives almost make it seem more possible!
So I think the meeting went well. I got some good script-related websites out of it as well, which I'm in the process of looking through. Found out that the standard script format is called "mastershot" format, which won't realy help, as I already knew what the format was, but at least I know another name for it now (I'd previously heard it referred to as just "the standard script format"). And, out of all this, as you can probably guess, I'm now in a writing mood!
I know I should work on my book more, because that is something I can publish and earn money from. And I can do that regardless of age. But all I can think about are the fan film scripts for me and my friends' Doctor Who series! Which is annoying, because I want to start episode 3, because I know how it's going to start, but I don't know what happens after the first scene! I'll have to think on it...
Also, in Who news, I've got the script for episode 2 down to 35 pages, which is a massive decrease! How did I do it? I... brought the font size down... no great editing feat there then!
Keep watching the blog for updates! If I ever get round to working on my novel again, then I will hopefully explain more about it on here.
Take care people!

The good, the bad and the Algarve

I have just returned from a holdiay in the Algarve, in Portugal! Which means I'm full of lots of new ideas and I've also lost a few old ones... actually, due to committing the dangerous act of thinking about something too much, I'm now an episode short on my Doctor Who fan series. Damn. The episode that's been lost would have been set on a train, in the old west and had lots of amazingly complex wibbly wobbly timey wimey... stuff. However, I finally convinced myself that there is no way we could film on a train. So now I need another episode. I have one or two ideas, but I'm still not sure...
Anyway, whilst on holiday I found, like everyone does, that there is actually a lot of time in the evening and some time in the morning where you can't go out or do anything and so you just end up watching TV. Which then annoys you, because you realise you could be doing this at home! So you try to kid yourself into thinking it's alright because you have different channels. Ha.
So. TV on holiday. In the evening, after a busy day doing the mad things people do on holidays and then going to a restaurant, so you're too tired to care about what you're watching. And that's why I ended up watching some of the chavvy teen soaps rubbish I never usually would - Wallaby Road (Hm? What's that? Waterloo? Yes, nice song, but now's not the time.). The funny thing is though - from a writer's point of view - there is some good stuff in that show! It was on a dodgy "BBC Entertainment" channel, so I don't know how old the episode was, but they had a school student, who you saw with drugs (I don't know whether his reason for having the drugs was revealed already - if so, then it's not quite as good as it could have been) and all the teachers were having a go at him, saying he was a druggy (a teacher accused him of "sniffing crack" - that was bad! No real teacher would do that!) and later you see him at home, with his mum, who's shaking and not in control of herself. It turns out the drugs were a medicine for her and he's a home carer. That is good drama! And he wouldn't admit to it because he was scared his mum would be taken away by a hospital, or social services, or something. That show might be largely codswallop (I love that word!) but that was incredible. I'd say the writer deserves an award if it wasn't for the rest of the garbage he or she had put into that episode. A boy in a prison school for dangerous driving, whilst his girlfriend keeps going to the police, trying to take the blame for him. ZzZzZzZzZzZzZz... Wouldn't really happen. No relationship is that strong when you're "14" (that actress was not 14!). And then the girl tries to prove it by crashing a van into a bin. HAHAHAHA! BORING! And, again, it would never really happen.
So there was a small glimmer of hope in Wallaby Road (would you stop saying Waterloo?!!! I'm not interested in ABBA right now!) but it was largely consumed by the average nonsense that appeals to the average teenager. But, that show wasn't the worst thing I'd seen. It got much worse...
2 Fast 2 Furious? More like the... you know, 2 *something insulting that rhymes with fast* 2 *something insulting that rhymes with furious*. What a total pile of codswallop! (I said I liked that word!) Dialogue that people would never use in real life, characters that wouldn't exist in real life, doing things you wouldn't get away with in real life in a film that is a gross mockery of real life. It's so childish! According to the vast knowledge of the internet, that film was a PG13 in the USA, which I suppose means 12A in the Queen's English. My brother is 11 and he got bored with that film. It's really aimed at young children that film. Even the over-the-top swearing. Little kids find that cool. By the time you've grown up a bit, you realise swearing is everywhere in modern films and TV, so it's not a big deal. And it becomes obvious they just put the ridiculously exaggerated swearing in to make it look cool to young kids. The problem is, no parent would let a 4 year old watch that film. In fact, no human being should let themself watch that film. A whole gang of muscle cars race down a main road, ducking and weaving in between lanes and other vehicles and not one police car shows up. Lines like "I've got a problem with authority!" really make you cringe. NOBODY SAYS THAT! And if they do, nobody replies "I've got that same problem!" Two main characters talking about the film's cliche girlfriend character. Guy 1: "Why are you checking her out?" Guy 2: "I'm not." Cut to: the two of them at a dinner table. Awkward pause, due to bad editing. They sit down. "Guy 1: "Yeah you were!" Guy 2: "Yeah, okay, I was."
I hate it when writers assume our conversations will randomly stop and then continue a considerable amount of time later, from the exact same point we left off, just so that the audience can convienently hear the whole conversation, whilst one scene can still neatly cut to the next. Also, nobody changes their mind that fast! "No I wasn't." "Yeah you were." "Yeah, okay, I was!" Nobody has ever been so easy to convince in the history of humanity!
So, that's that film destroyed forever. Apart from some dodgy TV, the Alrgarve was great! And I now have a notebook to write down all my ideas and plans for different writing projects.
GOOD NEWS: The script for episode 2 of my Doctor Who fan series has been started! By me, obviously. It's called "Sword And Sceptre"! I love that name because originally I was going to call it "Knightmare" (being a medieval episode) but that was a horrible, pun-ridden name!

AG :)

Finishing touches

I was looking through the DW episode 1 script again. No changes necessary, really. Just one short scene added in at the end to set up a story arc for the series. It was unlikely I was ever going to make changes anyway. I can't stand editing! And, as it's a fanfilm, we can make changes to it as we go along anyway.

Annoying thing about fan films: the storyline is always overlooked! People talk about the editing/cgi the most. There's always mention of acting and locations as well, but the only people who ever pick up on the storyline are other fanfilm makers!

Scripts update

Me and my friends are working on a fanmade Doctor Who series, as we are all big fans of the show and I was easily influenced (or inspired) by other people who had done the same. I love doing it though, because it means I get to write big mad sci-fi scripts.
Anyway, the important update, the script for episode 1 is complete! Woohoo! Now to abandon my plan to write all the scripts before we start filming and leave the episode 2 script until I actually want to write it! It's not that I don't want to now, but there's a difference between wanting to get something written and wanting to write it. Starting something new, whether it's a new script or novel, scene or chapter, is always the hardest part. It's easier to write something when you have something to continue directly from, rather than having to start a whole new piece.
Anyway, I should probably slow down on the posts. The blog's brand new and nobody's reading yet! Oh well, I'm sure they will soon...

And another thing...

No, not the latest Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy book, it's just the name of the post.

The mentality of having to want to write something does make English "Creative Writing" coursework annoying! I always go into coursework like that thinking "I'm going to be the best in the class at this! This is what I'm best at, I have to be the best!" But I never feel I've produced particularly great pieces of writing at the end. Yes, my grades are good, but that's because I'm one of the nerdy bunch and just include what I need to in order to get better marks, such as writing in a professional manner. But with schoolwork, I have to write something I don't really want to when I don't really want to.

Why don't I want to do it? It is writing fiction, shouldn't that be great? The problem is that because I have to do it I need an idea. Usually I need one within the ten minutes we're given to come up with one in classtime. I never want to write if I don't like the idea behind the piece of writing. And I never like the idea if I was forced to come up with it in ten minutes. The best ideas are ones that just come to me naturally. When I'm not trying to think of ideas. Of course, these are usually inspired by something. It is very rare (but not unheard of) that an idea just pops into my head. This can be incredibly annoying when I want to write something new! That's odd too: usually the idea comes first, followed by the need to write, but sometimes there's a need to write and later you'll have an idea that you can fit to it.

Of course, there are exceptions to everything I say. Sometimes I'll have a stimulus to stick to for a piece of writing and think "I can't wait to write this one!". Sometimes, usually when doing scripts, I'll try to think up an idea for a story and come up with something, because I have to, and find it is a rather good premise for a story. Another key thing about writing: despite what your English teacher says, there are NO set rules!

Oh, typical...

As soon as I start a blog about writing, I find it impossible to actually write something other than blog posts that only work when I've been writing! Or do they? I suppose I can talk about writing without having just done it. Actually, this raises one rather important point about writing anything: never do it when you don't feel like it! Some writers will think "I have to finish this by tonight" or whenever their deadline is and force themselves into writing. I find this usually creates a decline in the quality of my work. I have to really want to write and be in the right mood for it, otherwise I cannot produce as good a quality of writing as I usually would. You have to really want it and feel like doing it.

Sorry, that probably sounds really "arty-farty" (which should be a real word)!

Introduction to the blog

Hello there! Welcome to my world!

This is that really awkward and slightly cheesy post where I have to explain who I am without sounding too childish. Hopefully you're all familiar with this sort of introduction, so bear with me!

My name is Andrew Gladman, I'm 15 years old and starting my final year of secondary school. I'm also a keen writer. I spend most of my writing time on scripts for short films, but I'm also currently working on a novel for publication, which I can't give too much away about! Sorry! Occasionally I also write stories just for fun of it; however, I don't tend to do this because the other forms of writing I do are also for fun, even if they have the secondary purpose of being published or used for an amateur film.

In this blog, which has been inspired by Russel T. Davies' and Benjamin Cook's book "The Writer's Tale" I want to talk about the process and joy of writing. I doubt I'm the first to do a blog like this and hopefully I won't be the last!

One final thing: I'm not a chav and this is not a chavvy blog: if I make any spelling mistakes please correct me! If you can comment on Blogger blog posts. I haven't used this much before...