How We Get Things Done

Hello from out here on the Thames Delta. Everything in the entertainment business is about to stop dead for two weeks because the San Diego Comic Con is around the corner. This is pleasant news for me: I have a ton of stuff to do and my MUBI and BFI Player watchlists are out of control.

So many people are using chatbots now that the online ad market is softening, because if you use a chatbot for your searches, you’re not seeing any ads. We could be going back to the most successful ad markets being video and podcasts - or, as we used to know them, tv and radio, now that podcasts are pervasive and the streamers have basically reinvented cable tv. All this, to wind almost everything back thirty years.

Almost: in the US the late-night terrestrial tv tradition is being hollowed out, public broadcasting is losing funding, and over here the BBC apparently can’t make anything without co-funding from abroad

There is a viral video practice where the “creator” reacts to a series of dessert prompts, and opens their mouth according to how much they want to eat a dessert. This is mass market entertainment in 2025:

@cassidycondiee

CHEESECAKE !!!!!!!

Blink and you’ll miss it gag in SUPERMAN: one of Superman’s enemies is being guided by coded combat-move instructions, and when he gets the code “2 X” he stamps on Superman’s balls.

I keep reading that due to the automatic function of copyright laws, DC loses the exclusive rights to publish Batman in ten years. This notionally frees pretty much anyone to publish any iteration of Batman based on Detective Comics #27. In theory, ten minutes later Marvel can publish BATGWEN and X-BATMAN, Declan Shalvey can bang out THUNDERBATS for Dynamite, Kirkman can do GI BAT and release a remix book called THE WALKING BAT-DEAD and maybe someone will finally release Urasawa’s BILLY BAT in English.

Writer Raquel Mellifera dropped a note to ask what writing software I use for various things. One of those “boring but maybe useful” things.

I write books and short fiction in Microsoft Word. This is objectively awful. But Word is the default program for book publishing - every major house I’m aware of uses Word in their production flow. That said, I think that so long as your word processor can save files as a .docx and it can open Word files that have been inline-commented by your editors and proofreaders, then you’re probably fine.

Scrivener is supposed to be very good, but to me it looks overcomplicated for my needs. It seems affordable and very clever, but I think you can assemble a book to death. With that many options to shuffle and compile and fiddle around, it would, for me, be a giant procrastination engine that would drain all the life and juice out of a work.

I used to write comics scripts in OpenOffice, and save them as an .rtf, because for a long time one had no idea what the rest of the production crew were using on their computers - there isn’t one single “you have to use this” format for comics scripts - and rtf would open in pretty much anything. Some of you are reading this and asking yourself, wtf is an rtf is that what the dinosaurs had. Yes. Yes it is.

Apparently you need to switch from OpenOffice to a fork called Libre Office now, which I believe is free. I’m going to take a look at it myself in the autumn. These days, I write comics scripts in Word too, which is… not optimal, if I’m honest. It’s changing the way I write comics, which is interesting, but it still feels a bit awkward right now.

Here’s an archive of comics scripts by a few dozen different writers.

I write film, tv and audio in Final Draft. Final Draft is also objectively awful - it’s a really cranky piece of kit. I have shouted at it more than any other word processor. But, again, a lot of studios and production companies have Final Draft built into their workflow. AMC bought me my first copy of Final Draft, when I had a pilot project there, because Final Draft was baked into their entire production flow from script to screening. Fade In, which I’ve played with, and other screenwriting softwares will output into Final Draft format, and I assume they handle Final Draft inline notes and versioning just fine, but I don’t know for sure.

I wrote DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT in Final Draft because I was working with my CASTLEVANIA team to make it and I didn’t see the point in reinventing the wheel and going with, say, the BBC radio drama format

For other writing - like the sequences I’ve been doing on LTD - I use IA Writer, which syncs across my ThinkPads, my iPad and my iPhone. It’s fast, clean and it fills the screen. IA Writer will let you export your work to PDF and .docx, and that seems to work very well. So, as long as you don’t need very fancy formatting - IA Writer is basically Markdown, a clever language that adds function to plain text - it may work for you in a few different ways.

Also, the Drehgriffel loaded with a Parker G2 Quink gel pen refill is pretty much my favourite pen these days.

Now: THE DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT audio drama podcast, DESOLATION JONES: THE BIOHZARD EDITION, THE STORMWATCH COMPENDIUM. 2025: FELL: FERAL CITY new printing, THE AUTHORITY Compact Edition, the LIGHTS OUT Anthology.

CURRENTLY READING:

“Nobody wants to vote for the guy who is a weird nerd loser.”

• 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf. I’m far enough away from all that to be looking for a decent breakdown of it all. Very readable book, reasonably clear eyed, gossipy but unshowy. (UK) (US)

My favourite Bob Dylan song is probably “A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall.” This week I came across two covers of it by The Kronos Quartet, conducted in two different styles by two different sets of guest musicians.

The first, and click through for the credits, if you ever wanted to hear Laurie Anderson, Iggy Pop and Willie Nelson on the same song:

The second is a spoken word version, including Charlotte Gainsbourg and Ringo Starr (!):

And that’s me this week. Everything is loud out there, but it’s not on you to have to take it all in at once. When you get up tomorrow, try sitting outside or by a window for ten minutes instead. Just quietly be in the world, instead of the entire world trying to move into your head. You’re going to be okay. See you next week.

W