by Troy DeVolld
Hi, all. Gee whiz, it’s been a while… I feel like a ghost on my own blog.
Thought I’d pop by with a grab bag of pro tips that aren’t long enough for their own features, but that have been hard-won lessons along the way. Enjoy.
Month: August 2017
Time to Get Your Script in for the Humanitas Prize Competiiton
The Writers Guild of America wants us all to know that “HUMANITAS is pleased to announce a Call for Entries for the 43rd annual HUMANITAS Prize Awards. The winners will be announced at the HUMANITAS Prize Awards held in February 2018.”
Well, not exactly all of us. The Humanitas Prize has been a profoundly important contest over the years, but it has a catch. A production based on the submitted teleplay “must have had a national release on Television (Broadcast, Cable, Internet and Satellite),” and a screenplay must have been released theatrically in the year of the contest, in this case, 2017.
So, yikes!, yeah, to enter you’ve got to be some kind of a pro. While you’re mulling that over, here are the full deets:
Pioneer TV Writer Susan Silver Talks About ‘Hot Pants in Hollywood’
And if the headline above doesn’t make you keep reading, Susan and we at TVWriter™ are going to feel awfully…cold? Apologies, and now to the main event:
How To Thrive Despite Your Fears
by Jeryl Brunner
We all experience fear and self-doubt, no matter where we are in life. But Nelson Mandela said, “The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
Take the barrier-breaking television writer Susan Silver. She was one of the first female TV scribes to find herself in coveted male-only writers’ rooms. The Milwaukee native hit Hollywood and amassed impressive credits writing for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, The Bob Newhart Show, The Partridge Family and other hits.
Unblocking John Ostrander!
Do you recognize this man? How about his name? Does it mean anything to you? Just wonderin’….
by John Ostrander
A sad fact of a writer’s life is writer’s block. That’s when you sit down and look at the blank page or the empty screen and go “I’ve got nothin’.” Some form of that can happen every time you start to write. The really bad version can go on for a long time, maybe for years. Not only do you not have an idea, you feel that you can’t write, that you could never write, that you will never write, and what the hell were you thinking when you thought you could write.
There are things you can do when the malady strikes, some less useful than others. Crying, swearing, cursing, screaming are all options but you eventually run out of energy and then you’re back at square one – the damned blank page or screen.
Writing Gig: Editorial Asst/Writer Wanted
by TVWriter™ Press Service
How-To-Geek, One of the interweb’s most interesting and, yes, even informative tech websites is looking to hire an editorial assistant-writer. The gig is being offered as freelance, but with a contract and the hope of everybody involved that it can “transition into a full time role in the future.”
According to the HTG’s Lowell Heddings, you’ll need to “meet at least move of these criteria.” And those criteria are:
=&0=&. If I asked you to write an article about the best way to edit the Windows Registry you should be able to write something coherent on the subject even if you’ve never opened the registry before. =&1=& You don’t need to be an expert, but if I asked you to program a VCR you should probably know how to Google what a VCR is and whether time machines exist and then just ask me if I want to schedule a recording on a DVR instead. =&2=& If I wanted to know what the best doctor is for laser eye surgery in DC, you should be able to cut through the marketing and ads and figure out which one I should go to so I won’t end up with an eye patch. (I seriously would like to know this) =&3=& If I give you a really boring task that is going to take a week, you should see it through to the end even if it takes two. =&4=& I am very sarcastic, and I have extremely strong and sometimes controversial opinions on things. Android is a dumpster fire. If you are easily offended we aren’t going to work well together. =&5=& One of the worst things you can have as a CEO is a group of people who don’t think for themselves and never have any ideas to contribute. =&6=& When I give any programming or server task to our programmer Keanan he just goes and figures it out without having to ask me a bunch of questions or needing hand-holding. It’s amazing. Be like Keanan.To find out more and actually apply for the job, hie thyself HERE