Gondolas

Spoke to the fifty or so students. They were open mouthed, in rapt attention. Forest of hands went up when I asked for questions, storm of applause when I finished. Not really. But they seemed fairly interested as I took them through the process. Conference, Script Document, Scene Breakdown, First Draft, Second, Third, Edit, Edit, Edit. How your favourite scenes – the ones with lots of character and texture but not much in the way of story points – are the first to get cut, how to use communal sets, how to build to a tag, how to deal with an actor suddenly becoming unavailable. Two questions about how to get work experience on The Show. So that’s the next generation sorted. Also went off at a tangent about How I Became A Writer. Basically through writing a story called Journey to the Wreck aged 7. Finished up 12 or 13 pages long, which felt like War & Peace at the time. An experience shamelessly fictionalised in my second novel.

This was all in Bradford, where they are apparently knocking down the police station to build a lake. Presumably somewhere they’re bricking over a reservoir to build a police station. Bradford soon to become the Venice of the North, then. It’s a small step.