As it was in the beginning...

So, was it 1997 that my first novel, The Insatiable Moon, was published under the Flamingo imprint? And I thought, hey, it would make a great film...

Then it was 2002 that a mate of mine in the UK, Pip Piper, optioned the book and asked me to write a screenplay. And I thought, well, how hard can it be? Who knew the story as well as me? So I knocked out a script in an embarrassingly short time.

In the meantime, a letter comes in the post from Rawiri Paratene, star of Whale Rider. He's just read my book and loved it, and wants to develop it into a script. Well, I tell him, I'm just doing it! So he says that's okay, just so long as you promise to let me play Arthur in the film.

I'm getting excited now. Rawiri suggests bringing on the New Zealand producer Tim Sanders (Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings, Whale Rider). Better and better. The upshot of it is that in July 2003 there's a meeting in London. I stagger off the plane more than a little jet-lagged. Later that evening, there's five of us gathered round the table of an Italian restaurant: Pip Piper, Rob Taylor, Rawiri Paratene, Tim Sanders and me. We eat and drink and talk about the possibilities. Finally we make a decision - we're going to make a movie together.

We stagger out of the restaurant into the warm London night, and at the end of the street is the most impossibly huge full moon hanging on the horizon. Call us naive, but we took it to be a sign...

I'm thinking this should be shooting soon, maybe this year! That was 2003. That was six years ago. This blog is the agonising story of what has happened since then, and the journey toward the start of filming in November this year...