Heading off the beaten track...

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I came across that quote for the first time earlier this year. When I first heard it (it may have been in an episode of The Blacklist), it resonated. But it resonated in that way that some quotes do, where you feel like they apply to you, but they really don't. "Yeah, I'm a pioneer, I go my own way." Actually, I write TV shows and movies, and sometimes I get to direct them, and that does not in any way equate to pioneering anything.

This is the game I have been playing for my entire adult life. I have an idea and I pitch it to a bunch of different companies until, hopefully, someone bites. Or I get approached to offer my take on some subject matter and hopefully that take is appreciated and it ends up as a job. I get paid to write whatever-it-is and, ninety nine times out of a hundred, the thing does not get made. There's a perfectly good living to be made doing this, less so the past few years but the opportunities still exist.

What did you do with your life? "I wrote dozens and dozens of scripts that never got made, but it paid for some really nice holidays." There are certainly worse ways to account for yourself at the pearly gates, and far less interesting ways to make a living, but it doesn't sound great, does it? And, thirty years in, it doesn't always feel great either.

But there's a sunk cost fallacy that is hard to shake. I have invested all this time, what if recognition/success/a fortune/an Oscar could be just around the corner?

This is not a resignation letter. As far as the film and television industry is concerned, I'm not going anywhere (bad luck, guys). If anything, it is a realisation letter.

Recently, I was asked to pitch a version of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". I loved the story as a kid (it made me want to be a marine biologist for most of my time at school), and so I went back to the book, identified the issue with the story (the issue with the story is that it doesn't really have one), fixed the issue in movie terms (make the characters want something), and worked up a pitch.

The vision of the movie I delivered really excited me. It kept the Victorian period setting but it modernised the sensibilities and it delivered a proper old-fashioned adventure with a shit-ton of jaw-dropping undersea wonder.

This is not a story about studio people being idiots. The people I was pitching to are really smart, but they work within a particular ecosystem and they have a solemn responsibility to pay wages and keep the lights on. They really liked my version of the story, but they were certain they could not sell it upwards. What the powers-that-be were looking for was not the life-changing adventure story full of awe and wonder, they wanted a contemporary setting for the story; the Nautilus smashing through aircraft carriers and oil rigs, and big action set-pieces that would play on Netflix on a Friday night. No one wants Jaws right now, they want Jaws 3.

Around the same time as I was preparing that pitch, I was making notes for a possible fifth season of my audio show The Lovecraft Investigations. My inner critic was having a well-trained Pavlovian response to some of the ideas; "They won't let you do that." And I almost fell for it, because I'm so used to that voice being right. But in that work, there is no "they". No one is looking over my shoulder. That has always been true, even when it was a BBC show, because the Radio 4 people really don't involve themselves in the development process at all. But the trade-off has always been enhanced creative freedom in return for much less money. Like, not-enough-to-live-on money when you're working in audio drama. But we had just done a big crowd fund for our Crowley season and, while I hadn't personally profited from that because I was just testing the water, the possibility now existed that there might be a way to make my own show the way I wanted to make it AND get paid. And MAKE the show, rather than just come up with an idea for something that doesn't go anywhere.

Getting paid is better than not getting paid. Making stuff is better than not making stuff. But in film and television, it is easier to get paid for not making stuff than it is to get paid for making stuff. For basic economic reasons, my career to date has largely been built on getting paid to not make things. But how will it feel to look back and acknowledge that I have spent the lion's share of my career in development?

This question sat with me for a few weeks, while I got on with the business of pitching more ideas and figuring out which movie idea I was going to write next. It more than sat with me, actually, it started to germinate, because I created the Pure Hokum website in that time, and wrote about the notion HERE. But it was notional and I probably wouldn't really do that much about it...

And then this week I went to see Nik Bartsch Ronin play in London. For those who don't know, Nik Bartsch Ronin exist somewhere in the space between contemporary jazz (if Ian Martin is reading this, hang in there, Ian) and zen-funk (hang in there everyone else). The music is amazing, but it kind of washes over you and allows for a lot of free-form thinking. Here's an example, so we all understand what I'm talking about...

So I'm sitting there in the dark, watching and listening to the band, and my mind starts to drift onto big questions about life, the universe, and everything. And I realise that what I'm watching on that stage is a group of musicians who did not audition to be here, who did not wait for permission to do what they do. They're not chasing trends, or asking themselves "What is the musical equivalent of a Jack Reacher novel?", they're just doing the thing they want to do and, crucially, they're only playing for the people who want to hear them. Nik Bartsch now owns his own club in Zurich, and he plays there every week, so he has also created a space for people who like what he does to come and gather and listen (if you build it, they will come). That has to be a better model for him than to sit down and try to come up with hit singles for other people to play?

Halfway through the gig, I had quit the film and TV industry completely. I spent the second half talking myself into a more sensible compromise. I don't actually need to cut my nose off, I just need to refocus slightly. That which had been a side-hustle; the audio work, the universe-building, becomes the main hustle. And it does that because time and effort and focus exerted there could build something really interesting that also pays the bills (if you build it, they will come). The film and TV work, which has been the main hustle for my whole adult life, becomes the side hustle. Which is not to say I spend less time on it, but that when I wake up in the morning, I am no longer prioritising film and television and squeezing a bit of audio in if I have a moment; the priorities flip: audio/world-building first, ideas for movie pitches if there is time. But the day's satisfaction rests on accomplishment in the former, not the latter.

Obviously if I have been hired to write something, that takes priority, but on days where whatever I'm doing is speculative, the Pure Hokum stuff takes the lead.

And this is where there is no path. Other people have built story worlds, other people have had hit audio shows, other people have crowdfunded their work. But no one did it the same way twice. In film and television, there are well-worn routes to the top. They're not easy to navigate, and there are plenty of obstacles, but there are signposts. Where Pure Hokum is heading is into unknown territory, and I think that is why I have resisted it up until now. It MIGHT work, but it might not. And I might not even be able to read the signs or follow where they're pointing.

But at this stage, it seems preferable to try the new thing, and to put proper effort into it, than to continue along a road that might occasionally run through some interesting places but that could, ultimately, lead nowhere.

And so that is me, today. Heading off into the unknown. If I find anything out there, I'll try to leave a trail.