Long time readers of this blog will know that I’ve been looking back at my diaries from ten years ago, during the filming of Robot Overlords. Some of the diary entries you’ll see are the ones featured in the back of the film’s novelisation (and if you want a signed and dedicated copy of the paperback, then please step this way and click here). But this one is exclusive to this blog and has never been seen before…
I had just returned from a family holiday in Spain and, having seen a rough cut of the film and finished the first draft of the novelisation, I was raring to get back and see what I’d missed. And it all started with a meeting at Orion House…
Wednesday 29th August, 2013
Great meeting today with Piers (Tempest, producer), Gillian Redfearn (my editor at Gollancz) and Jen McMenemy (Gollancz marketing manager). Lots of exciting stuff we can do for the book and the film. Piers showed us the Toronto (Film Festival) sales trailer — very exciting — and let slip that thanks to SBK (Sir Ben Kingsley) we might have a Prince’s Trust Premiere! That would be an incredible launch.
Stayed behind with Gillian to run through her edit notes. I’ve got a good idea of what to attack next. She’s very good. It’s like having a co-writer. Great objectivity.
To say that Gillian Redfearn is ‘very good’ is like saying Pele was quite handy with a football. I knew that Gillian had edited some of my favourite authors at Gollancz, and they were fulsome in their praise of her, but this was my first time being edited and I had no idea I was getting the Rolls Royce treatment. There were 4440 comments and changes (I still have the Word doc… let me know if you’d be interested in seeing it!). A perfect blend of suggestions, encouragement, compliments and Joyce Grenfell-like moments of, ‘No, Mark, don’t do that.’ And she was always the eye of the reader, not only pointing out moments of potential confusion, but demanding more of me and making me a better writer. Gillian basically taught me how to write a novel with her edit and I shall always be grateful for that incredible experience.
We didn’t get a Prince’s Trust premiere in the end, and more excited hyperbole was to come, but more of that later…
Mark Stay Writes 