The screenplay – Charcoal – continues to take shape. Given the general rule that one page of script equals one minute of film, I’m now 40 minutes in and less than halfway through my rough story. I feel on track despite my slow progress and continual referral to my format/technical notes. Back in the early 1990s, when I first began writing short stories, I didn’t think I’d make 3000 words without copious amounts of padding but it didn’t transpire that way and my stories became 8 – 10,000 words. Too long for most publications but that’s ok, some tales just take longer to tell. In the same way the script will be as long or short as it needs to be. I don’t want to be stifled by convention, even if it makes the script less likely to be made into a film, which would have a near-zero chance of doing so even if I was trying to write a commercial film. I’m not thinking that far ahead with any seriousness; to get a first complete draft script under my belt is what I’m aiming for.

I do have some exciting news on the music front. Andy Martin (The Apostles/Academy 23/Unit) is planning to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the death of Coil’s Jhonn Balance by recording 3 or 4 tracks to be released either as an addition to the next Unit album or as a standalone EP. And he wants my sister, Yvette Haynes, and myself to fully collaborate on it. One of the tracks will be a cover of Coil’s Solar Lodge, from the band’s early Industrial/gothic phase. It’s a daunting prospect – I want to honour Balance and Coil’s memory – so I’m out of my comfort zone again, but it’s worth the challenge/risk. Yvette and I began work on the track at our first rehearsal, last weekend, at a studio on the edge of Penzance. We also spent time working on material of our own, under the name Brother Frank (Clive Barker fans should recognise the reference). The rough recordings we made have an air of post punk and ‘positive punk’/gothic as opposed to Goth) scenes of late 1970s/early 1980s England. The stark, razor sharp sound of early Siouxsie & The Banshees, Adam & The Antz, Theatre of Hate, Joy Division and Southern Death Cult, along with Death In June and Crisis, plus Sonic Youth cBad Moon Rising, are highly influencing my song writing, musically at any rate; lyrically I’m focussing on my horror writing for guidance. This time round – some forty years after I stopped playing music – I’m far more sure of what I want to do and, most importantly, how to go about achieving it. I’m hoping this project is not overwhelmingly nostalgic – the early punk movement is being re-examined by many of those involved, either as musicians, writers or fans and, inevitably, the recent deaths of some of the prominent protagonists has perhaps made many of us realise how important – and necessary – punk was and still is. We live in intense and dark times, even darker than when I was a teenager; nationally, people have been beaten down by years of austerity, the deliberate cruelty of the Government and its determination to make life unbearable for so many. Add to this the current conflicts abroad and the environmental nightmare we’ve created and it feels as if catastrophe is hurtling towards us. Does creativity matter at a time like this? It won’t stop atrocities from happening but it can express hope, anger, compassion. And inspire communication – perhaps the only way to escape this desperate mess we’re in.