It's not what you know it's who you are...

News has reached me of an x-factor style (ie shite!) writing competition for 'celebrities' to be televised on BBC2 - see below :-

A new "Apprentice"-style reality TV show will turn one of six celebrities into a crime author, mentored by Minette Walters and published by Pan Macmillan.

"Murder Most Famous", which will be broadcast on BBC2 during the week of World Book Day (6th March), is the brainchild of "Strictly Come Dancing" and "Dragons' Den" mastermind Richard Hopkins, m.d. of Fever Media. Hopkins hopes the programme will do for writing what "Strictly Come Dancing" did for ballroom dancing—making the subject accessible and an "entertaining prospect" as a TV format.

The series will be broadcast in five daily 45-minute episodes, and pits six celebrities—dancer Brendan Cole, actresses Sherrie Hewson and Angela Griffin, former tabloid editor Kelvin MacKenzie, presenter Matt Allwright and gardener Diarmuid Gavin—against each other.

They will be mentored by Walters, who will set a series of challenges to inspire the celebrities' daily writing tasks. Training will include dog tracking, resisting a violent attack, an autopsy, crime scene investigation, interrogation techniques and rapid pursuit of a suspect. Walters will judge the celebrities' writing efforts and eliminate one candidate each day.

The winner will turn their plot and central characters into a novel, to be published with Pan as a Quick Read on WBD 2009, in conjunction with the BBC's adult literacy campaign RaW. The proceeds will go towards BBC Children in Need.

Pan Macmillan publishing director Maria Rejt, who will edit the winning celebrity's book, said it would be "a really big, fat challenge". "Writing crime is really difficult, and they've got to do a really good job," she added.

The series is being produced by Hopkins' Fever Media, a production company backed by Sony BMG. A website will show examples of the celebrity pupils' writing (as well as Walters' critiques), video diaries and extra footage.

I'm obviously a little disconcerted by this but am split into two points of view:-

A. Another book written by a semi famous illiterate will be on the bookshelves thus denying me one more chance of making it

or

B. More people will pick up books after noticing that their favourite semi famous illiterate has a tome in the shops and the resulting profits will go towards publishing an unknown writer.


Either way I know one thing, the ghost writer employed to 'tidy up' (ie write the fucking thing...) the 'celebrity book' will be making a living whatever happens.