Tag: Spec Scriptacular Contest

Trying to Make Sense of ‘The Flying Nun’

Nope, sorry, impossible. Nobody can make sense out of THE FLYING NUN. Not even its loyal viewers back in the day. (None of the Team TVWriter™ minions was even born then, so we’re not responsible for this show’s unbelievable popularity. Nopers. Not even a little:

Sorry, old-timers, but TV Past ain't always better than TV today
Sorry, old-timers, but TV Past ain’t always better than TV today

by Pilot Viruet

From 1967 to 1970, ABC aired a strange little sitcom called The Flying Nun. The very existence of this show, which I discovered in passing just a few years ago, doesn’t make much sense at first. The title reads like a throwaway joke from an episode of 30 Rock, which routinely took clever potshots at NBC (and television in general) by expertly creating fake, empty programs that revolved around a hilariously straightforward title. The Flying Nun would surely fit right in with the fictional shows Tank It or, more appropriately, God Cop. The Flying Nun isn’t a punchline, though. It was a very real show, and even a somewhat successful one, that spent three seasons detailing the adventures of, well, a flying nun.

read article

Peggy Bechko: The Day Job and The Writer

first-day-on-job

by Peggy Bechko

I think we all know the image of the ‘starving writer’ is long gone. The large majority of writers and I mean published and even often published writers are pressed to supplement their writing passion with a day job. Heads up writers, those are the facts of life.

The question then becomes, what kind of day job? There are well known writers such as Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code) who taught school. That can be a great writers’ day job with long breaks in the summer and usually winter and spring as well. There are drawbacks too. Teachers are often overwhelmed with work during the regular school year with class planning, teaching, grading papers and possibly even drawing duty supervising playgrounds and parking lots. It could mean the writer finds time to write only during breaks in teaching. And if you want to teach lower grades and write, say erotic romance novels, that could be a bit tricky. You might need a pen name to say nothing of how you handle book related appearances.  Just a thought.

Some other writers choose jobs that call for them to write during the day such as technical writing, resume writing, public relations, catalog description writing. These all give the writer the opportunity to exercise his or her writing muscle. The down side to that job is it could be very hard to work on your great American novel at day’s end after having written all day.  Some aren’t the least bit deterred and pound out those thousands of additional words even after a day at such a job and the benefit of that kind of work is the potential for a great information flow that might be used in a novel. read article

Peer Production: I DID NOTHING THIS WEEKEND

Don’t you hate it when a co-worker constantly one-ups you? We’re actually feeling a bit better about the situation now that we’ve seen this little gem:

from Buzzfeed

The Pitfalls of Being a Writer

pitfalls

by Rita Karnopp

There are pitfalls in every career or job choice . . . so what are some pitfalls for the writer?

  • Do you have a vision of where you want your writing career to go?  You should have an idea of where you’re headed . . . otherwise it’s like taking a trip without looking at a map first.  You’ll never get there if you don’t know where you’re going.
  • That brings us to goals . . . which should be short term and long term.  With short term – schedule daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Don’t limit them to just writing – personal and spiritual goals are also important.
  • Risk is the catalyst that makes you more productive.  This might sound strange and when I heard this in a conference – I thought really?  But it makes sense.  Risk makes you try harder and it also pushes you to grow.
  • Are you organized?  Don’t waste time trying to find research notes, to whom and what you’ve already submitted, or even great story ideas.  You’re making it harder than it has to be.  Get yourself notebooks (one for story ideas, one for each book, one for research, etc.) and keep everything in one place, you’ll thank yourself for it!
  •  Wasting time can keep you from accomplishing what you want out of life.  Take control of time by logging a two-week diary and take a look at where it’s going.  You need to maximize time and make it work for you.

Read it all

LB Reads “My Seinfeld Year” by Fred Stoller

And what can I say that’s more important than this? It made me laugh. And nod my head. And keep saying, “Yeah, that’s how it is. Yeah….”My Seinfelt Year Capture

Here’s what the Amazon blurb says:

“You’d know Fred Stoller if you saw him. He has appeared on practically every great sitcom you’ve ever seen – Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, and Murphy Brown just to name a few. But he has never been a regular on a series, always the guest star. He longs to find a showbiz home. Instead, he is a television foster child, shuttling from show to show in the vain hope that one will finally agree to keep him. “My Seinfeld Year” tells the hysterical and bittersweet story of what happened when Stoller finally got a shot at the showbiz stability he’d always dreamed of — as a staff writer on one of the biggest television shows in history.” read article