paulcrilley.com

The sitcom Caroline and I write for (Stokvel) was nominated for a Rose D’or award this year. It’s great for small South African shows to get recognition, but when you’re up against something like The IT Crowd, written by the brilliant Graham Linehan, (Father Ted, Black Books) it’s hard to have much hope.

Clips: Warning: Political Incorrectness below.
(I couldn’t find any clips of Stokvel though.)

IT Crowd

“I need an ambulance”

“I’m disabled”

“Peter File”

Black Books

Drunk

“Life’s fantastic”

Compilation

One for the writers

I wanted to post this last week, but the server that hosts my website has been down. Anyway, Night of the Long Shadows, the first book (of many) featuring my Eberron detectives Wren and Torin, has been nominated for a Scribe Award. I’m up against fellow Eberron author Tim Waggoner and William Dietz. You can find the full list of nominees here.

Pret-ty cool.

…during the day you have to chase off a troop of monkeys that has invaded your kitchen to steal the bread from the bread bin, (and any other bits of food they can get their hands on), and at night you have to catch a night adder* and release it into the nature conservancy at the bottom of the garden armed only with a pair of barbeque tongs, a tupperware container, and a torch that keeps going out.

*I don’t even know if it’s poisonous, but I wasn’t about to take the risk.

Aftermath of a summer thunderstorm

So another year has departed, and the cliche about time passing faster the older you get is truer than ever. I mean, I’m not exactly old, (32), but I can’t believe we’re into a new year again.

So, what did 2007 mean to me? Well, my first book was published, and those that liked it were kind enough to say so. I also wrote my second book, but that was more of a struggle, as it was during winter and I was fighting a flu virus that didn’t want to go away.

I was also commissioned for a full trilogy set in Eberron. I finally have the titles all sorted out, but I can’t announce them yet. I get started on that book… well, today hopefully.

I was also asked for a full manuscript by an agent I queried. More on that at a later stage, though.

In television land, things were a lot more hectic. The soap opera that Caroline and I wrote for was canceled, (not anything to do with us, I assure you). That was a kick in the teeth as both of our incomes were derived from one source, and with that gone we were suddenly… broke. Well, not so much, as we had saved up a bit, but it was a regular wage in a business where regular wages are very rare, so we struggled a bit with that.

On the plus side, the producers of the soap liked us, and asked us to pitch ideas that they could take to the country’s only pay-tv broadcaster. The broadcaster liked one of them, so now Caroline and I are going to be writing an original mini-series to be broadcast next Christmas. Which is nice.

We also added to our CV by writing ten episodes of one of the county’s most-watched sitcoms, and we discovered just how much work we could really do when we were asked to help out a production company who’s writers were struggling with deadlines and we wrote twenty, 24 minute episodes of a children’s educational program in two weeks. Don’t know if I’ll do that again in a hurry.

On the home life front, we finally signed over for our house. Piece of advice. Don’t go into a house purchase where the seller is still tying up a spouse’s estate. Despite assurances it would only add an extra month onto the time, it was exactly a year to the day we moved in (and had been paying occupational rent every month) that the house finally became ours. Add to this the seller was a very unpleasant sort that we had to threaten with lawyers, then the whole experience left a sour taste in our mouths.

Bella is growing up to be a little character. She’s at the age now (2 1/2) where you can have conversations with her, and it’s pretty funny. She’s also testing the boundaries of lying, although bless her, she usually owns up in the end.

Paul, looking at the broken plate on the floor and Bella standing guiltily next to it. "Did you do that?"

Bella, in tone of voice of a teacher explaining a simple problem to an idiot, "No. It wasn’t me, because I didn’t even touch it."

"Are you sure? Who broke it then?"

Thoughtful look. "I think it was probably mummy."

"Oh. Ok then."

Wait for a bit. Then, "Daddy? It was me, but it was an accident."

So. What does 2008 bring? Who knows. I’m hoping to sell an original novel, as well as working on the Eberron books. I love Eberron, but I don’t want to neglect the stories and ideas I had before I got involved with the world. I’m hoping to juggle the two. We’ll see how that goes.

In February we will be welcoming the second (and last) guest to Casa Crilley/Doherty. A little brother for Bella, and who knows how she is going to cope with that. Urgh. I don’t know how that will affect my writing for Feb. I’ll have to try and get ahead of my deadlines in Jan just in case I can’t write every day.

So. All the best to everyone for 2008.

And again, this time with a pic.

Just testing Windows Live Writer. Nothing to see here. Move along.

I have a feeling I may have cracked a rib playing squash last week. It’s hard to tell, as I’ve never broken anything before, but I had a high speed collision with my squash partner’s elbow last Monday, and my rib is still killing me. Every time I stretch or laugh it usually ends in a wince. I thought it was just bruised, but now I’m not so sure. I’m trying to decide if I should go for an x-ray.

Actually, is there even any point of an x-ray? It’s not as if they can do anything about it. All it would do is stop Caroline looking at me as if I’m a big baby every time I say I’m sore.

Hmm. Maybe the x-ray is a good idea after all.

I finally signed and sent back the contracts for my first Eberron trilogy. Very cool feeling. The proposal went through a long gestation period (I think I wrote the first draft of the treatment before I got Night of the Long Shadows accepted.) It has gone through five official drafts, and a few more besides on my side of the pond, plus two editors, but it’s definitely a tighter proposal to what I initially pitched to Mark. (And for that I have both Mark and Erin to thank.)

I can’t really say anything about it at the moment. I have a title for the trilogy, but no titles for the books yet, which is a first for me, as I usually have titles right at the beginning.

On the subject of trilogies, congrats to Don on finishing the first draft of his new book. I’ll raise a glass for you tonight.

Now I’ve got to start my first draft. The dreaded blank computer screen beckons.

If anyone has a spare one and a half million lying around you can now be the proud owner of the Titan 1 Missile Base. All you’ll ever need to become the star of your own James Bond movie (minus the henchmen and white cat, of course.)