This year I've made a couple or three New Year's resolutions. They aren't usually very effective for me - the beginning of the year is a busy time so it's easy to forget your plans before you've really had a chance to begin.

This year my resolutions are to:

1. Get back into the gym as I really let that slip over the last quarter of 2011.

2. Sort out my office. It has decades of detritus from old projects, books, builds, etc etc so sorting through it just turns into a trip down memory lane - and there goes the tidying. The real solution is a new bigger office which can double as a studio. This is a project that has been on the back burner for a good few years now - time to bring it back to the boil!

3. Find some friends. No I'm not saying I don't have any friends - I have lots spread out all over the world! - it's just that none of them are local to me as I've either moved away from them or they have moved away from here. But I wonder if it isn't a type of laziness that it is easier to cultivate and maintain long distance friendships than it is to get out and meet new people??  So in 2012 I will get out there - no matter how excruciating it feels to wear my 'Be my friend' hat out into the big, wide world. Time to crash and burn!!

And here's a tip if resolutions are not your thing - Don't make New Year's Resolutions for 2012 - make them for 2013!!
In 2011 I didn't make resolutions at all. But I did have a really productive year.

Instead of resolutions I made a list of things that I wanted to have achieved by the end of 2011. And I'm happy to report that I acheived a good 90% of what I set out to do. So a good tip for anyone for whom resolutions don't really work is to think about where you'd like to be next year. That way, all is not lost if you still find yourself smoking or eating sugar or whatever well into the month of January. No need to give up, because your resolutions aren't for now - they're for the entire year. It really works too!

Make it a date to look at your list on the first day of every month to see how you're getting on!

Good luck!

And have a very happy and productive New Year!!

Do you have any New Year's resolutions (or things you want to have achieved by the end of 2012) that you'd like to share? I'd love to hear from you! 

To all Final Draft users:  Screenwriting software Final Draft has been shown to have a security vulnerability which can allow your computer to be accessed remotely by an attacker using a maliciously-coded Final Draft (.FDX or .FDXT) files.

The solution to this is to download the patch provided on Final Draft's website.

The website requires you to provide a registered customer number (which you can usually find on your CD box or by clicking Help > Customer Support). If you have not already registered you will need to supply your name and address and other details before you can download the patched version of the software.

The download sizes for Final Draft 8.0.3 are 37.2 MB (Windows) and 28.8 MB (Mac).

If you are unable to immediately download and install the patch ensure that you DO NOT OPEN any .FDX or .FDXT files  from untrusted sources. This includes opening files sent to you via email.

Some problems have been reported with logging in via the registered customer number as registered users have been unable to log in using their software's number. Keep trying as it may eventually work, otherwise contact Customer Support.

As this download is to address a highly critical security vulnerability placing the patch behind a registration wall is both an unacceptable and irresponsible action.  Customers pay a lot for Final Draft - they deserve better, especially as this vulnerability is putting their computers at risk.

Final Draft need to make the patches widely available very soon.

I went to Bournemouth this month for the final residency of the MA Screenwriting course. It went very well and I had a great time.  I would say that the high points of the week for me were the Writer, Director, Actor masterclass with Jan Sargent. Working with the directors and the actors on a scene from our scripts was really educational and the actors were just amazing.

I really enjoyed the workshop we did on subtext and units of action. This was all very new to me and I must admit to feeling utterly confused to begin with. As skilled subtext ferrets Rosie Cullen (our course leader) and fellow student Marcus Condron got to work exploring the hidden subtext within our scripts I found myself wondering if I was actually looking at the same page! It was a revelation that so much could be hiding just below the surface of the words. We learned to use units of action with phrases like "I resent" and "I deny" to actions and dialogue that contained nothing like those words, but that would be the basis for an actor portraying the role. Fascinating. And really changed how I look at my own writing, with the bottom line that if I don't want the director and the actors to read it that way I need to make myself much clearer. And apart from that let the actors run with it - it's amazing what hidden treasures they'll find to bring to the performance.

The other workshop was the Openings workshop where we worked on the all-important first five pages of our scripts that are so essential, not only for grabbing interest, but also setting up the tone of the script and the audience expectations for the movie as a whole. It was a great session with Craig Batty as the tutor and the utterly stellar group were all so interesting and the feedback so useful and organic that of course we ran over time and got locked in the building. It felt a little bit like playing Doom as we wandered round the corridors in the dark looking for the exit. Luckily no zombies!

Visiting guest lecturers included Iain Farmer, who gave a really inspiring talk on Industry Practice, and author Helen Jacey, who talked about writing female characters.  It was a fascinating discussion expanding on her book "The Woman in the Story" which many of the female students read and discussed in the first year.

Overall  it was a really good week, but there were bound to be tears before the end when the realisation dawned that this was our last residential together.  Mostly my tears of course - nothing new there!!  Hopefully we will all be able to stay in touch via Facebook. A lot of new partnerships have been formed that I'm sure will see some great productions in the not-so-distant future.

So now comes the writing up. We have five months now to produce our final script projects. Mine is a psychological thriller called "Lobster Pot".

Onwards and scriptwards!

This past week I have had the very great honor to be involved in making a short film for the London Screenwriting Festival Film Challenge.

For me this meant having to be in front of the camera (yes that is me!) and trying to direct my rather offbeat vision for this script. Adrian made an excellent DOP, my actress daughter, Amy, did a grand job of voicing both the actor and the news reporter in the background. I then had several hundred digital photos to crop out the background and process to look like drawn cartoon, a bit like Hotel Dusk. The stop motion was a lot of fun and was inspired by Doug Savage's Phantom Mountain.

But the best bits overall were filming our very own mini riot and the rather macabre fire scene at the end. Starting to put it all together in Adobe After Effects was very much a rush job just a few hours before the contest deadline, especially since this was the first day I ever used the program!! Meanwhile Amy edited the video and the sound as well as fulfilling the role of  a very efficient production manager, keeping me on track with what I still needed to edit, process and animate!  We literally uploaded up till the last second. It was high adrenaline in the office that day as we counted down the megabytes as they uploaded.

So now it's good to have a little rest before catching up with all the work I missed last week, as well as preparing for my trip to London for the London Screenwriters Festival next weekend. It will be good to get there if only to have a rest!

Some time ago (I don't actually know when) I ceased to be the admin of this website. In fact for the longest while the site has had no proper admin at all. Even though I have admin status I lost all ability to carry out certain admin functions (such as viewing, adding or deleting users, upgrading WordPress, and  exporting the blog etc). Any attempt to view the user settings was met with the response "Cheatin' uh?" which has to be worthy of a prize as one of the most useless error messages.

Both the cause of the problem and the solution evaded me for a long-time. Many people have tried and failed to find a solution on the WordPress forums (which let's face it are frustrating places to look for help at the best of times) but eventually persistance paid off. The solution - for my problem at least - was found here thanks to ywamer.

To start I logged into phpMyAdmin and made a backup of my database - just in case.

Next I went into WordPress settings and made a note of all the options on each page under Settings. These will need to be recreated manually when the fix is complete.

Next step was exporting my database (excluding the troublesome wp_options table - just leave that one unchecked). Save the .sql file onto your computer.

Once I had safely downloaded my data as well as making a note of all my settings, I then dropped all those tables that related to the WordPress install that had the problem. This option is slightly different to Ywamer's solution because he suggested deleting the database altogether - I couldn't do this because I use the same database for my Alien of the Day artwork too. (If your database only contains tables for your WordPress install then you can safely delete the entire database - although you will have to recreate it - but if you have any other installs utilizing that database you will need to only drop the tables for your WordPress install.)

Once the tables were dropped I opened the website in my browser and was faced by the WordPress install screen. After typing in the name, usernames, passwords etc that it asked for, it proceeded to install a new WordPress and recreate the default tables in the database.

With that step complete, I now selected those tables again EXCEPT for the wp_options table and dropped them.

Basically at that point wp_options is the only table left.

You can then import the .sql file that you downloaded earlier. With those tables imported and the wp_options table from the new install you should have a complete set of WordPress tables in your database.

Going back into your WordPress in your browser should find everything as it should be - your posts as they were together with a functioning Users menu, export options and Auto Upgrade option.

Apart from a few tweaks (reapplying my site's theme, reactivating plugins, reentering the Akismet API key, and double-checking my settings) my site was back to normal - except that now I am a proper admin with proper admin powers again!

Upgrading the site (to WordPress version 3.2) was then exceedingly simple as I now had the automatic upgrade option, rather than "Please Notify the system administrator". (Previously the only way I could upgrade every time was to use FTP to delete every file in the root, wp-admin and wp-includes folders and then upload the new WordPress files manually.)

Hope this helps! If you have any questions please either leave a comment below or reply via the feedback form and I will do my best to help/explain.

- Kathie

Post Script:
One problem with WordPress 3.2 is that you need to be running MySQL 5.0. For many Media Temple users this required a support ticket to upgrade MySQL before the WordPress update could go ahead. Once that was done it was a normal upgrade for all my WordPress sites. Note: You may need to upgrade to PHP 5.2.4 too if you are not running it already.

Well I passed the first year of my MA in Screenwriting (from Bournemouth University). It's been a helluva year. I have personally achieved so much and surpassed so many obstacles along the way. As well as the excellent tuition on the course, I must add that my sense of achievement is also in large part due to my study of CBT and mindfulness, and the excellent teachers I have had along the way there.

In the coming year on the course I will be writing a full-length feature film, and as part of the residential course last week I got the opportunity to pitch my movie script to Ivanna MacKinnon - producer of Slumdog Millionaire, among many others. This was a wonderful experience which I also enjoyed a great deal. Pitching a film, although in principle not that different from public speaking or delivering a spec for a book, was something that held major fear for me. Not exactly sure why but it probably has something to do with the number of movies and TV shows I have seen over the years which depicted a character pitching a film, often with hilarious or disastrous consequences. Luckily as usual, life is nothing like what we see on the screen. It was very easy to do and there were no gaffs or pratfalls involved. And what's more I got some really good feedback for my idea. What more could I ask?

But because 'wanting more' is the very foundation of all human civilization and achievement, what kind of hero would I be if I just settled for that? Not much of one. So instead of just setting out to write the script that I pitched as part of the course I plan to write it in my own time (since it is a fairly straight script) and attempt to do something more experimental under the tutelage of the university lecturers for my Masters. Something more psychological appeals to me, perhaps with an alternate structure.

My research at the moment is focusing on human emotion and the nature of aggression and violence. Of course I will be looking at a female protagonist (or maybe anti-heroine?) for this study. I attended a particularly violent combat course recently as the only female there and I was very interested in the difference in how women are taught by society to react to anger and just how much it takes to tip that anger over into violence or aggression. With an increasing number of violent perpetrators in the UK being female - or female gangs - this is very interesting to me. What has brought about this change in society?  More thoughts on that as I progress in my research, I'm sure!

So that's me updating my blog!

Progress is sweet. I would always recommend to writers that they document their progress along the way - and don't forget to include how you feel about it. That way you learn to appreciate the gifts the universe has given you along the journey - which in turn will make the next gift easier to spot!

Happy writing!

"Hand-Span/Brain-Pan"
by Kathie Kingsley-Hughes

As I sit, my elbows
resting on the desk,
eyes tight shut,
head-in-hand,
I am struck by
the narrow
width
of my temples
between my thumb
and forefinger.
Is this all I am?
The entirety of
my being contained
within a
hand-span?

I could live without
ear, leg, appendix, arm,
bowel, fingers, tongue,
hair, eye, tonsil, breast,
kidney, tooth, lung.
Not one of these things
is essentially
me. If it was lying
on the desk before
me, I would no more
feel that I was
there, instead of here.

Yes, there is more
to me that
keeps me living, but
all that is me thus
is contained within
my hand with
some mere warm offal,
attached.
And yet, if I had not
a hand,
if I am not
also hand,
I would not
know this;
could not
measure,
my brain-span
thus.

What is me?
Am I hand or
am I brain-pan?
Perhaps I am
both, and
neither.

Hmmmm have noticed that since I've upgraded to IE9, Outlook is continually crashing (and restarting). You can also reproduce the fault by clicking

Tools | Trust Center

I've tested it on three machines (both 32 and 64 bit) and does it every time.

I've done some searches but so far no one at Microsoft seems to be aware of this bug.

My only hope right now is to reinstall Outlook 2007 although if I'm going to do that I might as well save my time and upgrade to the newer version (something I've been procrastinating for ages!) I will let you know if it fixes the problem!

Update: Upgraded one machine to 2010 and it didn't fix the problem. It's likely that it's an add-in problem. Unfortunately add-ins are found within Trust Center. Running Outlook in safe mode doesn't seem to help.

OK this works: Solution (at least for now) - uninstall IE9. I did this by:

Windows Control Panel | Programs and Features | View Installed Updates

SelectWindows Internet Explorer 9. Click Uninstall.

If you try this always back up first! The system will need to restart in order to complete the process, so make sure you save any unsaved work.

PLEASE NOTE: I've moved this thread over onto PCDoc instead as it breaks my Vexentricity 'no tech' rule If you're still affected by this problem, please check for updates by following the link.

Like many writers I'm grappling with issues in regard to my 'transition' to the role of screenwriter. Several people have expressed confusion that, because I'm already a writer, switching to writing solely for the screen should be no big deal for me. I guess I can see where they are coming from. To me though, it is much harder.

I am still in the stages where I find writing for the screen challenging, if not difficult. It's said there are four stages of learning, from unconscious incompetence (where you have no idea what you need to know in a given subject), conscious incompetence (realizing you don't know what you're doing), conscious competence (you're starting to get the hang of things, but you still have to think carefully in order to do it), through to unconscious competence (it all comes naturally - you don't remember the steps, you're just dancing!)

I'm hovering in between those second and third stages. This nomansland is an uncomfortable place to be and the only way to get out is through learning and practice. This is what prompted me to say that I am going to switch (for a while at least) to writing solely for the screen. And that takes a lot of discipline especially when you're not comfortable in a given medium yet.

I get ideas for stories all the time and yet, as they come up, I'm finding it hard to commit to writing these in the medium of script. It feels like a waste of a story! There, I said it!

Of course, the choice of whether a particular story is best written as a prose or script should depend upon what best serves that story. My big vexation perhaps is that most of my stories are probably better suited to the former than the latter. Yet I know it will take dedication to progress further in this field. The price of a few stories still feels quite high!

I hope deciding to write ALL my stories as scripts will be good medicine when it comes to learning the craft. Even if it isn't what's best for the stories.

Yet!

Can a borderline aspie tech geek transform themselves into a sociable screenwriter?

Can it be done? I ask myself this a lot. Whilst I can say that I'm trying to do this, I have no idea if I can actually achieve it. Writing this is the first step of trying to change what most people would consider very fundemental aspects of personality and character.

Most people like me tend to find a 'spot' in life where they can stay safe and secure. I found mine along with my husband in writing tech books, designing and programming multimedia sites and developing and teaching technology courses. It was awesome. We achieved it all together. We were a great team. He then got a job elsewhere - who can blame him for taking a great opportunity when it came along? Eventually it was taking up all of his time leaving no time for our projects. I carried on alone but gradually felt more and more sidelined as his half of our last name became more known than mine. We still worked together of course, that has never changed, but I was more and more like his assistant. And yes, this grated a little, or more truthfully, a lot. Striking out on my own was frankly terrifying. But I had seen so many wives in my position just give up and become a permanent fixture in their husband's shadow. I remembered my own mother telling me that I had to do things differently to her and to the previous generations of women in my family. And I had to teach my daughters the same.

Out of the blue in 2009 I signed up to do a Masters degree in Screenwriting. I can honestly say that I do not know from where the impotus to do that came. It was something that was not on my radar. I have written articles outside of tech of course and I consider myself, like most geeks, to be a full-blown story junkie (which I've written under a pseudonym until quite recently). But I really had no idea where the idea to embark on a screenwriting course came from. That I was accepted onto the course was an even bigger surprise. But apparently working in one area of the media easily translates - at least on the surface - into other areas of the media. According to one staff member at the university I seemed like the right fit as screenwriting is a combination of technical writing and story. From my point of view of course it did not look nearly so cut and dried. Starting out I realised I had a vast chasm to cross. Two years later, I still do.

The first residential course in 2009 for me was a real trial and I baulked at the first fence. I didn't have enough personal understanding of why I was there, my social skills were rubbish and being in a foreign environment for long days was just too much for someone like me - I was suffering the social consequences of working via the internet and writing within a partnership for over a decade. I resolved to spend the next year working on my social skills, improving my fitness and learning more about the world of the arts - which felt like a vast chasm in its own right from my safe perch in the world of science and technology. I joined a gym, went out to undergraduate classes in literature and screenwriting run by my local university's extra mural studies department and I took Open University courses in Creative Writing.

I made it through my second run at the residential course (mostly by being blatently honest about the difficulties I'd had the year before and by explaining where I'd come from in the world of shut-in geekery). In the first year of my course I have worked on understanding the nature of writing for the screen, and I'm at the stage now of realising just how very much more there is to learn. During the year I've continued to work on my people skills to some degree, but again it seems like the more I learn the more I realise I need to know. I've taken courses through Raindance and attended the London Screenwriter's and Comedy Writer's Festivals. And now as I near the end of the year, I sense that I am that much closer to venturing into the world with a qualification in screenwriting and with some aspiration to use it.

Of course any form of writing is largely a solitary activity and I am comforted that nothing really changes in that aspect of my life. But working as a screenwriter means sitting at large conference tables in crowded rooms thrashing out ideas and storylines. Screenwriting is also in large part about networking, which means meeting and socialising with all kinds of cool, artistic people. These people have Macs (and not because they want to use them to compare operating systems or for testing; these people ONLY have Macs!) They eat at exotic restaurants, wear designer labels and name-drop furiously (how DO they remember SO many people, let alone their work and connections?) I'm not a social person. I find social occasions very stressful and, like most people with the same problem, I try to avoid them.

I ask myself often why the hell my brain is betraying me by choosing to go into a field that is in direct violation of the number one rule of socially inadequate geeks: avoid going into social situations, unless it's with other socially inadequate geeks.

I will be honest, at this stage I cannot imagine that I will ever be able to cope, let alone that this could ever come naturally enough to be a normal part of my life. But I also believe that I can change this. I am intelligent, great at analysing and very capable of learning new things. I have a lot of personal development skills that I've put to good use in getting to where I am already. So it should be possible!

Which brings me to my purpose for writing this. To ask the question of my fellow nerd-kind: can a tech geek become cool enough to work in tv and film?