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    • Archive for October, 2011

    Notes to self for LSF


    2011 - 10.28

    Tags: , , , , ,
    Posted in Adele-World, Writing | No Comments »

    So it’s here, the London Screenwriters Festival has arrived and let’s be fair, based on the experiences of the pre-pitching day, there are a few things that I need to remember:

    1. leave the cloppy heels at home if I’m going to continue to be unable to sit for more than 40 mins at a stretch. It’s a challenge, people. 4 days without exercise and there may in fact be casualties. Cloppy heels, meanwhile, really ruin the ninja-ness of my exits (in aide of a brisk walk around the quad to not kill people), and I’m concerned that, in noticing said exits, other delegates may come to believe I suffer an unfortunate degree of incontinence. Or that I have a really awesome secret fourth life that requires constant attention to my mobile. I might pitch more in that direction.

    2. quit swearing like a sailor, or

    2a. develop a broader vocab for said swearing so that at least it’s entertaining if  not educational for other non-mariner folk

    3. not PO anyone else. Not that I knowingly PO’d anyone at the LSF today, but I may just additionally italicise knowingly here as a thinly veiled reference to this week’s amazing aptitude, on a number of fronts, for putting foot in mouth or, worse, foot in other people’s mouths or, worse still, inadvertently causing friends to be kicked in the teeth by other people’s feet and all with the best of intentions.

    That’s me on the left: more wisdom from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman

    5. stop being so massively insecure about EVERYTHING EVER

    6. remember names. Any names. A name. A name a day and that’s a whole four new names. Why can’t everyone put their photos on their damn business cards? Oh wait, is that just me… and speaking of which…

    7.  pluck up the courage to actually conduct the Great Business Card Experiment. Because yes, after Moo bollocked up my business card order – and after all that trauma – I redesigned, reprinted, felt smug, and yet after one day in a room of strangers who don’t understand my predisposition to dressing up and waving weaponry around on the weekends, find myself quite paralysed at the idea of handing any of them around.

    This could be a whole new Ninja Fail blog in the making, my friends. Even if I do actually offer or get asked for any cards, will I actually produce them?

    Would you?

    Not a risky PR strategy AT ALL

    Business Card Aaaargh


    2011 - 10.11

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Adele-World, Writing | 4 Comments »

    The London Screenwriters Festival is almost upon us, which is an occasion on which  forcing your business card upon people politely offering your business card to every moving body is deemed socially acceptable, if not mandatory. Packs of writers will rally one another to bouts networking courage through little competitions, like who can give out or acquire the most cards.

    Admittedly this usually results in the majority of card exchanges happening between fellow writerly aspirants, which is often less productive than slipping your card into the hand of say an executive, director or producer – who many of us are catastrophically incapable of speaking to in a manner that sells us as intelligent, interesting or even human. But look, we’re a shy bunch, by and large. Baby steps.

    The point of course is that for any exchange of cards to occur, said cards must first exist. Which leads rather neatly to the Aaaaargh at hand.

    Put yourself in the place of a Person of Power attending the Festival (and by this I mean anything from a potential fellow collaborator to an agent who might just think you’re the bomb). You’re going to spend three days being  politely harangued by gangs of quietly terrified writers, desperate to network and be noticed. You’re going to end up with a hand (briefcase and every available pocket) full of business cards and a brain rammed with new names and faces, most of which will remain in a defiant state of disconnect. Or possibly that’s just me. But while first impressions and snatched conversations can be fleeting, those cards will be reliably real and present.

    Photographers, artists, actors and models and their ilk are the lucky ones – they get great cards. You have to be a right muppet to fail on making striking cards for the likes of those professions. But writers? I’m sifting through my collection from a few years back and while some are quirky and cute and occasionally clever, there’s not a whole lot a business card can say about the writer, beyond them being one – contactable by phone, email, website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and hell, here’s even a mail address, cos you’re sure to want that.

    So what do you put on the damn thing?

    (more…)