Tag: People’s Pilot Contest

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 3/8/14

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
by munchman

  • David O. Russell (you know who he is) has left ABC’s THE CLUB, a series his presence helped sell, but co-writer Susannah Grant will remain. (You gotta ask yourself: If a guy like Russell can get dumped from a TV series, how rough must the politics of the medium really be? If yours truly had a mind, it’d be boggling!)
  • Rick Eid (DARK BLUE) is showrunning the new Lifetime drama series, THE LOTTERY, about stuff that happens in, you know, a “dystopian future.” (Sorry, Lifetime, but there’s a show the muncher won’t be watching cuz let’s face it, those of us living in the dystopian present really could use a change.)
  • Hallmark Channel has picked up THE GOOD WITCH, a series based on its TV movies  of the same name. No writer or showrunner has been listed, so excuse me while yrs truly calls his agent. (Not that muncho expect her to answer, but that’s another (sad!)story.)
  • Marco Pennette (KIRSTIE) is out as showrunner of TV Land’s comedy of that selfsame name and is working as a consulting producer on MOM instead. (Cuz the talented writer/creator/sonofabitch is so goddamn rich already why work full-time?)

Characters are More Interesting When They’re as Flawed as We are

Even in the world of games, where this not-so-startling (to us cuz…flawed, you know?) factoid just recently came to light:

GosispGame characters are better when they gossip and lie
by Olivia Solon

Getting characters to lie, gossip, and manipulate could help to create more realistic video games, according to Jenny Brusk, a lecturer in computer science at the University of Skövde.

Brusk has been working on models to introduce socially competent non-player game characters who can understand natural language, rather than characters using goal-driven dialogue where the player is limited to a number of predefined response alternatives. read article

TVWriter™ Top Posts for the Week Ending 3/7/14

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Here they are, the most viewed TVWriter™ posts for the past week:

Kathy Sees Iron Man 3 read article

Peggy Bechko: Writers Love Their Readers

writerlylove

by Peggy Bechko

And not surprisingly they want them to keep reading.

So what is it that might make a prized reader just stop reading, set the book aside, give up? Fantastic to hear your book kept a reader up all night, okay to know they stick in a bookmark and take a break, just awful and nightmarish to think that reader won’t pick the book up again.

So why don’t they pick it up again? read article

How to to Better Manage Your Freelance Income

Our freelance writing incomes may not be much, but they’re ours. If we can hang onto enough of them to feed us, clothe us, house us, and/or – and this is the big one – give us the time and freedom to go out on more freelance writing gigs. Here’s some stuff we all need to know. (Don’t you love the word “stuff?”):

19gqwfr2t8l8wjpgby Walter Glenn

Freelancing is rewarding, but it is not for the faint of heart. Yes, you get to do work you love and you get to do it on (mostly) your own terms. You also have play roles you may not enjoy so much, like marketer, sales person, and bookkeeper, some of which we’ve talked about before. And one of the biggest challenges in freelancing is managing an irregular income.P

Before I started working for Lifehacker, I spent over twenty years as a freelance computer consultant and writer. I loved working for myself, almost as much as I love with the people here, but managing the boom and bust cycle of work was something that never came easy. I did learn some good lessons along the way, though. P read article