Blah blah blah

So, while I'm here, what have I been up to recently?

Well, writing productivity has been up and down. After putting the blog on hold at the end of August, I gave my feature-length Foot Soldiers script the attention it deserved. I've got to the end of a fourth draft which has gone just about as far as I can take it for now, so I'm going to pack that off to an interested agent as soon as I can print it out. 

Nuts and bolts

So, anyway. I spotted this the other day on the endlessly rewarding How to Be a Retronaut blog, and it struck something of a chord with me in terms of writing.

It's a gallery of the blueprints for the Eiffel Tower, and what it said to me was that even the most daunting and challenging project can be broken down into a finite number of individual components. They don't just appear overnight; they come together through a combination of creativity, engineering, craft and patience.

So if you're feeling daunted by the huge entirety of a screenplay, novel or any other creative endeavour, keep in mind the micro viewpoint as well as the macro 'big picture'. If you plan thoroughly, engineer the pieces precisely and put them together with care, you can end up with something astonishing.

[This blog post was brought to you by the Ministry of Laboured Metaphors]