I made three New Year’s resolutions last year, which, in retrospect, were unusual for resolutions, in that they weren’t actually anything I had full control over.  They were: to get a new novel published; to get my own television series commissioned, and to write at least one issue of an American comic.  

I got quite close with all of them, and all the ‘quite closes’ remain ongoing, so I’ve decided I’m just going to keep all three of them for this year.  Plus, I’ve added a fourth, which I am in charge of: bringing my weight down to 85kg, which, if not the Full Peter Jackson, will still be a bit of a haul.  Faringdonians are already used to seeing me pacing with my pedometer: all the way to the Old Barn and back is still only 5000 paces or so.  

The status of the Original Resolutions is as follows: I’m 40,000 good words or so into the new novel, which my lovely new agent is waiting for me to finish before he attempts to sell it.  The 40,000 words keep changing, of course, as I keep having new ideas and writing them down on small pieces of paper.  It’s called Chalk, and it’s the story of a boy growing up in Wiltshire in 1982, with all the bloodthirsty magic and suffering that naturally goes along with that.  It’s me finally getting the courage together to write my obvious novel about bullying, the glory of outsiderness, and hyper-vigilance.  (That’s a name for my default state of mind, where I anticipate trouble on a much more distant radar horizon than one really should.)  There are two narratives, adult today and child in the past, and each chapter is basically one intense memory forcing its way up into the present.  I will finish that this year.  

Then there’s the television show: I’ve been working with a wonderful pair of BBC bods, Diederick Santer, who produced Cutting It, a couple of the recent Shakespeares, and now Jane Eyre, and script editor Catherine Moulton, who’s on every third TV show at the moment,  on something that right now is called Super.  A new draft to exec specifications was sent up to the higher floors of the BBC just before Christmas, and we’ll have several weeks to wait before hearing if we’ve got it.  It’s my girl superhero show for Saturday night: lots of comedy, adventure for all the family.  I met Diederick, who I’d known briefly in the old days of LWT, in the ‘green room’ at that huge, very bad Doctor Who convention, Panopticon, last time it was on.  He’d blagged his way in and was grazing on the buffet, a dandy as always in his cutting edge fashions.  (You know, that so sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but I’m not!) We started having regular pitch meetings at which we’d mostly just talk about old TV, but, after a few false starts, we found an idea we wanted to run with, and Super is it.  I hope it goes to series, because not only is it the TV show I’ve always wanted to write, but working with those two, between long chats and many cups of tea, is an absolute joy.  The friendliness comes out of the professionalism, I think.  They’re both so good at their jobs that it’s okay if we spend a few minutes talking about The A-Team.

And in the field of comics, thanks to an introduction furnished by the lovely Mark Millar, I showed my Doctor Who episode to a charming editor at Marvel.  He asked me if I’d like to have a go at doing a new mini-series about an old character, and I’ve pitched a couple of drafts of a plot to him.  (I’m being a little vague here, because we haven’t had a conversation about what levels of secrecy Marvel require.)  We’ve also talked about artists, and I’m excited about some of the names that have come up.  Marvel are tremendously welcoming to new talent, with a development officer called Ruwan who is very courteous and helpful.  And so self-deprecating that he could be British.  Let’s hope that happens.  (The series, I mean, not Ruwan becoming British.)

Apart from that, I’m currently in the middle of a script for the first season of a new BBC adventure series, for which I’m writing episode three.  That’s a hell of a lot of fun.  I’m talking to various indie production companies about some very exciting future projects.  And there are a few more cool things.  Including the online Tales of Faringdon, which I’m hoping might make a book down the line.

Caroline, meanwhile, will hopefully gain her Doctorate this Summer, and will then be setting off into the world of vicar training.  I’m hoping she’ll make Archbishop, because then we get, well, a palace.  

85 kilos, eh?  There are some very tasty crispbreads around these days.  So they tell me.