tim wright: digital writer

A Milestone

Last year I made it to 57, the age my Dad was when he died.  So now I'm in uncharted territory dad-wise, and I decided to write a poem about it:

I have crossed an invisible line
Whilst trudging up a hill, a Monroe.
I am now, right now, older than you
When you died.

An obvious target –
The lifespan of one’s father, the model
Of how long a man gets to be in this world.

It’s as far as I go -
Summiting early.

Beyond this marker, beyond the brow
Of the steep green slope
I puff on up and through.
What can I hope to see unfurled?

I’m expecting sod all -
Just another view.

You decided when to stop the clock
That now times me.
I stop to catch my breath in this thin air.
Every step now is new territory -
This my hill, these my rocks.
I bugger on at my own pace.

And at the top – what then?
I shall see something you never could:
Not just a view, not just an end
But a way down.

The small white dot of a safe haven
A town with roads, roofs, houses
And, perhaps, loved ones
Waiting for an old man
To come down the hill
Thinking of you still.
Not dead yet.

Busy Doing Nothing

I've not had much paying work for several months now. This generally happens to me every 5 years or so.

I work intensely on a new challenge for half a decade, usually inventing new formats and playing with new technologies, working with new people, imagining new storyworlds and/or designing & implementing interesting new processes and systems. And then... silence.

This last five years I've worked mainly at the National Film & Television School (NFTS) running and evolving a Diploma course on how to be a creative producer in the multiplatform entertainment space covering everything from Twitter to Netflix, from YouTube to VR, games to documentary and everything in between. I also helped the school to set up a National Centre for Immersive Storytelling.

And I spent over 2 years helping to devise, develop, finance and deploy the UEA's Future and Form digital literature programme - which also involved playing with a range of very new immersive and interactive tools and technologies, whilst working with writers, artists, creative technologists, producers and storytellers. 

Then last year, both jobs came to a natural end. The NFTS course couldn't attract enough students to make it viable. The immersive programme pivoted strongly toward virtual filmmaking - something I don't know enough about. Six Future and Form works were successfully delivered and exhibited in a number of places across East Anglia and online.

And then silence... The same silence that I endured in 2005/6 after XPT & Oldton, in 2011/12 after Kidmapped, Such Tweet & SWYWTH, and in 2015/16 after Footballers United and the Web Storybox.

Each time I've had to retreat into myself and try to work out the next new thing to do. This working out takes time and each time this happens I have to hold my nerve, hoping something will come - not least that some income will come.

Luckily for me, I seem to have the luck of meeting clever, supportive people who inspire me and each time so far something has turned up that tends to keep me busy for 4-5 years at a time - but it's a challenging time, this period of doing and earning next to nothing, as any freelance creative person will tell you.

It's around this time too that I always come back to my Typepad account and think about shutting it down, having not really used it for a while (I've had it since 2003). Instead I always end up deciding that it would be better if I used this damn thing rather than lose it. At least it gives me a reason to write again, or rather I can use it simply to exercise the writing muscle so that I don't get completely out of the habit. 

So yet again, I shall be aiming in the coming weeks to post more regularly - almost certainly using this space as an online notebook to sketch out some ideas, get some stuff out of my head and see if something comes of it. (Yes I know people use Medium or Substack to do this these days, but since I'm paying for Typepad and I'm not really seeking out an audience or community right now, I don't feel I have to go there)

I guess this is also a weak attempt at trying to market myself in some way - remind people, if you will, that I exist and can still be useful. So if you're reading this and think you could use my brain for something or are attracted to any of the ideas I hope to throw out there, do get in touch. Perhaps you know what the next five years of busyness holds for me?

In the meantime, enjoy watching this space where I intend to be busy doing nothing. Happy New Year!