And out he did indeed pop.

A boy, William Peter, born at 7.24am this morning in Helston, weighing 8lb 3oz, hurrah! Patroclus got to have peanut M&M's for breakfast (there were some left over from the Scott Pilgrim viewing) and we got home before they closed our road for Penryn Fair Day, which we intend to tell Will is entirely in his honour.



He has maintained this expression pretty much throughout. I can't really blame him.

My laptop done gone

UPDATE: just discovered Patroclus' knackered old laptop from downstairs is also missing. Now narrowed it down to sometime in the last two weeks, which makes me wonder if 1) one of the previous occcupants' lodgers still has a key, and 2) they took advantage of everyone in Falmouth and Penryn going into town to see the Red Arrows the other day. Hmm, lock-changing time, I think.


Just realised that the laptop in my downstairs office, which I use mostly for accounts rather than exciting creative thing, has gone missing sometime in the last two weeks. I was clinging to the hope that I'd just moved it somewhere and forgotten, but now I'm running out of places to look.

Thing is, Patroclus and the Blue Kitten and I are home, or at least two out of the three of us are, almost all the time, so if someone did come in and nick it, they must have done so at night. Eurgh, it's horrible to think about, and most un-Cornish-like. Anyway, people have been kind enough to retweet my mention of this already, but if a white Powerbook (without power lead) has been hawked about at carboots or dodgy pubs in the Falmouth/Penryn/West Cornwall area in general, it may well be mine.

*feels rather vexed and let down in general*

In baby news, there is currently no baby news, as child 2 appears to be taking his own sweet time to arrive and we must respect this, and not let any irritation show until he is about fifteen, when we can suddenly ban him from going to that really important party for apparently no reason. REVENGE.

A quick 'ahem' and out he will pop.

Not much blogging for the next couple of weeks or so, as Child 2 (AKA 'the boy one') is already overdue, and soon the sitting around waiting and going 'tch' will turn into OH GOD WHERE ARE THE NAPPIES WHY WON'T HE GO TO SLEEP OH HE'S GONE TO SLEEP I CAN'T STOP SHOUTING.

So in the meantime, lookie, my childrens' book is now available on Kindle!

'The Cabinet of Curiosities - Kindle edition'

For the grand price of £3.63 (I set it as $4.99 in US dollars, which of course then transferred to a rather odd-sounding amount in stout english pounds). Of course there is still a completely free version on pdf

... and finally a rather lovely actual physically pick-up and read in the bath 'book' style book available from lulu, if you click on the piccy below:



While I'm sticking stuff up that might hang around for a while, here are the various interviews I've done with people working in different bits of the TV industry. Got some more lined up, but if there are any job titles which mystify you, put them in the comments section (this is not the time for amusing 'best boy' jokes thank you) and I'll see what I can do.

INTERVIEWS:

BBC script editor - Joe Donaldson

Agent - Matt Connell

Childrens' Television writer and fantasy novelist - Alex Williams

Composer - Garry Judd

The correct answer is, of course, 'a card stand'.

In many ways, Chez Blue Cat/Patroclus is like a literary salon of the olden days, where they had big hats and gas lights. Consider the following conversation.

CONSIDER IT:

ME: ... although I never liked the Sherlock Holmes books that much to be honest, there were always umpty-tum reasons people might have a bit of pale mud on their turnups or summat, didn't automatically mean their sister was having an affair with a interior decorator just back from the Crimean or whatevs, anyway I always preferred Edgar Allen Poe's Dupin, who totes preceeded Holmes and invented the whole 'deductive reasoning' thing, although he called it 'ratiocination', 'The Adventure of the Purloined Letter' is great, someone hides a letter in the last place you'd expect, completely the last place, where do you think the last place anyone would look for a letter is, where do you think he hid it?
PATROCLUS: UP HIS ARSE.

A shocked silence ensues. Finally:

ME: Well!

(I think it's a letter rack, it was ages since I read it)

Gah.

After a year and a half of development, and positive reactions all the way up the BBC Drama food chain (well, right up until it got the Really Big Desk) Cornish Cop project for BBC Drama has been turned down for a series commission. Early indications suggest the tone of it just didn't click with the last person who had to make the decision. Which is gutting, obviously, but there we are, can't be helped.

It's not the end of the line - the script's now going over to Comedy to see if it's something that would sit better over there - but even if they embrace it with open arms, it's very unlikely to be picked up unchanged, and the procedural element (it's a proper cop show, with crime plots, and investigations) is likely to have to go. Which would be a great shame - the show was a direct attempt to have something with a real dramatic base, but a bit more wit and fun up top than you tend to get in that 9pm slot - and more to the point, I was loving working with Sarah the producer and Joe the script editor (with whom I developed my similarly fated teen drama pilot) and was thinking this was finally going to be the time we all got to take something right into a series.

I was just starting dare to compile a little list of other writers I would have loved to get in to write episodes, and working up a spreadsheet of plot arcs, and all that. As I said, 'Gah'.

Still, after having a weekend to get over it, I can laugh Rejection in his fat stupid face, and without wanting to sound too Pollyannaish, here are some reasons why:

1. Dude, I still totally got paid moneys for writing wordses, and they're never getting that back NEVER.
2. The script got an incredibly positive response from the senior BBC development bods, who I know are just as gutted as I am it didn't make it all the way to the top.
3. I now have a really strong hour long crime drama (okay, with comedy bits) script that my agent can show around, which might open a few new doors.
4. The comedy department person who's looking at it has a very good track record with comedy dramas, so even if Bandit Country (that was its name, sigh) isn't right for her, that's still someone who hasn't read my stuff before, so, you know, new contact.
5. While I was waiting to hear back on Bandit Country, I finished the first draft of the US superhero pilot script AND IT WAS GOOD (which, of course, you always feel about the first draft, the idea of the script editor ever coming back with anything other than 'OMG this is the bestest thing I have ever read you are AMAZUNG!' is laughable, but still).
6. If you aren't laughing Rejection in his fat stupid face at least once a month YOU ARE NOT A PROPER RITER.

The Blyth Report: Starcraft 2

Thought this was funny, and very well put-together (particularly the Facebook bit). Also WARNING CONTAINS RUDIES: