I’m not a young man anymore. Of that there’s no doubt. My knees creak when I stand up and my back aches when I lie down. So over the years, I’ve learnt how to adjust my goals to suit my needs. Or ‘my limitations’ would be a better way of putting it. Anyway, I live alone (yes, I know, surely I must be beating the young chicks off with a big stick, being blessed with good looks like these!) The blue rinse Clooney (if, by Clooney, you’re taking about Eric Clooney from Hunt Road and not George from Tinsletown!)

Ego trip over….

But I have children (and grandchildren) who light up my life. Except, they’re all grown up now and the pressures of modern living see them call in once a month (if I’m lucky). So I spend a lot of time in my garden (it whiles away the hours) and it leaves me a lot of free time with which to think…

A son is a son ’til he gets him a wife,
But a daughter’s a daughter the whole of her life!

Never a truer word said in jest

Sometimes I see my old sparring partners, and it amuses me that their daughters all cook them a delicious Sunday roast dinner. Every week. Which makes me wish I’d just managed to add a third child to my tally. But then, I see the stress of “the boyfriend issue” and it makes me contented with the life that I’ve got

Almost….

So I pour my heart and soul into my properties. The books, scripts, treatments and songs I’ve been putting together for nearly forty years. And every now and again, someone comes along and says: “which one’s your favourite?” or “which one will sell?” Because that’s the bottom line, really. Which Intellectual Property has sufficient saleability in the mercenary world of the entertainment business these days. And it’s like choosing your favourite grandchild.

“How long’s a piece of string?” Or better still: “how big is your budget?”

Either way, there are so many imponderables it doesn’t bear thinking about.

I once had a script editor named Ruth Boswell (oh she was my favourite mentor, God rest her soul) and she used to swear at me in her impossibly cut-glass Home Counties accent “Oh, for f*ck’s sakes Stevie, just fkn WRITE!!!”

So I did.

Any genre, any style. Any platform, any format.

“An eclectic mix” she used to call it. “So varied and so true…”

I do miss my late mentor. She appreciated my reasons for burying myself in my craft.  And by God, she could conjure the very best from me.

Wonder what she’d make of this new world we’ve segued into. This world of KIK and Snapchat, Blogging and Downloads.  VOD, Netflix, Amazon and Google, with hits, and likes, and SEO fanbases, Instagram, keywords, Facey, aggregators and producers reps, new platforms in developing markets, projections and all manner of other stuff I know nothing about.

I guess it’s a business for the younger folk these days.  The energetic type. Not the dinosaur who still types his first draft on an old mechanical typewriter he stole off the Docks (can’t even buy a bloody ribbon for it nowadays)

“You need a hit, to get an agent. But you can’t get a hit without an agent lodging your work for you”

Catch 22 

My babies stay unloved and undeveloped…

…but my garden’s looking good right now 😉

Now then, how’s that Turkey doing in th’oven…?

©XMG

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