freelance ghost writer

2016 – Seasonal Adjustment Disorder or just plain Sad?

Now that I am 60 it has become horribly apparent to me that I have now entered the endgame.

If this were a football match the fans would be starting to whistle, the referee looking at his watch and checking with his linesmen and those wanting to avoid the traffic queues would be heading for the exits.

The recent sad demise of David Bowei, Alan Richman and dear old Terry Wogan have said it all: us baby boomers are now starting to die off. Our time upon this stage is drawing swiftly to a close. So faced with this cheery thought I have been galvanised into a frantic attempt to pack as much into whatever time is left to me as I possibly can.

If this ambition of mine to become recognised as a writer is going to find any sort of realisation then I’d better get on with it. However, if I fail, it would not be for the want of any opportunities.

I have got a veritable Bombay commuter trainload of things to do this year. I’ve already explained to you my ambition to get Black and Green in a publishable state by Easter. Then, on top of that there is the TV Series proposal and script which has got to be in a submittable state by the end of March.

As usual I am entering the Euroscript Exciting Treatments competition which also has a submission date at the end of March and then there is my dissertation on the Zulu films which is to be handed in at the end of June.

This project is becoming really quite exciting. As I explained in my last post I was looking for the descendants of Cy Endfield who wrote both scripts but that has become a secondary issue besides the distinct possibility of being able to contact – and hopefully interview – Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi who, as I am sure you are all aware, played the part of the Zulu King Chetswayo in the original film.

Chief Buthelezi is, of course, the Inkatha Zulu leader and a member of the Zulu Royal family in his own right and was in fact playing his great grandfather back in 1964. This is a truly awesome possibility and I am most grateful to all those contacts of my sister who are helping to bring this about.

I have also had to select a subject for my final submission which is a film script and has to be in by 18 September. For this I am returning to an old idea of mine: the Templars. This a black comedy about an autistic Irish traveller who sets out to try and get the Pope a nuclear bomb.

I thought that this would be an ideal vehicle for Brendan Gleeson and his son. But – horror of horrors – I have found that Mr Gleeson is already in the process of making a film about the Knights Templar called Assassin’s Creed.

I may therefore have to get rid of the Templar association and simply deal with things on more general terms Essentially the script is an attempt to lampoon fundamentalist religion. May keep the old prophet’s name out of it however. Not sure I fancy anyone wandering around Tiptree looking for me with an AK-47.

Otherwise I still await a response from the BBC Writers Room with regards to my submission of the Djinn and am delighted to say that my dear friend Selwyn Roberts has passed on a treatment of mine to some Belgian producer friends of his.

Called the Caterpillar it is an idea I had for a horror story set in the old World War I tunnels under the Caterpillar Hill on the Ypres salient.

Just about chimes in with my mood!

I will keep you all posted.