CreaTOM.

Hello. Welcome to my first blog in TOO LONG.

Why have I not done any for a while? Part of the reason is that my personal circumstances have left me feeling quite creatively numb. I've only really worked hard on one project - I wrote a song, recorded it, filmed a music video... but it just was not how I wanted it to be. I have put that on hold, because it got to the stage where I had put hundreds of pounds into it, as well as hours and hours of my time, but not got a piece of work that I was happy with. It makes sense to put that idea to one-side for the time being. I'll come back to it one day, but I can't get anywhere with it right now, so I am moving on to other ideas I could pursue.

The idea I am most excited about is one I have only started thinking about recently. I'd love to write a superhero novel about a depressed superhero. Superheroes are always really confident, they always put everyone else first, risking their lives to save strangers from burning buildings, that sort of thing. I want to write a story about a superhero who has days where he hates everything, including the people in the burning buildings; even including the fact he has superpowers. A dark comedy about a human with superpowers; a human who may, for example, fail to save a sinking ship because he fancied having a lie-in that day, or isn't concerned about the fact a teenager has been kidnapped because he is absorbed by the sadness of being dumped the week beforehand. One who sometimes snaps and kills people, just because he can. I'm going to have to give it some thought and work out how evil I want him to be; I want him to at least be fine with killing bad guys. As much as I love many superhero films, I hate the fact that many of the superheroes can see an evil character kill 100s of innocent civilians, yet they'll still refuse to kill the villains because "murder isn't right".

Another thing I am working on is a short-story I have been hired to write about a moose. I am unsure how much I can reveal about it online, but it's exciting to be hired, quite frankly!

Coming up in July, myself and my good friend Hayley Carr will be embarking on our own personal "Project Create"; the premise, basically, is that you spend a month creating something every single day. It doesn't matter how small, you just make sure you are creative each day. I am going to try and update you all on my progress day-by-day; with this in mind, I have decided I will try and make a checklist. This means that the 30 days has some variety, while also forcing me to do things I haven't done in ages, instead of being able to fall back on saying "oh, today I wrote more words of a story"... So, in July, I will try to:

1. Write a short story

It has been too long since I last did this. The last one I wrote was for a birthday present in January; since then, I have barely considered writing a new one. I will try to rectify this in July.

2. Write a poem

I haven't written poetry...for years. I guess I have mainly focused on comedic ideas, and poetry is rarely associated with the comedy genre - apart from the "anti-comedy" works of the likes of Tim Key. 

3. Write some stand-up

Pretty predictable, I guess...some people will probably say "what?! Do you not write stand-up all the time?" ...I wish I did. I really do. I have noted down funny ideas recently (within the last couple of days), but I haven't actually sat down and thought "right, let's write some stand-up" for a long time.

4. Write some of the superhero story

Not much more to say about this one.

5. Record a podcast

Dan, this is important!

6. Record a new YouTube video

I've also been slack with this. I need to get a new video up on YouTube.

7. Do a stand-up gig

To test bits of the new material, ideally. I haven't gigged - once again - for too long. 

So, there we go. After a long period of me not creating anywhere near as much as I would have liked, you are going to have too much of my creativity in July, if all goes to plan.