This is a little overdue, what with the festival having taken place over two weeks ago, but having managed to worm my way into it I do have a few thoughts.
To start I don't think I'll be submitting to the BBC Writersroom any more, at least not with anything I'm currently working on. This isn't because I wouldn't want to work for the BBC under a nice steady writers paycheck, I've just learned to be a little smarter about it. Firstly even though the Writersroom only accepts original material the BBC apparently couldn't be less interested in making something original, which whilst I kind of assumed it was unlikely that it happened very often I thought that there was at least the possibility and that's kind of been crushed now. Your best bet is treat the Wrtiersroom as a job interview, write something good but relatively generic (save your great original ideas for yourself) and imagine that your auditioning your skill as a staff writer in whatever department/genre you write in.
My second thought and a slightly more comforting one is that the array of professionals freely admit that they are just as clueless as the array of nobodies in the audience as to how to succeed, Elliot Grove who gave the 'Writing For Low Budget' talk said as much himself. Personally I quite like the almost random nature of the industry I'm trying to work in, with nobody really knowing what works and what doesn't, it makes it slightly easier to take rejection when you can think that it's just as likely to be the failing of the clueless person judging the script as much as the clueless you writing the thing in the first place. Basically it's important to stay positive as a rejection doesn't necessarily mean your work is bad it just means that person didn't like it.
Thirdly I learnt a very important lesson that I have to pass on to anyone else starting out, consult an accountant as soon as you're working. Once you have work and are intending to register as self employed you need to know your rights, particularly the array of things you can claim for, a list which I was amazed by. Other than the obvious, travel and the like, as a writer you can claim part of your rent or mortgage as work space, cinema tickets, theatre tickets can all be claimed as research as can your TV bills bizarrely, as well as any related books or magazine subscriptions. I can't go into full details, and it's pointless registering as self employed until your making some decent money, but definitely check this out.
The last piece of good advise I want to share with you I got in the comedy writing talk, or rather after it when I was talking with Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil (writers - Black Books) and in short it's this; make a name for yourself doing something else and writing work will come looking for you. This applies perhaps more easily to comedy than other genres where you can perform stand up or sketches on stage somewhere, even making a name for yourself on YouTube or the like isn't a bad plan. These things aren't easy to do of course, it's hardly a foolproof plan, but it's still a pretty good idea and if you can reach a point where opportunities are looking for you then your power within those opportunities increases greatly.
These are the thoughts that linger with me from the handful of talks I was able to attend whilst at the festival, it was a good event and I'll more than likely try and get in next year as well, hoping of course to have achieved something between now and then.
To all the writers out there reading this keep at it and good luck.
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