My head is now the size of a VW camper van. Here is a record of the Ego Puff Points I acquired this weekend:

Got up on Friday morning and did live phone interview with BBC Hereford & Worcester – 1 Ego Puff Point

Headed to Hereford, picking up The Guardian on the way. The article was massive and extremely positive (“Soul Searcher is a fantasy action movie in the grand style… It looks great and moves beautifully… As a statement of potential, Soul Searcher must be one of the best value movies ever made.”) – 5 points

Arrived in Hereford and did an interview for ITV Central News which goes out tonight at 6pm – 1 point

Introduced the first screening and fielded questions afterwards. It sold out – 1 point

Saturday morning – checked my e-mails and found I already had some distribution interest as a result of the Guardian article – 1 point

Discovered the second screening had sold out – 1 point

Introduced the second screening and again fielded questions. One guy in the audience told me he had hiked across half the country to be there, and had camped out in the leisure centre car park the previous night. After seeing the film he said it had been worth it – 4 points

Met Hollywood film director Stephen Frears (responsible for John Cusack/Jack Black-starrer High Fidelity, My Beautiful Launderette, Dirty Pretty Things, etc.). Stephen had seen the article in The Guardian and said of me in an interview with James for post-festival publicity: “All you can do is admire him. If he’s got this much focus he’ll be alright.” – 5 points

Monday – gave a talk to 150 teenagers at the Borderlines You-TV3 Conference about how to get into film-making. One of the kids who came up to me afterwards told me I was the coolest speaker – 1 point, but lose it immediately for caring that some kid said I was cool

Generally had praise heaped upon the film all weekend from all quarters – 2 points

Got home, checked my e-mails and discovered that Soul Searcher has not been selected for screening at the Cannes Film Festival – lose 3 points

Grand total: 18 Ego Puff Points

So here is the beginning of a whole new wave of work. On my to do list at the moment are: finish first draft of new script so I have something to pitch at Cannes; send screeners of Soul Searcher to a whole bunch of people; make enquiries with publishers about turning this journal into a book; edit electronic press kit; begin work on DVD extras; investigate festivals and distribution opportunities…