Two Days...

Yesterday's post: Long day -- got off plane, to hotel, showered and shaved and discovered that somewhere across the Atlantic my hair -- which was in need of some judicious cutting anyway -- had turned into a strange sort of sheepdoggy thing. Then up to Hensons offices to spend the afternoon in a very long, quite good meeting about the Mysterious TV Series, which may even have a name soon. All spare moments between now and Monday need to be spent writing the treatment for it and plots for the first four episodes. Dinner with Julian Crouch (who co-directed the astonishing Shockheaded Peter -- now with an American Cast in New York, and as I've said before here, anyone who likes creepy things should definitely go and see it), planning stuff for the Wolves In the Walls children's opera, which looks like it will be done by the Improbable Theatre Company in association with the National Theatre of Scotland -- Julian thinks it'll premiere in Scotland next March and probably open in London next July. Now we all just have to finish writing it, of course. In late June we'll workshop what we've done so far with actors -- quite possibly in the Shetlands. I'l report back as things happen.

Hotel has internet-of-a-sort in basement, but I can't get online with my own computer yet, so e-mails are probably unanswered. Oh well.

I'm just starting to notice that I actually have finished Anansi Boys, something which is beginning to make me very happy. I think it may even be a pretty decent book. I hope so.

(Stopped typing here because I realised I was so jetlagged I couldn't see straight. So saved the draft and slept, which was very sensible.)

Today's post: Spent the whole of today in talks about what Dave and I want to do after MirrorMask. Right now, after a day of solid talking, I think it's fair to say that we don't know, but that we have a pretty good idea of what we don't want to do, and a pretty good idea of what the options are. (I kept talking about how I want to do something Faustian, and talking about the way Faust themes through some of my favourite films, like All That Jazz, or Brazil, or even some of my not favourite films, like Svankmayer's Faust. Then we chatted about favourite films we hadn't mentioned. "Er, the original Bedazzled," I said. "That's Faust again," said Dave. Which may mean that I want to write something Faustian, and may mean that we'll wind up doing something quite different. But it was interesting.)

And from now until Sunday night, with a short break to work with Dave on the Signal to Noise film tomorrow afternoon, I'll be working on the Mysterious TV treatment.

...

Lots of messages from people asking about whether or not Matthew Vaughn's going to be directing Stardust. I like and respect Matthew very much and he wants to make Stardust more than anything (I wrote "make Stardust really badly" first and then realised that that could be misinterpreted). The rights to Stardust at this point are still controlled by me and Charles Vess. Currently, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for Matthew to survive directing X-Men 3 --what he tells me of the schedule ahead sounds pretty gruelling for all of them.