writing

Writing in General

mike — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:20:32 +0000

Several months ago, I came up with the wonderful idea of writing a short story every couple of weeks to post on this here site. I then of course came up with the idea for Out of Office (or untitled web series, as it was known then) and the plans flew out of the window. I am still learning about my abilities (or lack thereof) when it comes to writing, but it does seem that I need a bit of space to be able to come up with new ideas to work on.

Out of Office: The Five Day Shoot

mike — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:46:32 +0000

Last week was the big block of filming that we had scheduled for Out of Office. We shot three episodes in the five days, so we now have four episodes in the can. The next big step will of course be the editing, which may take a little bit of time. But I am still hoping that we can have something ready by the end of January. The experience of the shoot was fantastic. We had a brilliant bunch of people working on the set, and (of course) a fab cast.

Out Of Office: The First Couple of Days

mike — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:23:36 +0000

This weekend was the first part of the shoot for Out Of Office, the webseries that I wrote and am co-producing. We are using my friend John's flat for the set, and he very helpfully volunteered to go away this weekend, so we had the place to ourselves to sort everything out. On Friday, the crew descended to start dressing the set; blacking out the windows, rigging the lights, moving the minimal set around and and working out the practicalities of filming. Unfortunately, Tom's armchair had not fitted into Beth's car, so we decided to head back to mine to see if we could fit mine instead.

Life in the Middle Lane

mike — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:41:23 +0100

Postings have become slightly more sparse on the ground of late, which I would like to attribute to being massively busy and simply having no time. And whilst it's true that I have become busier, it would most certainly be a stretch to say that I've been so busy I've had no time. That said, we now have a full cast for the webseries project (now officially titled "Out of Office" - website coming soon-ish), and we are building toward full production.

Slacking

mike — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:07:50 +0100

Ok, so last Friday, I should have had a new short story up on the site, and I still don't really have one to put up. Part of the reason for this is that I have primarily been working on the webseries, but it's fair to say I could probably have found the time to spread my efforts suficiently to write something as well. I have a piece I wrote a while ago that I am toying with sticking up just to keep the rhythm going. I like almost all of it, and as an exercise in descriptive writing I think it's very successful. But I am still not completely happy with the opening.

Catchup of the week

mike — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:39:30 +0100

Just thought I'd write a quick catch up on the last week or so ... I have finished the first series of the webseries. It has a working title of "Out of Office", which I veer from really liking to a real sense of indifference. Never outright hatred, but I would like to come up with something better. More importantly, I am fairly happy with the series, and am very excited about the next steps - completing casting, read thru, edits to the script, and then shooting! The writing process has been an interesting one.

Productivity Ahoy

mike — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:43:32 +0100

As may, or may not, have been evident in the last few weeks, my writing has been going very well of late. I've really started to feel that I have turned a corner in my productivity and focus. Building from concentrating on my larger scale projects (feature films with working titles of ForeNight, Is This Really Love, and Boy Meets Killer), I've gradually narrowed my focus onto ForeNight, which is an idea I had a good few years ago and has been on the backburner ever since.

Website update

mike — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:43:49 +0100

Today, I woke up in the mood to sort out my website. So that is what I have done. Much of the change will be completely invisible to you, as it has mainly been about updating the backend software to a more recent version - I am now running drupal 5.10, instead of the antiquated (and probably insecure) 4.7.2.

Enough about everyone else, what about me?!

mike — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:44:31 +0100

So lots of posts of linkage lately, but not so much about me ... so this will be one of those nice and self-indulgent updates, where I shall cover the gamut of exciting things that have been occuring in my life of late. The Saturday just gone marked the third Saturday night in a row with a serious sesssion of Rock Band going on. I've got seriously into the singing, really throwing myself into it. I'm not sure I am necessarily all that good, but I've been getting respectable scores on some songs, and frankly it's so much fun it's well worth it. Sarah is probably the best singer we've had on it overall I reckon, although Dan and Jo were the big surprise at my birthday party!

Thirty One Today

mike — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:48:46 +0100

After my earlier post, don't really have the time for a long and self-indulgent post about where I am in life (hooray!), so just wanted to post a brief comment marking the passing of another year. Life is a lot less structured and fixed than it was this time last year, and I am very much mid-experiment with the changes I am going through. Fortunately I have an awesomely supportive girlfriend, family and friends, so thanks to all of you who have been there and continue to be there as I fret and stress about my writing. I have got a couple of things to post up on here, that I'll hopefully sort out in the next week or two. I've been delaying because I need to upgrade the software running the site, and wanted to do that first. But anyway, there will be some evidence of my work soon ... honest! ;-)