Racing this time...
Bulofa, and welcome to the first post/chapter/missive/outpouring here at Hey, Writer Guy.
Bulofa, and welcome to the first post/chapter/missive/outpouring here at Hey, Writer Guy.
I guess introductions are called for, to get this show on the road. My full and given name is James Arthur Griffin which is, incredibly, also the exact same full name as the late-singer-songwriter, James Griffin, of the 1970’s soft-rock group Bread. Beyond this, however, we are/were completely different people.
My claim to fame, and why I’m doing this thing now, is that for coming up to 40 years, I have made my living as a screenwriter, here in Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s all I’ve ever done, since I left university with dreams of directing for the screen, only to discover that I was much happier sitting at a desk telling stories, than standing in a field at 6am telling a hundred people what to do next. Now I am incapable of doing anything but writing. I know this because every now and then I go on job-seeking websites, which only confirm what I know to be true.
Within this claim to fame lies, to me, a much bigger claim to fame: I have always been in employment. Sure, there have been times when I could afford not to be in employment and sought not to be employed, just for a bit, to have a rest. But even then, curse it, writing gigs would crop up and the natural born instinct of a writer (this one at least) is to never turn down a gig (except really bogus ones) in case you never get offered another gig ever again.
In what might be called the Griffaceous Era (or really not), I have created or co-created eight series for New Zealand television, plus one for Australian television that was actually a New Zealand show but don’t tell them that. I’ve written hundreds of hours of television drama and comedy and whatever we’re calling it these days where drama and comedy get mashed into the same show. Throw in a couple of films, a couple of plays and books on things like rugby and beer, and maybe you can see why I’ve always been busy. And employed, which is a good thing.
But it could have all turned out very differently.
I started writing TV by writing sketches with a comedian mate of mine, for a much-loved show called The Billy T James Show. The sketch-writing continued on to a show starring my mate and his other comedian mates called Funny Business. After doing enough time in the story mines of Shortland Street to know that a five-night-a-week serial drama was really not for me (except as fodder for the play what I wrote called Serial Killers) I got the chance to create my own show for TV. It was called Citylife. To say that it crashed and burned is an understatement to both crashing and burning. Afterwards I was informed that the biggest of the bigwigs at TVNZ at the time said I would never write for television again.
So, all those series and all those hours of television later, why now Hey, Writer Guy?
Because I’d like to think I’ve learnt a few things over the years, about the craft and the art of writing for the screen, and I hope there might be people interested in what I have to say. Plus, I have a few stories to tell, I reckon.
Hey, Writer Guy isn’t going to be a lesson-based thing. I’m not Robert McKee (although I do have a tale about me and Bob, but that’s for a later post). No, there are others way better than me at teaching screen-craft. Any lessons here will be: (a) accidental, by way of me talking about stuff I have learnt the hard way; or (b) incidental, as a result of me talking about the many huge mistakes I’ve made over the years.
Mind you, there is a hidden agenda at play here.
For twelve years, while I was busy doing my screen stuff, once a week, I would bash out a newspaper column for the Canvas magazine of the Weekend Herald. I could write about anything I wanted, I loved doing it and it paved the way for the Aussie series 800 Words. It was therapeutic and people seemed to like it and I miss it. And it is why this first post, like George’s column in 800, is precisely eight-hundred words.
So this is me, the writer guy from Outrageous Fortune Westside The Almighty Johnsons 800 Words Citylife Serial Killers Diplomatic Immunity Blue Rose Sione’s Wedding Sione’s Wedding: Unfinished Business Duckrockers and a whole bunch of other stuff, some of which I hope we will get to talk about in the fullness of time.
And on that note, it’s away we go.
Welcome aboard.