40 years worth of TV writing experience and info, yours for the taking.
They say an army travels on its stomach. What does an army of writers travel on? (No, the answer isn’t ego, sorry.)
Food Fight: Hollywood Writers Pick Sides Over Ordering Lunch – by Josh Lurie
The average TV showrunner has a thousand decisions to make on any given day, from script and costumes to casting and music. Some handle it with grace, others with … well, less than grace. But one thing is certain: If you mess with their lunch, you will get stabbed in the neck with a Sharpie.
And now, a little overthink for those of you who prefer it when your cortexes go ka-blam!
Miami Justice: Two Sides of the Same Coin – by Ben Adams
Why do we punish? And why is it so much fun to see punishment doled out? From crime procedurals like Law and Order to superheroes dominating the box office inThe Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers, we seem to have a collective fascination with the punishment of wrong-doers. But where does the urge to punish come from? Why are we so insistent that the wicked suffer? Because that’s the key question – punishment, but it’s very nature, is generally backwards looking. Punishing the murderer doesn’t bring back the dead. What good does it do anyone to inflict further suffering, even if it seems like someone “deserves” it? My colleague Matthew Belinkie has explored the legal side of punishment at length, so I’m going to turn my attention towards the extra-legal side of punishment – the vigilante.
Ah, I love the smell of vindication in the morning!
Study: Online Video Viewers Start Leaving After Waiting Two Seconds – by David Murphy
One of the more frustrating things that can happen to your average Web surfer is the dreaded, “Why is my video not playing” error. Whether YouTube’s having a hiccup, your connection’s fizzling out, your browser’s taking a nap or some other perfect storm of problems is preventing you from watching two minutes of a cute kitty cat do its cute kitty cat thing, the end result is the same: No video.
You have a few choices when this happens. You can wait it out. You can hit refresh and hope that the problem goes away. Or, if you’re like most people, you can get hacked off and close the Web page.
A big TVWriter™ “Yess!” to iconoclasts:
by Charlotte Rains Dixon
I’m tired of people telling me what to do.
I’m tired of people telling me how to eat. (Don’t eat dairy! No grains! No eggs! And puh-leeze, no sugar!)
by Chelsea Cain (um, who else?)
Writing tips are like mini skirts.Sometimes they fit perfectly, sometimes they make you cry, and sometimes you can reuse the material and sew yourself a pillow or something. Maybe a few of these will work for you.I hope so. Personally I think you’d look very nice in a mini-skirt.
1. You won’t make a living writing until you learn to write when you don’t want to. A lot of writers wait for the muse to seize them. These writers don’t get much done. Here’s a secret: writing is not always fun. If it is, you’re doing it wrong. I love to write just about more than anything, but there are times I have to force myself to sit down and work. I want to play with my daughter, or watch a movie with my husband, or go outside on the nicest day of the year. But if writing is going to be your job, you have to treat it like a job. And that means that you don’t get to take the day off just because you’re “not feeling it.” This is what separates the writers who make it from the writers who don’t. Get your butt in your chair, and make yourself write. Do it every day.
2. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Don’t be afraid of clichés. Write the book you want to write. If you want to write about an alcoholic cop with an ex-wife and an insubordination problem, do it. If you want to write about a haunted hotel, or a woman who finds herself through a journey, or a teenage amateur sleuth – well, awesome. Your book will be different because you’re the one writing it.