Reality Check 2017

A YEAR and a half ago, having got Close Call: Short and Bittersweet under my belt and deciding that becoming the next J K Rowling was a tad ambitious, my master plan was to develop my ‘brand’ and complete all the projects I had already started … while holding down two day jobs …

It still hasn’t quite gone according to plan. I have failed miserably at maintaining my blog and I still haven’t got any of my short stories published in a literary journal. As ever, the biggest barriers are time and resources, particularly a quiet place to work during down time from my day job – and perhaps too much emphasis on entering competitions to try and raise funds. Meanwhile, the passion project I started in 2013 is on the back burner, while I concentrate on more achievable goals …

On the bright side, I’ve had all the therapy I’ll ever need and never had to pay for it …

Moe recently, since my writing style leans towards the filmic anyway, I began to experiment with screenwriting. Now, since completing an introductory course at Edinburgh Uni, I am renting desk space one day a week in a film production office and have started a feature film and script versions of three of my short stories. I let each story ‘choose’ the medium it is most comfortable with – a story that has potential as both a book and a film is more appealing to me right now and I have a wee bank of stories in both formats.

My priorities then over the remainder of 2017 are:

• finish a novel I started a few years ago and secure an agent, with an eye on later developing it into a script
• finish my feature film script before October, so that I can get it to just the right industry professional at a writers retreat for which I have won a partial scholarship that I still can’t afford (bawling my eyes out). But since I do believe in miracles, you just never know …

Both projects offer me the best chance of success, with scope for some form of mentorship. Also:

• plug away at getting short story publication in a literary journal
• seek out an indie film-maker who might be interested in one of my short scripts
• maybe even resuscitate my blog.

And so ends my manifesto to myself …

July 2017