ON BEING A TV WHORE

In a case of life imitating bad art, I’ve started working as a TV writer. In my novel ‘I Love My Smith & Wesson’, a really low-concept unthrilling caper-mystery if ever there was one, my alter-ego Billy Dye got hired to write a TV show by a company called Granada –a company that actually exists. In the book, I implied that Granada was an outfit full of talentless wankers who only made useless TV shows. As if to prove me right, they’ve now hired me to write a useless TV show of my own. I think this is rather generous of them . The money is so much better than, well, no money at all, which is what I’ve  made as a novelist. It also threatens to revolutionalise the way I write future novels, because these TV bastards won’t let you make it up as you go along. Instead, they insist that you work out the whole story in advance.  A completely new discipline for me, but one that will undoubtedly help my future books. Stephen King once wrote that it was anal to work out a story in advance, but I tend to think that explains why so many of his books –with honorable exceptions –don’t end as much as die sad, lonely deaths.  The basic situation in Britain right now is that everyone working in TV knows that the best TV shows all come from the states. But no one quite has the courage to reproduce the energy and daring of the shows they admire –most of which seem to be made by HBO. I’ve pitched Rawhead to a few British producers -I can envisage how Rawhead could be a wandering hitman, like an evil version of Caine in ‘Kung Fu’, ruining a different life each week. But people seem a little uncomfortable with this concept. Ironically, the first book of mine to hit the screen will be ‘From Stockport With Love’ –probably my least Rawhead-like effort so far. It’s my script, and all my own work, and I’m proud of it –but my heart lies with guns and monsters and graves, not ordinary decent people, struggling with their ordinary fucking lives!