Telephone Thing, Listening In.

 Writing a short story, a longish short story. It's about a man who buys an old, Bakelite, rotary phone from a market and starts to receive phone calls on it from people from his past: old girlfriends, school friends, anyone who ever rang his childhood home. The calls come randomly and they're from people who are both alive or dead, and the people on the phone don't seem to recognise the man's voice has aged. I started writing it as a horror story, but it's changed in the writing. Nothing horrible happens. It's sad, melancholy and possibly even sweet. 

Then I find out there's a film called "The Black Telephone". It definitely is a horror film, featuring a serial killer who kidnaps and kills children. I've not seen it but my understanding is that his latest victim is trapped in his house and the ghosts of his previous victims ring him, I guess to offer advice, on the titular phone. 

They're nothing alike, as far as I can tell. But still: a magic black telephone that people who may not even be alive can ring you on. 

This always happens. I chime with the spirit of the age: I'm a Zeit-guy. That said, my story, long and getting stranger and more unlikely to get published (like my last, longish short story "Another Journey By Train" which I thought marked a real development in my writing and NOBODY liked), will get written. It's becoming a slower process. I have a lot of distractions: tonight I'm going to be getting notes on my second draft of the Disney film. Regardless of the outcome there will have to be another draft - I'm contractually obliged to do four) and then there's the edit for Muirgen, which is coming together, and then there will be notes for the composer, and I've sent pitching documents for another film that I'm hoping will at least get to the discussion stage. So, I'm sort of busy and not busy. I can easily find things to do, but the world won't stop if I don't do them. 

I need to get a book out though. I need a book out. Hard focus on that this year.