The coat is back!  Yes, I know, big whoop.  (As they said in the Nineties, for about a week.)  A lady took it from the pub thinking it was hers, and returned it a few minutes after I left.  We may draw three conclusions from that data point.  1: it was always most likely going to have been a mistake, most people being honest.  2: yesterday's emotional connections and big reaction now seem even more ridiculous and tiny.  3: I have a coat that might be taken for that of a lady.

Let me take a moment to mention the This Time Next Year Game. We've had loads of entries, but seek loads more, and there are now only six days left in which to enter. The idea is, there's a list of 30 things (mostly fannish ones) in the year to come for you to bet on the outcomes of, so everyone starts from a place of equal ignorance, and this time next year we'll have a winner.

We're still without Laurie Pink today, who's taking the weekend off to gird her loins for the final sprint to the finish next week.  But we once again have new festive music, this time from my old friends Golau Glau, who are making a name for themselves in the electronica community, and have recently also been championed by Warren Ellis. Go here for a free download of their six track Christmas EP The Masque of Bruma, which includes their versions of the Coventry Carol and 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen'.  Thank you, GG.

Today I'd like to talk about being starstruck.  This is a word we now only use in what was originally a punning way, because it used to mean having a bad time of it because of the astrological influences on one's life.  'I'm a bit starstruck' used to mean 'I'm having one of those days'.  And for a lot of us it still means that.

When it happens to me, I'm terribly ashamed of it.  I used to get rather flustered around the author Geoff Ryman, because his prose and literary hugeness (and actual hugeness, he's about eight feet tall) are things I aspire to (bit late for me and the actual hugeness).  I think he wondered, at conventions, why I would gabble and run away.  So, and I think this was deliberate on his part, he took me off for a walk around a town where we were at a convention together, and kind of talked me down from my nerves, to the point where we could have a normal conversation.  These days, I think of him as one of the kindest people I know, a good friend.  We've spectacularly lost a TV quiz show together, even.  There's a little of the same effect with me and Justina Robson, only that manifests itself in quite a different way, and is still actually the case.  With Justina, whose work I also admire, I'll be able, initially, to be fine, chatty, sociable.  But gradually, and I think this is because Justina keeps up a bit of a poker face, I wilt before that calm coolness, and start to apologise. For everything I've ever done.  Neil Gaiman, as if so attuned to creating this effect (and, I think, hating that he does so and desiring normality, one of his most endearing traits) that he anticipates it, started talking me down from the moment we met, and so we got to relating in a straightforward way pretty quickly.

But it's very rarely this happens with writers.  (I can hear various others I know going 'I notice he didn't mention me!'.)  I know what being a writer is like, I know where our weaknesses lie, and I know absolutely that whatever writer I'm talking to, they'll have experienced a particular sort of writer wretchedness in their life.

It's bloody actors.

If you've been in any sort of drama or comedy, it seems I'm going to deal with you in a weird way.  And I hate it.  Hattie Hayridge, very down to earth and sweet: slight awkwardness at a party.  Lisa Bowerman, oh come on, I created that character, I know her voice and I write for it, I should feel very comfortable with her: never entirely settled.  Billie Piper, perhaps the nicest person on the face of the Earth: I can't recall a single useful or dignified word that ever came out of my mouth in her company.

I was once hanging out with a brilliant, funny bunch of youngsters, and was then told they were in Hollyoaks, a show I have no knowledge of.  I froze up instantly.  It works on a quantum level!  

It's true that I'm vastly aware of body language, that working out a lot about a person, pretty quickly, is one of only three skills I have in life (the other two being buying apt presents for people and, you know, the writing). Actors project a sort of field that gets in the way of it.  (I knew there was something about those Hollyoaks people.) Writers are looking inward all the time, finding the world there. Actors are looking out, at other people.  And the more experienced they get, the more intense that gets. When I meet an actor, it's like they grab me and start yelling at me.  Having a cup of tea with Colin Baker (charming) made me want to hide under a table.

When I've interacted with casts making my work, such as the young actors of Wavelength or those in Pulse, I've just made myself talk simply and directly to them.  I think maybe the (slight) authority of my position let me do that.  A writer won't, as a rule, be saying anything useful to actors in a TV show, that's the director's job, but if you're going to be doing a long run together (which is why I mention those two cases), actors want to look you in the eye, and ask you questions at lunch, and generally work out if they can trust you.  They have their own weaknesses and doubts, and don't know what the inside of a writer's head is like, and it worries them.  That's natural, and they deserve to have a real person talking back to them.  On my radio plays with Nadia Molinari, such a comfortable, secure atmosphere is built up (those sound-baffling womblike studios) that my nerves are quite defused.  (But still, being asked about lines by Sir Antony Sher... err, I know these meant something when I wrote them...)

I do think setting has a lot to do with this syndrome.  I never really understood myself as being part of the class system until I started visiting BBC Television for the purposes of work.  I'm still not sure where I am on that spectrum now (upper middle, I think), but I do know I rarely felt the same as the people I met there.  I felt wrongly dressed, with the wrong accent.  (Kim Newman calls the way that West Country voices are reserved for the evil and the stupid in British media 'the silence of the wurzels'. But I'm hardly the most wurzel of folk.)  People who sounded like they'd never left Chelsea (or the Chelsea bit of whatever town we were in) would tell me that writing characters who spoke like my Dad was 'patronising'.  Perhaps 'geek' is a class of its own.  But this was all a long time ago.  And I should say that, amongst all that, I also made some life-long friends at the BBC, people who've gone out of their way to make me feel comfortable and try to help me produce my best work.

The worst case scenario for my starstruckness is, of course, Doctor Who.  It's easy enough when you pop down to visit an episode being filmed.  There's almost a routine to that.  You watch a couple of scenes being performed, have lunch with an exec you know, say hello to the actors, off home.  Social gatherings, a bit harder.  David Tennant is very proactive, he'll come up and introduce himself to you. Which makes the person whose hand is being shaken tend to say 'I know who you are.'  (I've always wondered if that's where Russell got that line.) But that's not the usual case.  Cast members are usually great, but you're the one who's going to have to make the effort to get to know them.  I view with awe, and some small jealousy, people like Gary Russell, who every day get to, in a lovely fashion, tell people he grew up being a fan of what to do.

People who are both writers and actors deal, I think, a lot better with this whole business.  I suspect Mark Gatiss (whose work I adore and who is a truly lovely gentleman, but who, despite having been at dinner with him several times, I've never really felt I was talking sensibly too, and so, horribly, tend to run away from) at the very start of his career, decided that he was going to play the part of someone who felt comfortable amongst all these famous people, and so has projected that ever since, and probably now simply is. (Writers who are also actors, directors or producers do seem to prosper in television, not just because of being able to vault over the effect I've described, but mostly because they're in tune with the technical aspects.)

I have on occasion attempted to leap this barrier.  And it's never worked.  At Moffat's party the other night, I wanted to thank my host for a tremendous evening, went over to do so, and discovered Matt Smith right beside him.  (Not just 'Matt', obviously, I'm referring to him by his full name, it's like those fans who kidnap Peter Davison in that comedy sketch.)  So I didn't manage, having shaken Moffat's hand, to turn to Matt and say 'good evening, I don't think we've met, and now I'm on my way home, I'm Paul, and this is my wife, who would love to meet you, and will probably yell at me in a minute if that doesn't happen'.  No.  Instead I make a sort of strangled gurgle, duck out of his eyeline and haul my wife through the exit door as if we're leaping from a plane.

I do think that being able to hold a reasonable conversation with them is how actors decide whether or not you're a professional person.  This must be especially true of those who work in genre stuff, shows which people are fans of.  I think perhaps they look at the person in front of them, and gauge whether that person themselves feels worthy of addressing them in a professional way.  Me thinking that, of course, makes all this a billion times worse.

So what's all this about?  I used to think I just got very nervous dealing with people who had the power to make a big difference to my future, and that's been slightly true of my interactions with a few publishers and editors, but in those cases I tend to get over it relatively quickly.  Part of it is that I've been programmed from a young age to be a Doctor Who fan, but people who are actually bigger fanboys than I am have delighted in their easy interaction with, and creative direction of, that cast.  Some of it is that, when I was much younger, I was horribly arrogant and drunken in TV circles, did some rotten things and made a fool of myself, and those memories have never quite left me.  They make me feel I don't deserve to be there.  Russell Davies once told me that, actually, none of this matters, that it's just about the work, and that's probably true. He would always sigh at my moments of wavering, as if that was something he'd banished from himself, but knew of, and didn't like to see anyone suffering from.  It could be said that some of us geeks aren't the most socially-aware animals (surely not!), but in a purely bookish or just people down the pub crowd, I'm a very social person.  And put me on a stage... well, I've gone onstage with actors, and seen them suddenly work me out.  Oh, right, the one who won't look me in the eye in the green room, but whose volume gets turned up to eleven as soon as there's an audience.  I know actors like that.

Perhaps, horribly, this is about self doubt.  I don't think that's a bad trait in a writer.  You need self doubt to edit yourself, and to agree with others when they edit you.  (You need confidence too, though, in precisely equal measure.)  As Khalil Gibran said, 'a seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence?'  From a certain point of view, it often seems like every step one takes towards being a better writer leads one to believe less in one's own ability.  One of the very best I know (Moffat), once told me he doesn't believe in ability at all, just in hard work.  And that seems very sensible.  That is, after all, something one can control, and I think one can take confidence from having worked as hard as one can.

Because I've thought (yes, internal Russell, too much) about this, it always amazes me when someone gets starstruck around me (yes, it has happened), because how likely is that?  It's lovely for about a moment, and then, and I think everyone reacts the same way to it, one desperately wants to make that person feel as comfortable as possible.  I suspect that, for huge movie stars, the sheer difficulty of that move must be a source of constant sadness.  Can you imagine being very famous and single, for example?  Just where are you going to meet anyone sane with the sheer balls to chat you up?  One of the worst things one can do is to try to anticipate and rule out one's own starstruckness by going straight to matey rudeness.  'It's you, you old hack!'  is utterly acceptable amongst old friends, completely out of the question for strangers.  (And if I've had so many variations on that, can you imagine what it's like for the truly well known?)  Sometimes that approach is a misjudged defence mechanism, sometimes, I think, it's a sort of unconscious protest at being made to feel that way, a declaration that they're as good as you are, damn it.  (Without them understanding that the person they're talking to probably never felt above them in the first place.)  Simple politeness is the best way to deal, I find. 'Hello, enter first name here (not Mr or Mrs or Sir or Ma'am), a pleasure to meet you, I really liked that thing you did, what are you working on at the moment?'  (Nobody is ever arrogant enough to assume you should know.)

So perhaps I should try to hold on to my starstruckness, in some small, internal way... no, if I ever find a way to get rid of it I'll go with that immediately.  I've got a nativity play on Christmas Eve, and I want to be able to look six year old Joseph in the eye.

As always in the 12 Blogs, today we're again featuring a creator telling us what they're going to be up to over the festive season.  Today it's a Ms. Sarah Pinborough, who writes...

'Over Christmas I shall be spending some quiet time alone and reflecting on the year past and the year ahead, and maybe sipping the occasional sherry as I contemplate life, the universe and everything.  And if you believe that then shame on you!  Actually I've got a book deadline on Christmas Eve (Ooooh, those mean publishers) so I'll be working up until then, but Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I shall spend with my parents and sister - there will be a lot of alcohol - we function better as a family unit under the influence. Between Christmas and New Year I shall be visiting friends for various drinks and nibbles arrangements - there will be a lot of alcohol - we function better as friends under the influence.  Then on New Year's Eve I shall be in London somewhere as yet undecided with the new BF - there will be a lot of alcohol - we function better as.... Oh, I'm sure you get the drift.  So, Merry Christmas, everyone.  Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow tentacled aliens may invade the planet and use us for food.  Or something.'

And she included the following image.


Hmm, she's trying to tell us something, but it's a little too subtle for me.

Phew, we're halfway there!  Tomorrow, I'll be doing a Ten Things blog covering several interesting things coming up from friends of mine.  Until then, Cheerio!