Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 11/4/12

“Writing for money is a totally unfulfilling waste of time. Writing for love, though, can often end up making you a ton of money.” (Anon.)
  • Leslie Levings, creator of The Beastlies monster figurines, reports that she’s signed on to develop her creations into an animation project for J.J. Abrams’ company BAD ROBOT. (Which we think is really cool because it proves you don’t even have to be a writer to create a TV series these days, and writing being as hard as it is, hey, this is really awesome!)
  • Jamie Paglia (EUREKA) is writing the pilot for an ABC drama called EVOLVE, based on the Toxic City trilogy by Tim Lebbon. (Which we think is doubly cool because not only has Jamie aced out the writer of the books, the title is totally different so that none of their readers will ever suspect something they love is about to be on the air. Oh, waitaminnint, that doesn’t sound quite right, does it?)
  • Lew Schneider (EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND) & Rick Marin are adapting Marin’s Kindle Single memoir, Keep Swinging, in a sitcom for ABC. (Which we think is triply cool because, hey, Kindle, self-published stuff, making good…something all of us dream of, right? Right?)
  • Jonathan Ames (BORED TO DEATH) is writing a BORED TO DEATH TV movie for HBO. (Which is quadrupaly cool because a) it was our favorite show all 3 years it was on the air b) we got the word personally from this dood named Ted Danson and we’re just all giddy cuz he even spoke to us. HBO’s official response to this, btw, is silence, but screw them. Ted’s the Man!)

Without FUTURAMA There’d Be No WRECK-IT RALPH

The good folks at io9 bring us some words from former FUTURAMA and THE SIMPSONS director Rich Moore, whose vision backstops WRECK-IT RALPH.

How Working on Futurama Prepares You to Make One of the Year’s Best Animated Movies read article

LB: TVWriter™’s New “THE BASICS OF TV WRITING” Mini Site

We’ve all gotta learn the ropes!

So there I was, looking through this site so I could nod, Godlike, and say to myself, “It is good.” And while, yes, I thought TVWriter™ looked pretty damn good I also had this nagging feeling: “Something’s missing.”

The same nagging feeling I would have each time I finished the first draft of a script for, oh, HAWAII FIVE-0 or STREETS OF SAN FRANCISO or THE FALL GUY or MIKE HAMMER or any of the other shows I’ve written/produced.

It’s a feeling I hate. This tingling “What’s wrong?” sensation. Because it’s a call to action. I can’t go forward – can’t do anything else in the world – until I figure out the problem and fix it. read article

Not a Contest! Not a Contest! Well, Sort of a Contest…

Robin Reed, a PHINEAS & FERB fan from wayback (even further back than last Tuesday) has drawn this homage to Disney’s Surrealist Duo (+ their pal Perry):

Robin sees this as being “about” the series. We, however, see it as much, much more. read article

Avoiding Stress the Way the Ancients Did

In the words of Cato the Younger: “Uh-oh…”

Cheatsheet from Liam McLennan via William B. Irvine

Stoicism for Modern Stresses: 5 Lessons From Cato – by Rob Goodman & Jimmy Soni

Julius Caesar wanted to end him. George Washington wanted to be him. And for two thousand years, he was a singular subject of plays, poetry, and paintings, with admirers as diverse as Benjamin Franklin, the poet Dante, and the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius.

Yet, for all that, you’ve probably never heard of him… read article