Photo: Me atop Ben Nevis

Recently I went for a big walking trip, the West Highland Way in Scotland. It wasn't very difficult. It was very wet. For 10 days I had no real need for a computer. I took a cell phone and a Kindle (I loooved the Kindle, perfect for travel away from reliable power). I also took a small notebook (a paper one) and a pen. In the past I would have taken a sketch book but it needs to be warm and dry to really be able to sit on the side of a hill and draw, so I left the pencils behind.

The other thing I did was set a very low expectation of what I was going to achieve mentally. In ten days I probably could have thought through a good few projects, but instead I only 'loaded' one thing mentally, and that was the problem of what to do with a draft of a film that really needed a quality jump.

'Boy on a bike' has been sitting with a producer for years and had a new director, which is all good, but they were reluctant to be shopping the script around as none on us thought it was quite finished yet. I had written three versions exploring new endings and frames for the story but on reviewing all of them decided that none really worked. Doing the drafts wasn't a waste of time, I found lots of new stuff in the second act, but the real problems were in finishing the story and setting up a frame for the story, a filmic hook that tied the beginning of the film to the 3rd act (or 7th and 8th sequence if you prefer).

So I just kind of slotted that into my mind and started to walk...

After four days of not really worrying about it, or even thinking about it very much, a few key things that the producer had said in the past came back to me (she is very clever!) and stirred me up a bit. I realised I had to find an emotional connection to the work again, and that finding that connection is always revealing and dangerous but unless it has that personal blood in it there was no way the script was going to fly.

So I let the blood flow... Not by thinking about it, but just by walking and waiting. Another day passed and then few deep images come to me and suddenly there it was, a line in my head "When you were born, I was born". Aha! A simple, even unsophisticated, line to start a film with. There's a small puzzle in it (who are you? who am I?) and yet it's very personal and confessional, which is exactly the tone that is needed for the film.

Being in the middle of Scotland and not having anyone around me I then just started speaking from that character's perspective and images and situations came up... a microscope... a fire... tattoos on a pair of hands...

And because I was walking and there weren't any distractions I calmly carried these very important images to lunch and spent about 30 minutes making notes, laying down scraps of dialogue, drawing images. And that was it, problem solved. This is a very different way of working than active work-shopping of material, but I believe this 'quiet and deep' approach is a great compliment to all that *development* work.

The changes will take me about 6 hours to factor through the script and then I am pretty confident that will be my best shot. Of course the producer and director may completely disagree... but that's another story. Somehow in Scotland I finished the personal and emotional work that I needed to do to find the voice of the script within me. That particular journey has taken seven years so far, but that's ok, if the work is good then it will fill out and get better with time, even when you take it in the 'wrong' direction for years at a time.

So here's the lesson... slow down, switch off, take that walk/run/ride (1 mile or a 120 doesn't matter). if you are empty of distraction and relaxed with the notion of solutions arising in good time then guess what, they will come.