Well, it’s a difficult question to answer, because
clearly whether or not I write for the TV show is not up to me. It’s not as
if they’ve asked and I’ve turned them down! And whilst it is clearly intended
as a compliment, it’s difficult not to also take it as a criticism. It’s the equivalent of saying to a singer, ‘You’re
really good at singing, why aren’t you at number one?’
Thing is, I’m bloody proud of all my work in
books, audios and comics, and I don’t consider them to be second-best to the TV
show. I work hard, I put in lots of effort, and I wouldn’t
do that if I thought I was wasting my time. I do it because I know there are
readers and listeners out there who, like me, care a great deal about how well-written something is.
Of course – it totally goes without saying – I would love to
write for the TV show. It would be lovely to have a larger audience, and more
money, and to be able to spend months honing a script to perfection through multiple drafts (other writers sometimes moan about that sort of thing, I’d
consider it a luxury). But it’s not in my gift. The fact of the matter is,
Steven Moffat either a) is not in a position to commission writers with little
broadcast TV experience or b) thinks that if I was commissioned, I would not be
up to the task. Or, most likely, c) both.
Both of which are entirely understandable and reasonable
things, about which I have no complaint. I know how these things work. And
whilst I may find it hard to disagree with people when they tell me that something
that I wrote is better than something that was on TV, as far as
the people who decide who writes Doctor
Who on TV are concerned, they are commissioning the very best scripts from
the very best writers available.
Now, of course, given the opportunity, I think I would do a damn good
job. What I may lack in experience I would more than make up for in enthusiasm
and effort; there is not, I think, a human being alive on this planet who would
work harder. I can take criticism, I know the show backwards, and – if I’m
going to be totally honest – I think that if Steven had brought me on board when he'd
started he’d now have more time to spend on his own scripts and take much
longer holidays.
But there is no point in complaining or wondering what might
have been. The onus is on me to demonstrate that I am good enough, not on
anyone else to give me a break. And if I haven’t demonstrated that yet, then
there is no-one responsible but me. And, yes, there are things I regret,
opportunities I didn’t take. The main one being that I didn’t
start writing until I was in my late twenties, because I had no confidence in
myself (you may have noticed that I’ve kind of been trying to make
up for lost time ever since). And I failed to maintain friendships I should
have maintained, and, yes, once or twice, I was a complete dick.
All I can do is to keep plugging away, writing spec scripts,
and getting my (marvellous) agent to send them off to people. But like anyone, I
have to go where the money is, and given the choice between spending a month writing scripts that
will get made and paid, and a month writing stuff which almost certainly won’t
get made and for which I almost certainly won’t get paid, I have to choose the
former. I try to make space to do spec scripts, but I’m not going to turn
down paid work to do so.
You see, there was a period a few years ago, when it looked
like I had an ITV sitcom ‘definitely’ commissioned, and so I spent half a year
or so writing the scripts, secure in the knowledge that when the show was made,
I would get paid very well indeed. But then there was a reshuffle at ITV and,
anyway, long, tiresome and very depressing story cut short, the whole thing
fell apart and I found myself severely financially embarrassed. And I never
want to find myself in that situation again. I can’t afford to write in the
hope of maybe getting paid one day, I can’t take that risk any more.
Of course, in my head, I now disagree with what I’ve just
written. Because even as I typed it, I was thinking, ‘But you can always
find more time, Jonny. You can always do more work!’ because that is how I
think, and part and parcel of being a writer. The job is not about making
excuses why you can’t write, it’s about making excuses so that you can. So, sod
the excuses, I remain determined to do more spec scripts. I have a sitcom I’m
desperate to write, a drama series, a film, a whole list of things.
And I will write them!
If you look to the list to the right - I have written
quite a few other things, and that’s not the whole list. If you think I write a
lot of Doctor Who stuff, oh, that’s just
the tip of the iceberg! For every two or three Doctor Who scripts, I write one of my own. And because those
scripts are me writing what I want to write, with my original characters and so
forth, they tend to be some of the best things I’ve ever written, above and
beyond any of my Doctor Who things, and
yet the irony is that only a handful of people have ever
read them.
But I can only keep plugging on, and if you want the answer
to the question why I’m not writing for the TV show, it’s because I haven’t
written enough spec scripts of my own, that they haven’t been good enough, or they
haven’t been read by the right people, but if I keep going, if I find more
time, if I work hard and write more, better, spec scripts, then maybe, one day, I’ll get
somewhere. That's how it works. As I said earlier, there’s no-one responsible
for my career but me. No-one else to take the credit and no-one else to take
the blame.