Monthly Archive for December, 2009

The Christmas Message

Published on December 24, 2009 in Rambling. 0 Comments

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Happy Christmas

Unlike seemingly everybody else in the country, Christmas has snuck up on me rather quickly and even with the snow and all it’s very difficult to get into the swing of things this year. I have some deadlines next month and I’m working away furiously at them. To that end I’m not really relaxing, because relaxing makes me feel guilty for not working and I’m not really drinking on the off chance that when I come home from the pub at four in the morning I’ll sit down and do some more writing. Sound silly? It is.

But I refuse to complain any longer as actually I’m having a great december- I met a few of my heroes last week which was absoultely lovely and, even though I don’t have any free time, I really ENJOY my job. So in reality I think I’m rather lucky.

So for the five people that read this, I hope you all have a great Christmas and enjoy your lives. Wooh.

I still write comics

Published on December 6, 2009 in Comics. 0 Comments
The Fourth Doctor

An old Tom Baker doodle.

Having carefully made sure I wasn’t breaking any secret non-disclosing rules I am happy to announce some news (which is a welcome relief from my previous two introspective blog posts)!

I am writing comics again; notably the strip for next year’s Doctor Who Annual, as well as a couple for the very popular and wonderful children’s magazine Doctor Who Adventures.

It’s an absolutely great feeling, after several years of self publishing, to finally discover that there are editors out there who think I can write comics, and not only that but to make even a small contribution to the very long legacy of Doctor Who strips is a real honour.

I remember finding the Sixth Doctor graphic novel Voyager in my local library as a young boy and being completely obsessed with the surreal and dark universe inside, before moving on to see such luminaries as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons cutting their teeth in collected strips from Doctor Who weekly. Those books were exactly the gateway drug I needed to go from being a fan of Doctor Who to a fan of comics. The next month I picked up Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and it was all over for me.

The Soundtrack

Published on December 1, 2009 in Rambling. 0 Comments
Three Buildings

three o'clock

After a very epic and tiring birthday weekend it’s been a proper struggle to get back into the the writing zone, mostly due to the complete averageness of the weather at the moment- there’s nothing inspiring about dull grey mundanity. I’ve been trying to write more in the day to try and sort out my body clock, so to combat the daylight distractions I’ve been listening to a lot of music. All my work tends to have a couple of songs as the soundtrack (going back as far as my GCSE art days when Daft Punk’s Discovery permeated my dreams), they work as a short cut to get back into the appropriate tone for whatever it is that I’m working on.

The only problem with musical soundtracks is that you end up wanting to incorporate them into your work, and unless you’re working on a big TV script (which I’m not) with a lot of money for soundtrack clearances (which would mean you’re writing for Skins) then it’s impossible, and it ends up being frustrating that you’re unable to convey the emotion of the soundtrack to your writing in the writing itself.

There is an easy solution though, and that’s not to tell people that you were ever listening to anything in the first place, and keep that extra layer of depth that comes with the music to yourself. That way no one will be any the wiser.

So bearing that in mind, here’s what I’m listening to right now: