Friday, October 28, 2005

"Nobody Sleeps With The Writer"(2)

Well, the script reader turned down THE FATHER MACHINE... but she had lots of really good advice on how to improve it, and encouraged me to do so.

Considering it was my first movie script ever, I'm upbeat. I'll rewrite the script... :)

Saturday, October 22, 2005

"Nobody Sleeps With The Writer"

There's a saying in Hollywood: "Nobody sleeps with the writer."

I try to bear that in mind while I wait for the response from a minor movie-production company.
Said company asked my agent to send over my movie script THE FATHER MACHINE.

The script was based on a comic-strip I published in the 1990s in the defunct Swedish comic-book SVENSKA SERIER (literally "Swedish Comics"). A plot summary can be found here.

Will they buy the script? I'm not going to lose sleep over that! But it was fun to try and write a script... I Googled the websites that post classic movie manuscripts, so I could learn how the pros write.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Notes From The BOK & BIBLIOTEK 2005 Tradeshow

I was in the booth of Wela Förlag at the BOK & BIBLIOTEK book tradeshow during the last days of September+first days of October. It's a pretty big event held in Gothenburg, Sweden every year.

I'm rather tired after standing there in the booth for 4 days straight, but some memories are still vivid:

-A woman told me that both her husband AND daughter are reading my novel TERRA HEXA with equal enthusiasm... from a portable computer (PDA) screen. (They wanted her to buy the printed book, though.)

-An old man in a dirty overcoat asked me whether the title "TERRA HEXA" has something to do with witches ("häxa" in Swedish means "witch").
When I gently explained that "Hexa" is Latin for "six"(pronounced "sex" in Swedish), he then said the book must have "sexy" content. I asked him (not so gently) to leave.

-A young woman who had read my novel and liked it, asked me when the sequel would be out. (Next year.)

-A strange, fat young man said I should hire him to draw a comic-book based on my novel. He showed me drawings that would have embarrassed a 7-year-old. When I gently (honestly!) told him I'd prefer a more experienced artist, he walked three steps to the booth right next to ours, and repeated his sales pitch!

-People really liked the marzipan I had made for the occasion and was giving away for free. (It was supposed to be blue, like my book-cover, but turned out poison-green.)

-A sales rep from the big distributor Richters (a.k.a. Damm) was impressed by hearing I'd been published in China, and received a copy of TERRA HEXA for review.

-I met some people I hadn't seen in a while, and located an old classmate I had been trying to find for several years. (He has a very common name. Imagine trying to find "Tom Smith" in a U.S. phonebook.)

All in all a nice experience, and I'll be there again next year.
:)