What's going on?

Maybe you’ve noticed a shift in this blog recently? A lot more articles on How to Write a TV Series?

Yeah, me too.

I’ve set myself the goal of writing 40,000 words about this before April 1 next year. And in the 10 days since I started, I’ve gotten 10% of the way. The reasons for this are selfish. First, I really want to get clear in my head my current understanding of the creative process and the elements I need to think about. That’s right: “I”. This How To is not going to be a definitive ‘you must do this’ article. It’s about the points I’ve noticed and – more importantly – tend to freak out about or forget.

So, Reason #1 is that I really, really want to create a first draft process of the steps I need to think about when creating good TV. Hopefully then I can redraft it by actually taking a couple of TV projects through the process and seeing whether my ideals stack up to reality.

#2 is that I was getting a bit bored with the scatter-shot approach I was taking with multi-dimensional. Focusing on something that excited me became a necessity. Hence the big How To splurge in recent days. If past behaviour is any indication of what will happen next (and Dr Phil thinks that it is), my post rate should settle down – and I’ll start to post more varied thoughts and links again.

To make my target I need to post about 120 words a day. Yesterday I posted 1047. I don’t think this mono-mania is interesting or possible to sustain but I’m giving you fair warning: it’ll be a major part of this blog for at least the next couple of months.

#3 … Writing about TV design feels positive to me. I’m being pro-active. I’m visualising what I need to do. The lovebites debrief was all about dwelling on the past. I was enjoying writing it, but at the same time it was negative.

So, there you go. A new direction. If you’ve got thoughts on what makes good TV (and the scope of that is wide, ranging from the idea to teamwork to project management), comment away. And – as ever – I’d love to try answering your questions.