When a book becomes a film (hopefully…)

The Universe was conspiring against me (knackered laptop, several days of solo parenting and generally feeling tired and unwell) but I did it, I got my edits in to my editor on time. Phew! I’ve got 3 weeks until I get the thumbs up or thumbs down and I’m going to use the time to…

Review the screenplay of HOME FOR CHRISTMAS.

Yep, screenplay! Earlier this year I agreed a contract to work with Brighton’s only dedicated independent feature film production company Jump Start Productions to create a film version of my last chick lit book HOME FOR CHRISTMAS.

Nathalie Grace, co-founder of Jump Start, contacted me last year to say how much she’d enjoyed my book and how she’d love the opportunity to turn it into a film. She told me that she worked in The Duke of York cinema, the very cinema I based the fictional Picturebox on, and that she was pretty sure we’d get permission to film there.

(Duke of Yorks cinema, Brighton. Published under CC – SubtleBlade Flickr)

So not only would I get the opportunity to work with someone who was genuinely passionate about my book but I’d get to see living incarnations of two of my characters – Beth and Matt – wandering round the cinema that inspired the novel and speaking THE WORDS I WROTE! I didn’t care that Jump Start are so small they can’t offer me any money for the rights, I was too excited by the prospect of my book coming to life.

There was just one issue. There was no way I could find the time to write the screenplay of HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, hold down a full time job, look after a toddler, write a novel a year and edit and market that novel. I told Nathalie I couldn’t write the screenplay and she came up with a solution. One of her colleagues, an experienced screenwriter, would write it and I’d get to give editorial feedback.

Well guess what? A first draft appeared in my inbox a couple of days ago. It’s 50 pages too long and Nathalie wants to me to advise them where it should be cut.

Now that my edits are in it’s time to take a look…

(In other news my agent Maddy has sold the rights for a Chinese version of HOME FOR CHRISTMAS to be made. I won’t be working on that screenplay but apparently I get flown to China to walk the red carpet if the film gets made. Woo hoo!)

12 May 2014 Update: Shooting has been completed for the film and I spent a day on set! You can read all about it on my other blog here: http://writing-about-writing.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/home-for-christmas-film-aka-watching.html

13 thoughts on “When a book becomes a film (hopefully…)”

June 19, 2013 at 8:32 am Reply

lizfenwick says:

How exciting! Don’t envy you having to cut 50 pages!!!! Good luck.

June 19, 2013 at 8:40 am Reply

Kelly says:

That is so exciting. Congratulations lovely x

June 19, 2013 at 8:48 am Reply

Wendy@Counselling Hampshire says:

Cally, that is such wonderful news about ‘Home for Christmas’. I am sure it will make a great film, as the book lends itself to a movie. I hope it works out for you, and keep us posted!