GLADLY now a feature-length screenplay

I am, if nothing else, a follower of my instincts.  Time has taught me THAT at least.    My time in Ireland is winding down, and soon (August) I will be moving to Madrid, Spain, to start work as a teacher.   In the meantime, I am following my heart and am currently re-writing the pilot episode of GLADLY, my 6-part TV drama series, as a feature-length screenplay.   This idea has been in me for a long time, and the first draft has just been completed, although it now needs editing.

I am so glad I have done this!  It has come out more satisfying than I could have imagined, and therefore I will not be promoting the TV pilot anymore.

From now on, GLADLY is a feature film screenplay.  Outline below.

GLADLY

     A screenplay by Andrew Hawcroft

                         OUTLINE

Cameron Callendar has just reached forty, and it’s all gone wrong.  At this point in his life, he was supposed to be a successful writer of fiction, a happily married family man, fulfilled and secure, and he certainly came close to these things in the past, but somehow it never came together. 

He barely makes a living with sales of his early novels (back when he had an agent, publisher, optimism, ambition, confidence and a future) as e-books, but it’s not enough.  His days are spent still trying to get the career that never came, and hopefully the richer, fuller life that was supposed to come with it.

And then one day, at 3.17pm in the afternoon, everything changes when his doorbell rings.

Standing there is a bizarre-looking young woman. Thin as a nail, bright blue hair that might not be hair at all, dressed in the most garish and odd mish-mash of clothes.

She seems barely to have the energy to stand upright, but seeing him seems to make whatever trials she has clearly gone through to get here, worth it.  She regards him as a door-stepping Jehovah’s Witness would upon finding Jesus in jeans and a Blue Harbour jumper.

Whatever she is, (and Cameron quickly suspects she might be mentally troubled) she is clearly on the limits of her physical strength.  A large glass of milk in his kitchen later, she seems restored enough to start talking.

She says she is from the year 2372. That she has come on a one-way journey to find the man whose books she discovered on an electronic book-reader lying in junkyard.  He is apparently her idol, her hero...her very reason to keep living.

Because 2372 sounds like hell.  A world ruined by the Corporation Wars, she, and the other 19, 000 humans left on the Earth live dire, purposeless lives.

The only reason Cameron doesn’t call the police, is when he casually asks her what her name is.

Gladly Higgins, she says.

The thing is, Gladly Higgins is the name Cameron has recently come up with for a string of trashy, quick-sell novels he reluctantly plans to write to make some money.

Only he hasn’t told anyone that name.

As the day passes, Gladly will tell him more and more of her story, and these conversations will begin to convince a lonely and jaded man that perhaps....just perhaps...something incredible has come into his life.

And not a moment too soon....