Friday, July 03, 2009

Horror

Waiting for Storylines. Should be working on a short story, or the radio play idea I'm going to submit soon, or the novel, but I'm not. Difficult to focus on that sort of thing when Storylines are looming.

I was in London for a couple of days this week. Lunch with my agent at Tate Britain. Saw a bit of Rothko and Turner side by side, which was fascinating. 'That man obviously learnt a lot from me,' Rothko said. Also saw 'Classified' with Hirst and the Chapman brothers, and others whose names I don't know, which was surprisingly coherent and engaging and generally good. surprisingly because I'm very sceptical about all that stuff. I enjoyed the room full of metronomes, and the big cabinet containing artefacts (old plastic bottles etc) found on the Bankside dig.

And then my agent told me TV drama had never been in such an awful state. As in, no one's commissioning. Or if they are, only from very established names. Nothing new there I suppose, but it did all sound a bit apocalyptic. He recommended low budget films, so that's what I'm thinking about now. Maybe genre. Low budget British horror. That's a fun area to explore.

And then a party at an astoundingly posh house in Holland Park, which I was taken to by the person I was staying with in London. William Boyd was there. Did I talk to him? No. Would have liked to, because I enjoyed Any Human Heart very much, and have read him on and off ever since The Ice-Cream War, but I didn't because he was surrounded by people, and I'm sort of rubbish like that. It was all in aid of an excellent charity called Room to Read. Google it - it's great.

Time to check if Storylines have arrived ...