The Artful Writer

Thanks to John August, I discovered Craig Mazin’s The Artful Writer, one of the most interesting and fearless blogs around about the business of screenwriting…or, more accurately, the issues being discussed among the various factions of the Writers Guild of America. While I don’t always agree with the views expressed on the site, I am enjoying the lively debates… and learning some things along the way.

In recent days, they’ve tackled the influence of rarely-employed members on Guild policy,  the pros and cons of listing all contributing writers in movie credits, and the conflict between WGAw and WGAe.

If you’re a member of the WGA, or curious about the issues facing professional screenwriters, I urge you to check out the site.

Keep Your Spock Ears At Home

The instant UPN cancelled the low-rated STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE, the fans immediately began mounting the inevitable campaign to save the show. They’ve raised $35,000 so far and took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times. Their goal is to either get the series renewed… or raise the $35 million it will cost to make this dream come true

I want you to sit down in front of your TV this October. To hear the
rising sounds of instruments beginning to play in harmony. To see the
vibrant colours of scenery fade into life. I want you all to see Enterprise‘s fifth season explode on to your TV screens in a magnificent blaze of sound and passion signifying everything.

Everything?  They must have asked the folks at the Colonial Fan Force for help writing up  their  call-to-arms.

However,  there are at least a couple people associated with the campaign who have dipped their toes in the real world:  as part of their plans for a Feb. 25th rally outside the Paramount gates,  the folks at  SaveEnterprise.com  are asking Trekkers to leave their Spock ears at home.

Although we think that coming in dress would be great, We also
think this would stereotype us all as "Hardcore" Trekkers and
would hurt more than help. Please wear your daily wear.

The frightening thing is, for some people the Star Trek uniform is  their daily wear, like that nutcake who wore her Federation garb, complete with phaser and tricorder, to jury duty (and who still wears her halloween get-up in her day job at — where else?– Kinkos). The folks at Zap2it have another take on it:

People willing to donate $10,000 of their hard-earned money (mostly refundable
if they don’t reach their goals or Paramount shuns their overtures) for a
low-rated series don’t look desperate but, apparently, those same people in
costumes do.

They want to raise $35 million for a fifth season of a crappy TV show… and Trekkers wonder why people ridicule them. 

Okay, I’ll tell them.

It was one thing when they were fighting to renew, and then resurrect, the original STAR TREK back in the 60s.  It was a campaign that made sense, that people could get behind. 

Wake up, Trekkers. It’s not 1969 anymore. You won that battle.  STAR TREK isn’t the under-appreciated TV series that was treated so unfairly… it’s a multi-billion dollar industry.

It’s hard to work up any sympathy for your cause, or share your righteous
fury,  when there’s  so much STAR TREK out there. There have been five STAR TREK TV series, hundreds of novels,  a dozen
movies… enough already. There have been 500 episodes of the show.  There’s plenty of Star Trek out there. Too much, in fact. And now you want people to get all worked up over the fact that the fifth series is being canceled after their fourth season?

What the hell is the matter with you people?

It’s more obvious now, than ever, that Trekkers have absolutely no perspective.  With so many worthy causes out there needing our time, money and attention, seeing people going to all this effort for a fifth season of a TV show in franchise that has already been milked to death for billions of consumer dollars is beyond pathetic, embarassing, and moronic…

It’s wrong.

Battlestar Galactica

I thought Friday night’s episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was great fun…the best yet. The show gets better every week and is evolving, after a rocky start, into an entertaining cross between LOST IN SPACE and the original STAR TREK.

Like LOST IN SPACE, the heroes are wandering through the cosmos without a home and no idea where they’re going. Dr. Baltar has become an  insane, less-cartoony, version of Dr. Zachary Smith…injecting some much needed humor (and, in a strange way, humanity) into the show.  The robot from the Jupitor II has been updated into the sexy, imaginary Cylon woman who exists only in Dr. Balter’s head…or is she more than that?

Like the original  STAR TREK,  there’s no preaching, no grand space opera, just action, adventure, fun
and sex. That’s right, sex. This week, we actually saw two characters writhing
around and, get this,  having orgasms (though one of the characters
is a Cylon who’s spine glows when she’s climaxing, but let’s not get into that).  Capt Kirk used to get laid every episode…but in the
recent incarnations
of STAR TREK, the pompous, aren’t-we-so-noble-you-could-vomit crewmembers have either been celibate… or
dealt with sex like uptight teenagers (when the producers weren’t engaged in cringe-worthy leering… like  those  ridiculous spongebath scenes in early seasons of ENTERPRISE..or the skin-tight uniform that hugged Seven of Nine’s enormous Borg Breasts on VOYAGER). After watching STAR TREK for
the last 15 years, I was beginning to think "Abstinance" was the new Prime Directive.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA   is  such a refreshing change from the stilted, self-important, sanitized scifi we’ve been getting over the last few years. Each episode reinforces just how calcified the STAR TREK franchise has become. It’s no coincidence UPN finally mercy-killed ENTERPRISE the same season that BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is injecting new life into the genre. It’s as if showrunner Ron Moore, an ST:NG vet, is intentionally rebelling against all the sanitizing, drama-smothering restrictions and formulas he had to endure while writing for TREK. How anybody could endure ENTERPRISE after watching BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is beyond me.

To be far, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA isn’t the first post-STAR TREK show to re-energize the genre.  FARSCAPE managed to muddy space up a bit it’s first season…but then wallowed in melodrama and overly complicated serial storylines, taking all the fun (and almost all of the humor) out of the show, alienating new viewers and some of the old ones, too.

If the writers of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA continue having this much fun with the stories and the characters, the series has the potential to be the next great scifi franchise… and attract more and more new viewers every week.

(This is one time where the revival is infinitely better than the original series that inspired it)

A Writer’s Life

This weekend was a good example of what life is like for a professional writer:

  • I wrote an article about writing DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE WAKING NIGHTMARE for MJ Rose’s excellent Backstory blog.
  • I traveled to San Francisco to speak at a writers conference.
  • I  proofed the copyedited manuscript for my fifth DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel, which has to arrive in NY no later than Feb. 23.
  • I proofed the galleys for my novel THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE, which have to arrive on my editor’s desk no later than Feb. 23.
  • I revised the manuscript for my sixth DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel, which is due March 1, but that I need to finish by Feb 22, so I can stick it in the FedEx packet with the copyedited manuscript for DM #5… because I am leaving on Wednesday to attend & speak at Left Coast Crime in El Paso.
  • I drove back to L.A. from S.F…and thought about the plot for my seventh DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel.  I made  some notes when I stopped for lunch.
  • I posted some articles on my blog.
  • I wrote some notes for a network pitch meeting that’s set for Tuesday.

And this was a light weekend… I didn’t have to write a script or write a chapter in a book.

The Morons of the World Have a New King

While I was up in the Bay Area, I clipped this story from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Jonathan Fish, a 20-year-old San Francisco resident, was cruising across the upper deck
of the Bay Bridge at 10:40 a.m., smoking a cigarette. When he got near the
Harrison Street off-ramp, he rolled down the window of his white 2004 Ford
Expedition SUV and tossed out the butt, authorities said.

Instead of bounding along the pavement, however, the still-lit cigarette
blew back in and set the interior of Fish’s $30,000 SUV ablaze.  Black smoke filled the vehicle. Fish pulled over to the far left-hand
lane about 100 feet from the Harrison Street exit and leaped from the
Expedition  —  leaving the SUV in neutral instead of park.  The flaming Expedition rolled driverless into a guardrail by the exit,
where it crashed to a stop and burned to the frame.

California Highway Patrol officers and fire crews arrived and closed the
off-ramp until 11:45 a.m., tying up traffic all the way back to the toll plaza.
Fish had his hair singed but was otherwise unharmed.

The guy is being charged with littering… and criminal stupidity.

Grumpy Goldberg

Ian Hamet over at Banana Oil regularly reads my blog and thinks I’ve been grumpy lately (though he thinks I wasn’t  grumpy enough with the people I met at the San Francisco Writers Conference. Did I mention that they didn’t have a single copy of any of my books for sale in the conference bookstore? Grumpier writers than me would have walked away from the conference in a huff… but I’m not prone to huffs).

So I did a quick scan of my posts here over the last few weeks… and Ian is right.  It looks like I’ve been using my blog mostly to whine and complain (which proves, I suppose, that I really am a professional writer).  I’ll try to be more upbeat in future posts.

The Lit Nazis

These are some very scary people.  Let’s hope nobody ever teaches these morons how to rub two sticks together and make fire, or lots of books are gonna be burned.

Among the books they think are "vulgar titles" and "pornography" include I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, ALL THE PRETTY HORSES,  BELOVED, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE,  and CATCHER IN THE RYE.

If they think those are bad, let’s hope they never get around to reading THE BIBLE.

Is a Story Really Necessary?

Today, I spoke at the San Francisco Writers Conference about screenwriting and breaking into television. Afterwards, I was cornered by a senior citizen who showed me his scrapbook from his days in Hollywood and rambled on endlessly about all the stars he met. I don’t know why he wanted to share this with me…but we had to go through every single page, clipping and photo. Then I mingled with the attendees,  got asked some incredibly stupid questions and had some bizarre conversations. Here’s a sampling…

"I’ve written a novel and everyone tells me it’s a script," one woman said. "How do I turn it into a script?"

"Well, you write a script." I said.

She stared at me. "How do I do that?"

"You get a book or take a course, learn the principles of screenwriting, and then you write a script."

"That’s too much work," she said. "Isn’t there software that can do all of that for me?"

"Yeah," I said. "The same way Microsoft Word wrote your book for you."

* * * * * *

Another person came up to me and asked me if I wrote for television. I said yes.  She then asked, "How do you do that?"

"You mean, how do I write for television?"

"Yes," she said.

"I write screenplays," I said.

"Which is what, exactly?"

"The story, the action, the words that the characters say," I replied.

She stared at me. "Somebody writes that?"

"Yes," I said, resisting the urge to strangle her. "It’s like a writing a play, only for the camera instead of a theatre audience."

She shook her head.  "No, it’s not."

* * * * * *
"I’ve written  a book but everyone tells me it s a TV series," the man said.  "How do I make it into a TV series."

"You can’t, " I said, and gave my standard speech about how ideas are cheap and execution is everything, how networks go to people with TV experience, or who have written hit movies, or who have written bestselling novels, blah blah blah.  And when I got done, he stared at me. I got stared at a lot today.

Hee said:  "How can I get around that?"

"You can’t," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because you haven’t established yourself  as a writer in any field," I said. "Why would a network, studio or producer buy a TV series idea from you?"

"Because I’m smarter and more talented than they are," he said.

"It’s not going to happen," I said.

"Is it because I’m black?" he said. "That’s it, isn’t it. It’s because I’m black."

* * * * * *

"Did you have to sleep with a lot of people to get into TV?" a woman asked me.

"Just my wife," I said.

"You were lucky it wasn’t someone else," she said and walked away.

* * * * * *
"I have a great idea for a movie," a woman said to me. "What’s the market like for true stories about black lesbians in the 1880s?"

"I don’t think studios are looking for scripts to fill that particular niche," I said, "but there’s always a market for good stories that are told well."

"Oh," she said. "That’s going to make it a lot harder to sell."

* * * * * *
"Mysteries are hard work,"  a man said to me. "Could I write an episode of a mystery show but leave out the mystery for someone else to do?"

"No," I said.

"But my talent is character and I’m brilliant with dialogue," he said. "I really don’t know how to plot a mystery."

"Then don’t write a mystery," I said.

"But that’s what’s selling," he said.

"Don’t try to write what’s selling," I said. "Write what you enjoy. Write the story you want to tell."

"The thing is, I don’t know how to tell stories," he said. "But I write killer dialogue. Is a story really necessary?"

"Yes," I said.

"You people in Hollywood don’t make it easy, do you? That’s  the problem with the Industry. They are constantly creating obstacles so people can’t get in."

Everyone is Writing a Script

Today, I drove up to San Francisco to speak at a writer’s conference this weekend. There’s a Borders next door to my hotel, so I went over to their coffee house  for a cup of tea while I proofed the copyedited manuscript of DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE PAST TENSE, which I received yesterday and is due back in NY on the 23rd. Talk about "last minute"…

Anyway, I couldn’t help noticing all the folks around me with their laptops… working on their scripts.  There I was, 300 miles from Hollywood, and still everybody is toiling on a screenplay. It’s not like I was sitting in Vancouver or Toronto or New York, where there’s lots of production going on. This was San Francisco

If that wasn’t disconcerting enough, I heard a woman (let’s call her Sally) and her friend (let’s call her Betty) talking over the script on the laptop. Sally was getting Betty’s advice… and the advice was absolutely terrible. Everything out of Betty’s mouth was wrong, lame, and screamed that she was an uneducated, uninformed, unschooled wanna-be.  For instance, she advised Sally to add a lot more elaborate and detailed camera moves, angles, and editing suggestions or "the director won’t know what to do."  She also kept recommending that Sally add exclamation points to her dialogue to make it "urgent and important."

It took tremendous willpower not to jump out of my seat, scream at Betty that she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about and urge Sally to delete  the camera moves and exclamations points and every other stupid thing her friend told her to add to her screenplay.

Instead, I moved to a different table…and silently prayed Sally never sent her script to me.

Extreme Make-Over for Bugs Bunny

Bugs Bunny just isn’t hip anymore. So he’s getting a make-over and becoming Buzz Bunny. The "reimagined" Bugs Bunny will have "laser beam eyes" and incredible martial arts skills… and will star with other "reimagined" cartoon charactersBugsoldnew (Daffy Duck will have "built in sonar")  in a new series called "Loonatics." The only only Loonatics are the execs at Warner Brothers animation who think anybody is clamoring for this abomination.

"The new series will have the same classic wit and wisdom, but we have
to do it more in line with what kids are talking about today," says
Sander Schwartz, president of Warner Bros. Animation. The plots are
action-oriented, filled with chases and fights. Each character
possesses a special crime-fighting power.Buzzbunny

Oh goodie, ’cause that’s what was missing from those classic cartoons. Special crimefighting powers.

What’s next, Minnie Mouse with huge breast
implants and bionic limbs? How about Woody Woodpecker with a Titanium
pecker and incredible mud wrestling skills? Maybe Popeye’s eye could really pop out and maye fly around the room and shoot rockets…and instead of eating Spinach, wouldn’t it be so hip if he snorted coke instead?

(You can read more about this  here, here and here.)