Published Stuff, Schedules and Works in Progress…

This is my line-up of works that have recently been published or that I am working on for release in 2011…

Bernice Summerfield: Present Danger – Past Caring
BIG FINISH

First up we have the Benny short story penned for the Eddie Robson-edited anthology of the space archaeologist’s adventures. It’s a bit timey-wimey and came out on the last day of September.

Doctor Who Adventures: The Lunar Tyk
BBC MAGAZINES

This will be hitting the shelves of all good newsagents later this week p on the 4^th November to be precise. It’s set on the moon and features Atmospheric Density Jackets from the Doctor’s 1967 Cyber-adventure, The Moonbase!  This commission comes from Paul Lang at DWA with (hopefully) more of this type of thing to come!

Bernice Summerfield: Dead Man’s Switch
BIG FINISH PRODUCTIONS

Written with my good mate and talented scribe, John Dorney, this brings the 11^th season of Benny to a conclusion that will hopefully leave people reeling (in a good way)! The story sees a decrepit man, a sardonic robot, “x-treme” planet jumping and a love of family. Oh, and, um, nothing…

The Big Finish Companion – Volume I
BIG FINISH

After many months of blood, sweat, toil and tears, this huge tome of facts and data will get the launch it deserves in Los Angeles along with its own Gallifrey 21 panel comprising me and Jason Haigh-Ellery. Very excited about this!

Doctor Who: The Underwater War
BBC BOOKS

Having just been allowed to announce this, I am over the moon about this commission. It’s for a new range of books aimed at the 8- 12 year-old readership. It has submarines and fish people in it. Along with the Doctor, Amy and Rory, of course. Squeee.

Audio Short Trips: A Star is Born
BIG FINISH PRODUCTIONS

My short story for the First Doctor read by the inimitable William Russell. This will see release in either February, May or August.

Stargate SG1: Duplicity
BIG FINISH PRODUCTIONS

I am a massive fan of Stargate (in all its iterations – although maybe not so much of “Infinity”…). This one has been a long time coming, but the script was recently Okayed by MGM. Paul Spragg is putting the finishing touches to the studio/actor booking which will finally make this dream a reality.

Various
TO BE CONFIRMED

I am working on two as-yet unannounced jobs based in the Doctor Who world. One, I am fairly sure will be released in June but the other is anyone’s guess at the moment.

Alongside these commissioned works, there is my original novel, Dreamstorm which – after some rewrites by me – I will be entrusting to Julian, my agent, to sell to the highest bidder! And I am also close to making two further projects concrete and that is without even mentioning the Big Finish Companion – Volume II!

The Year of Making it Happen – Part1: Plans

I thought I might pen a few words about the other bits of a writer’s life other than the writing bit. For when a writer isn’t writing he or she needs to be thinking about how to get the next writing job. In the past I haven’t been as good at this as I might have been but during this. “The Year of Making it Happen” ™, I have been improving. How?

Well, it’s all about communication, which you’d be forgiven for thinking is a forte of the writer. Or rather, it’s about the organisation of communication because, let’s face it, most writers *are* good at communication. It’s all about timescales and forward planning and that can become a bit of a haze when you are knee deep in a script or up to your armpits in prose.

Any commission – hell, almost *every* commission – takes an age to garner, wheedle and cajole your way into. It then takes an age to tweak, red-, re-submit and hear back about. This is because everyone is busy and everyone is commissioning months if not years in advance. Then you actually have to write the commission.

Ideally, what should be happening is that during the writing of commission A you should already have commissions B-D lined up. You should also be making noises – and hearing encouraging things back – about potential commissions E-G. I know some writers who expand those three commissions by a great deal but they may be a tad more in demand at the moment than I am. Sigh. One day, Dinnick, one day…

For example, at the beginning of the year my good friend John Dorney was asked to pitch for the Bernice Summerfield audio range. At the time he was also writing a Companion Chronicle and kindly asked me if I would like to help him out due to time constraints. This is a rare occurrence in writing as most people prefer to keep commissions to themselves even if they have said “yes” to waaay too many things and are struggling! John, though, is a pro. And he trusted me not to screw it up. I think. Anyway, we were commissioned on 25^th January 2010.

The same day I received an email from Jim Swallow asking me if I’d like to be involved with the next season of Stargate audios. Being the massive fan I am of that series, I jumped at the chance and agreed to attend a writer’s meeting in early February.

So, suddenly I had one and half scripts to write. Then, on 11^th February,  Xanna Eve Chown emailed me and ask if I could pitch some ideas for Big Finish’s new range of Audio Short Trips.

Before all this, I should say that I have been on at Big Finish to write Inside Story 2, a follow up to Benjamin Cook’s brilliant warts ‘n’ all book about the production of the first 50 Doctor Who plays Big Finish undertook. There had been a bit of a false start in 2009, but I had arranged to discuss stuff with Nick and Jason in LA! As you do.

The Gallifrey One convention in LA was a turning point for me. I am so glad that Tony Lee convinced me that it would be good thing to go and very grateful to the marvellous Shaun Lyon for inviting me! I had a wonderful time partly because of the bonds I forged there with Nick Briggs and the contacts I made with other wonderful and varied people – fans and professionals alike. It was a road to Damascus moment!

So while I was there, I got talking to Jason about IS2 and it transpired that he wasn’t keen to do such a full and frank book this time around. If you re-read the book you can see why. Half of it is probably actionable! So what they wanted was an episode guide. I suggested the title “The Big Finish Companion” and the rest was history – although I am still putting it together now because it turned out to be a more mammoth undertaking than any one of us had realised. It has been put back and rather ironically and totally fantastically it will be launched at next year’s Gallifrey One event in Los Angeles, where it was born, really!

I also made good contacts in the world of comics and graphic novels out there and used them mercilessly to garner some form of understand of how strips were blocked. Matthew Dow Smith and Paul J. Salamoff were extremely generous in their time and in sending me some scripts to look at. Tony Lee, once more, stepped in to give me a 101 lesson on it all and I am hoping that I’ll have something to say on the comics front very soon!

This takes us to the beginning of March. So the first quarter went like that! A bit of writing and a lot of emailing, meeting and traveling. Tony (yes, OK, he’s my guru) says that getting a commission form someone is like borrowing money: you are far more likely to lend money to someone you know, like and trust than a complete stranger even if you have heard they are good for it!

June, July, Oblivion

I have a busy few weeks coming up. A number of projects are nearing fruition and some others need developing while yet more have to be coaxed from the ground. Busy is good, though. So says my agent, Julian. It means I am “in demand” and that makes other potential commissioning bods want to commission you. So not only are you only as good as the last thing you wrote, you’re likelihood of a new commission is more-or-less commensurate to the number of current projects you have on the go. With that in mind and not suspecting that any commissioning bods will be reading this (ahem), here is a brief update of what I’m doing for the next few weeks… Read more »

Bad Wolf – good dog!

I spent a very enjoyable weekend at Doctor Who con, Bad Wolf last weekend. It was replete with humour and excitement, great friends and new faces, enthusiasm and questions. It must be said these weekends are incredibly good fun, but they are also amazingly tiring.

So what happened? Well… Read more »

SPECIAL! Agent!

So, a wondrous event has taken place. I have an agent.

Let the champagne flow and may maidens dance on the village green. Sacrifice a few goats to the gods of good fortune and literary success! Read more »

The snowball gathers momentum…

Not treading water no more

Dinosaurs and Mammoths