what's happening

update april 2005

Jeff Noon

Hi there.

I’ve been busy working on two screenplays, one based on my last novel, Falling Out Of Cars. The working title for the film is The Noise. The first draft is now done, and I’m preparing to start the second draft, under the keen eye of the producers, Tall Stories. Been getting some really good reactions to the first draft. It’s been interesting, pulling a more obvious narrative from the novel, and then expanding that into a filmic landscape. Some of the scenes that I felt sure would be in the film, in fact were never used, or have already been rejected from the first draft. During the writing process, a whole other story started to emerge, about Marlene, and what’s really up with her. So the film would be a psychological thriller, along the lines of Alfred Hitchcock, say, but dealing with the up to date concept of information overload. The second draft beckons.

The other screenplay I’ve been working on has a working title of Dusk. This is a speculative script, nearing first draft completion. It’s just a question of finding time in between the paying projects. Can say no more as yet, because the project is still in a very liquid form, therefore, subject to change, but I’m hoping to get it finished in the next few months.

Basically, I’ve set aside some time from writing novels, to try and get established as a scriptwriter. (But see below for further book news.)

Meanwhile, I’ve finished the first draft of a radio play called Dead Code. I’m waiting for reactions to that from the people at Radio 3’s The Wire spot. If all goes well, the play will be broadcast later this year. It’s set a few years after the end of the digital age, and deals with a group of people seeking out the ghosts of lost information. Keep tuned for that one.

All three of the above projects were written, or are being written, using a new creative process that I’ve been working on for a number of years now. It’s a more considered and extended version of the way I naturally work, along with lots of new ideas and concepts. I became aware that I was producing narratives in way entirely different from most other writers, especially the whole stew of modern Hollywood movies and their attendant script gurus, with this must happen on page thirty, this on page ninety, and so on. But also, when reading interviews with novelists, hardly any of them seemed to working in the same way as me. (I’ve always suspected that I might be an alien being!) Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to try and formulate what I was doing a little, and the idea grew from there, and spiralled out into about sixty pages of notes. The method works for any narrative, whether film, novels, poems, plays, etc. It works on mainstream and avant garde texts, anything that involves a story of some kind. If any of the works produced by the new process become successful, then I’ll think about publishing the details of the method.

Of the Vurt film, all has gone silent at the moment. Don’t hold your breath.

The one other project I’ve been working on, with Steve Beard, is the book of Mappalujo. This has a working title of The Skull Garden, but I suspect that will change. Steve works fulltime in London, so it’s a slow process, but the book is finally nearing completion. There are four interlinked stories (Night Blossom Avenue, Starlight Hill, Apparition Park, and Palace of Shadows) all set in the mythical city of Lujo. We’re now working on the book as a whole, finalising the overall structure, and polishing the moments. So, this will be my (our) next book. I can’t wait. All we have to do now, is find a publisher willing to take on such a strange entity.

Many thanks for your continued interest in my work.

Regards,
Jeff.