Two snarling cliches about writers have been flung in my face over the past 40 years - anyone who writes about music wants to be in a band, and every writer has a screenplay in the drawer.
I started writing about music shortly after birth, and at last count, I had written 127 million words on the subject. Not for one single second have I ever wanted to be in a band. I just like to watch.
A screenplay was similarly scorned until about six years ago. I think it was the fact everyone else had one in their drawer which finally sent me down this overly-trodden path.
I remember staying with a Baptist minister when I was in Los Angeles in 1984. I told him he was the only person I had met in the city who wasn't chasing an entertainment deal.
He went over to his drawer and pulled out a screenplay for a follow-up to Parent Trap. He had a lifelong obsession with Hayley Mills.
I suspect even our electricity meter reader has written one.
So, now I have a screenplay in my drawer. It was on top of the desk for a while because I was proud of it, but I soon realised it belonged in the drawer.
I then bought a flurry of fixit books. Story, by Robert McKee, was absorbing, deep and meaningful, the bible of the craft. But trying to fathom absorbing, deep and meaningful has never got me anywhere.
I preferred How To Write A Movie In 21 Days by Viki King. It reduced everything to bullet points and a mathematical formula, but sadly, that's what movies are.
And I went to a screenwriting workshop presented by a woman from, yes, Los Angeles, who talked about the importance of subtle sound. We were down at the old Teachers' College, and she made us all close our eyes and listen.
She explained how that distant rumbling of inclement weather could suggest an ominous event was about to occur. ODT columnist Peter Entwisle, in the very front row, pointed out it was a digger working the quarry across the road.
After all the reading and the thrilling workshop, I rewrote my screenplay completely and sent it off to a couple of prime movers. I won't tell you the idea, because ideas are gold, but I can tell you a famous country singer is pivotal.
Such are the vagaries of screenwriting, you are not allowed to mention famous peoples names, so I will just call her ***. The idea began with a slightly famous country singer, ***, whom I actually knew.
Then it was explained to me that the country star would have to be much bigger to get investment money. So I changed to ***, who Southern Prime Mover actually knew. Recently, the second *** faded from the picture. So now the asterisks are ironic.
But last week, Auckland Prime Mover, the one who periodically rings me and shouts down the phone - Let's make this sucker! - sent me an email. It was short and succinct, dripping with colossal promise.
‘‘Have just made contact with a guy in Los Angeles who manages *** and ***. . .''
OK, I can let these two out - *** is the Eagles, and *** is Guns n' Roses.
‘‘. . . and who knows everyone in the business and is now making films hand over fist with huge financial backing.''
Prime Mover Auckland wanted a treatment, so with the help of a collaborator, whom I had brought aboard because of an intelligence I can only describe as Vulcan - she immediately flushed the swill and foppery in my original script down the khazi - I lashed together a 700-word synopsis.
And now, six years on - Lord of the Rings took 17 - the screenplay is back on top of the desk. And I'm forming a band.
- Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
