Month: February 2015

munchman: The “New Writer’s Handbook” is Chock Full of Stuff You Need to Know…

by munchman

newwritershandbookcapture…Expressed a tad more eloquently cuz its contributors include some of the best writers in the writing biz.

Accurately subtitled “A Practical Anthology of Best Advice for Your Craft & Career,” this book, published in 2008 (okay, so I’m a little late to the party; at least I got there!) has very good advice indeed from writers including Lisa Firke, Shannon Hale Tess Gerritsen, Ira Glass, Tom Sant, Barbara O’Conner, Tim Patterson, Leo Babauta, and many more prose specialists and includes sections on creativity and motivation, the craft of writing, business savvy, and just plain literary thoughts. (I ignored the literary thoughts thing, but that’s, you know, how the munchman, um, munches.)

One of my favorite chapters is called “Great Faith. Great Doubt. Great Effort.” In it, writer Rhonda Abrams gets right to the heart of things: read article

Peggy Bechko: Tune In And Turn Off

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by Peggy Bechko

Hey, you, writer person out there. Do you have a routine? You know, stuff you do as a matter of course? Stuff you do every day to get your writing done, polished and out there?

Don’t give me that look, and don’t give me the ‘free spirit’ route. You need a routine. One for your writing that encompasses not only the actual writing, but exercise, research, learning, maybe meditation; whatever gets you going and keeps you going. A scattered approach has rarely gotten anyone anywhere. Really. And I take the ‘rarely’ back. It doesn’t work. Period.

Develop a routine and stick to it. No cheating (well hardly any cheating – we all cheat once in a while). If you value what you do and what your goals are, establish a routine. I’m not going to tell you again. read article

Hollywood Warms to Novelists

Remember when becoming a writer was all about wanting to write the next great novel?

You do? Sorry to hear that, friend, cuz in that case you might as well hang up your film or TV writing aspirations right now. You’re old, y’know?

No, wait! Looks like we could, um, be wrong. Turns out you can have your novel (and your age) and eat film/TV cake too: read article

Why Do So Many “Greenlit” TV Shows Never Appear on TV?

Charlie Jane Anders shines her illuminating prose on this seemingly paradoxical state of affairs:

pilotgutter
Terrific illo by Tara Jacoby

by Charlie Jane Anders

Right now, it’s pilot season — which means you’re going to be hearing about a lot of TV shows getting ordered. And then, nine months from now… most of those shows will not be on television. What is this mysterious crucible? Here’s our step-by-step guide to the process of pitching a brand new television show.

Right about now, we ought to be in the middle of watching the first season of Hieroglyph, a show about gods in ancient Egypt that was “ordered to series” by Fox. But Fox pulled the plug on Hieroglyph, even after ordering a full season in advance, and we never even got to see it. That’s just one extreme example of a more common phenomenon — to casual observers, it looks like things are getting ordered all the time, then never showing up. read article

Kevin Spacey Reminds Us to Pay It Forward

…And we’re right there with him. Not just cuz he’s Kevin Spacey either. Cuz he’s smart – and right:

Um, anybody else notice how strange Kev looks when he smiles? Or is it just that we see him like that so seldom?