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. And then… the 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.

I guess this post is my 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 holds for me?