Me Me Me

Much to my surprise, it turns out that London was more of a paradise for books than Hay-on-Wye was.  I went a little crazy…and sent back two boxes of books to Los Angeles from my binges at Foyles, Murder One, and a bunch of other  bookshops. I also went into a frenzy buying DVD boxed sets  of British TV shows, like the complete  series of THE SWEENEY, which is worth the purchase  price for the extras alone. I had to restrain myself from buying the complete SAINT and RETURN OF THE SAINT boxed sets, too. 

Yesterday morning,  I finally stopped my shopping spree.  Some production personnel from Germany flew in from Cologne to meet with me and go over production details on my movie/pilot, then  we took a long walk in the cold and rain through the city. Last night I got some take-out Chinese, sat in my hotel room, and worked on my MONK book.  I would have liked to take in a show while I was here, but there just wasn’t time…and it would have felt a little odd going alone.

In an hour, I am getting on a flight to Stockholm and next Saturday, finally, I will be returning home. Three weeks is too long to be away from my family.

Greetings from the Grannery Pub in Hay-on-Wye,  the Disneyland for book lovers. This tiny village is devoted almost entirely to bookstores. I have shown super-human restraint and have only bought about a dozen books, which I have shipped back to the US by goat and freighter…the package should arrive in six months. This pub is apparently the only place in town with an Internet connection, so I am sitting here, eating an amazing Chicken Pie, catching up on 200 emails and trying very hard not to dribble gravy on my keyboard. Tomorrow it’s  off to London and, after three days there, on to Stockholm.

The third Writers Room seminar has ended and, at least from my point of view, was a great success. The writer/producers I worked with here not only enthusiastically embraced the four act structure, but were eager to put it to use in their current series and pilots. Coincidentally, one of the major German newspapers reported yesterday that, with the exception of Action Concept’s ALARM FOR COBRA 11, home-grown German shows are bombing.  American shows are thriving here — the highest rated programs on German TV are HOUSE, CSI MIAMI, MONK and CRIMINAL MINDS.  The networks believe one reason for the failure of German drama programming is that their series aren’t structured and run the way American shows are. As a result, Pro7/Sat1, one of the biggest networks here, announced yesterday that they would no longer buy any series that isn’t run using the American "showrunner/writer’s room" system.  That’s a seismic shift for the German TV industry…and I think my friends at Action Concept can take a lot of credit for that, thanks to their very aggressive efforts over the last six months to convince all the networks here that the "showrunner/writer’s room" approach is the only way to go.

Tomorrow I am off for six days in the UK…where I may or may not have Internet access…and then on to Sweden for another session of "The Writers Room" seminar next Saturday.

I may also have some very good news (for me!) to share with you by then…

The third Writers Room "showrunner" seminar got off the ground yesterday here in Lohr, Germany, taught by me and my friend Matt Witten.  The way we teach together, it’s less of a lecture and more of a day-long discussion about various aspects of writing and producing episodic television shows. Lots of anecdotes and experiences are shared along the way between us and the students.  It was fascinating for me to learn more about the differences between the German television industry and ours — and discovering common ground. Things that are second-nature to us — like the four-act structure —  are new concepts to the writer/producers here and it’s exciting to see them embrace it with genuine enthusiasm. We’ve watched and analyzed both good and bad episodes of US television shows, some times stopping after every scene to discuss it.  I am having a great time…but it’s also very exhausting to be "on" from breakfast clear through drinks in the bar late at night (in fact, it’s often during the those casual conversations outside of class where the real progress is made). And before crawling into bed, I try to make some progress on my other work. (Thank God they’ve got Diet Coke here!) It will be very interesting to compare and contrast this experience with the one I’m going to have  in two weeks when Bill Rabkin and I teach the course in Sweden.

In the last six months, I think I’ve traveled more than I have in the last six years. Tomorrow I am off to Germany again…this time, with my friend Matt Witten (LAW AND ORDER, HOUSE, etc) to teach writer-producers there how we develop, write  and produce TV series here. Then it’s off to Sweden with William Rabkin to conduct the same course for their writer/producers. While all that is going on, I will be spending every free moment writing the next MONK novel and awaiting word on my two pilots…

I’ll try to check in here, too.