how many... before when?!?

It all seemed like such a good idea at the time - set up three different VS ideas as screenplays, and air them on sister network BVC (set up by my good friend Tony Black), both as a show of support and also a dry run for the ideas themselves.

Thing is, after committing myself to have one movie a month ready throughout June, July and August, I kind of forgot that I'm on holiday slap bang in the middle of June. Right when the first movie is due. Oh, and that with the massively-delayed third season of Faith yet to finish, the last few episodes of that are also due while I'm away.

Arg.

However! This leads me into today's lesson, something I feel is an invaluable aspect of life for any aspiring VS writer: how to handle delays.

You see, at this stage of your writing career, you won't be getting paid. You'll be writing in your spare time, at evenings and weekends, fitting in your work around your day job, and also trying to remember to go out and have a social life in the meantime, because, you know, we all need to go out and meet people. Otherwise we go a bit crazy. So what do you do when you quite simply do not have enough hours in the day to do what needs to be done? Simple. Be flexible.

The more professionally-run VS out there tend to mimic the scheduling of a real TV show as closely as possible, with a three to six month period of downtime between seasons to work on production and planning, then three to six months to actually air the episodes, usually one a week with breaks to allow for extra production time and things like that. Real world TV shows have plenty of little gaps between episodes so production work on the season can be completed, and VS are no different.

There are days when you'll sit down to write and just find yourself staring at a blank screen, the cursor on Final Draft (or Sophocles, or whatever) blinking malignantly at you, mocking your inability to conjure up a single word. Not even that 'INT.' that we all start with. You glance at the calendar. You've got tonight to get this episode ready, and after that it's officially late. So what do you do? Force yourself to write? Struggle through the next fifty pages, no matter what quality, just to get the show published on its due date?

Of course not. Take extra time. Push your schedule back a week. Two if you have to. Allow yourself time to work on the show to the standard you're accustomed to, instead of rushing and releasing something below par just for the sake of it. One of the worst things any writer can do is force themselves to write when the vibe just isn't there, and encroaching deadlines will be the cause of this pressure nine times out of ten. On one hand, you have a responsibility to your readers to maintain some degree of professionalism and not just let your show grind to a halt because you don't feel like writing that week, but on the other, there are many unqiue advantages that a VS offers which can make your life easier.

If you miss a deadline in TV Land, then you're screwed. The show will be late, and may even get taken off altogether so the network can air a repeat or alternate program in its place, and you will very likely not be asked to write again. In a VS, you're your own boss, and as such can shuffle scheduling to suit the constantly-changing situations of the world around you. Also, TV viewers tune in at the same time each week expecting to see their show, and the episode has to be ready and waiting before they even reach for the remote. VS readers tend to catch up on shows in batches of a few episodes at a time, maybe even catching up on a show they've only recently gotten into, and so there's less pressure on you, the harassed showrunner, to deliver the product exactly on time week in, week out.

If you have staff working on future episodes, maybe you can air a double bill down the line to catch yourself back up. Maybe you could even put the show on hiatus for a month, write a few episodes to maintain a buffer against future unexpected delays, and then return with the confidence that when (and it will be 'when,' not 'if') something else happens, you've already got a few episodes in the bag, ready to wheel out as needed.

Your staff are subject to the same pressures as you, don't forget. They may suddenly lose their ability to get online (tantamount to a full on communications blackout in this business), be in the middle of moving house, have to put things on hold while they plan a wedding, be on holiday, fall ill or (God forbid) be in an accident. Or they could just be lazy, in which case you fire their arse and get someone more reliable. Any way you look at it, you need to be prepared to allow for situations that you and your staff have no control over, and accept that real life comes before the virtual series world. When you're earning money for writing, then the job comes first. Until then, remember to give yourself time to be a human being before some script-spewing automaton.

The end result should be a VS that isn't afraid to tweak its schedule to cope with delays, and headaches that you won't be having as a result of trying to be in two places at once. Delays can be your friend. Use them wisely.

he's back!

control yourselves, gentle readers. yes, after a long (and sadly work-related) break, ZPM is back. but what lies in store for this ol' blog now we're in the year 2-0-0-7 then?

for one thing, not just reviews. oh no. I mean, I'm going to start by putting down a load of reviews I did for BVC stuff, admittedly, but as well as that I'm going to be keeping up with other writers' blogs (you know, those professional ones by people who actually get paid for what they do), and also chronicle my own attempts to break into the screenwriting world at large.

so! onward and upward. and things like that.