(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Have decided that people are crazy in general. It could be that we evolved from monkeys or maybe aliens, haven't decided which.

Anywho, from the scan of flist - came up with a comforting bit from the professional television writer Ken Levine - who probably could write a dissertation on this topic:

Writers need a thick skin, belief in themselves, and five times a week therapy (prom rebuffs linger large).

Keep striving to improve, maybe find some constructive use in the rejection (if it’s offered and useful), but never let your worth be decided by someone else. Supposedly, Richard Wagner once wrote back to a critic who panned one of his works by saying (and I’m paraphrasing), “I am currently sitting on the toilet. At the moment your critique is in front of me. In a moment it will be behind me.”
I’ve written spec screenplays that have sold and others that haven’t. I used to ask my agent if they gave any reason for passing. I would hear such explanations as: too broad, not broad enough; too edgy, too soft; too familiar, too out there. And all these regarding the same script. My favorite rejection of all-time was from an idiot studio executive who said this about one of my screenplays:

“The writing was so good it almost fooled me into liking this script.”

It's just snippets. Want to read the whole thing? Go to his blog - at
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/kenlevine2/profile

This is what I needed to read this week - while fretting about what I should do next with the book I wrote. Writing the thing is easy compared to ahem, the next steps, which I'm procrastinating like crazy - by giving the book to four readers instead of just two.

After reading this bit - I read a truly frightening post on liz_marcs journal about the Real ID Act that got passed in 2005. Ack! Can we please impeach the Bush administration. Fire the Republicans and Democrats in Congress who are passing this stuff.
And stop acting like paranoid monkeys chittering in cages? The terrorists are winning - if we keep doing crap like this. Doesn't anyone get that? Canada...is looking more and more appealing, so for that matter is New Zealand. And I am going to be royally pissed if I have to take a passport with me every time I fly to Hilton Head to see my parents. If you voted for George W. Bush, remind me again why? I just don't understand why anyone in their right mind would have voted for this guy. Were you stoned? At this point I'm less afraid of terrorists killing me than I'm afraid of my silly governments attempts to protect me from getting killed. (I live NYC folks - and work in Penn Plaza - right above Penn Station.)

More evidence that people are crazy (but I probably shouldn't say that too loudly, because people also don't take criticism well...myself included.)

Comments

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

I think Ken Levine's advice to start the next project while waiting to get reactions on the current is spot on. And I should be taking it and finishing the two things I've started and not fretting...

I took the train out to Long Island from Penn Station the other week! We were so close! But alas I was so rushed to go see the family.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Ah me too. And It is good advice, isn't it? Stephen King advises the same thing in his book On Writing. When you finish a book or a piece of writing, put it in a drawer for three months, send it to readers, don't touch it - and start on your next project. Then after a bit of time, go back, review, send out to people, but keep working on the next project.

This is what I keep trying to do. And I have two different writing projects that I can work on, I just have troubles committing to them. I keep distracting myself and/or fretting about the one I just finished.
Sigh. Goal this weekend, besides joining gym? Working on my next writing project. If I can just get one chapter finished....

Sorry we missed each other. Although it is a lot harder to meet up with people in NYC than you might think. Takes about 45 minutes to get anywhere and there's the whole scheduling thing. I've been horrid at meeting up with folks from online. I do not know how people on my flist manage to find the time to visit one another as much as they do, not to mention the money. Better jobs? Possibly. Significant others with great jobs? Or...they are either students, freelance, own their own business, or retired?

Looks like my vacations are going to be limited to family visits this year as well. Don't have the time or money to do Belize this year, maybe next.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

well I definitely agree about Bush AND the entire legislative branch (do they think they are actually representing what we WANT?! Because I thought we made our desires pretty clear about wanting Bush & Cheney out, the US out of Mideast, AND we want health care & cleaner environment....).
grrr argh.

I've been reading a fun writer's blog: http://www.myspace.com/grovont
in his most recent post he was writing about how futile it is to submit treatments, outlines, and/or scripts to studios:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=99762163&blogID=300613593
"I have honestly, no kidding or exaggerating, heard a Touchstone executive say, "This is the best script I've read in a year. Who can we get to rewrite it?""
He is pretty bitter, but really funny.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, screenwriting is hellish profession partly because Hollywood really doesn't think highly of screenwriters. The hierarchy in Hollywood is evident in the salaries. For example: James Marsters makes at least 6,900 or 7,000 an episode for a guest staring role. The script writer? About $2000-$3000 if that. The info came from a recent TV Guide survey.
Directors and Actors make far more than writers do. Want to know why Whedon is doing comics right now? Writing for movies and tv is hellish. You fight networks, you fight actors, you fight directors, and you have to get used to having your script re-written and re-worked. Doris Egan tells a story about working on either Dark Angel or Homicide Life on the Streets, where her script was completely re-written to the extent that the only thing she recognized was one line. Then there's Whedon's horror tales of writing scripts for the original Buffy movie, Alien Resurrection, and X-Men. He sweated bullets over them, only to have them either ruined by the director, rewritten completely or have another writer chop them up.

Years ago, my brother did an internship with a film director - they were redoing "Love Crimes" - which had been directed by Lizzie Borden and written by her. The studio didn't like it. They hired Kit Carson, the guy who directed the Texas Chainsaw Massacre II (the old one) and worked on, directed and co-wrote the screenplay for Paris, Texas (which he didn't really get credited for- but his son did have a part in.) Kit brought back the actors, who got paid extra. Refilmed, rewrote, reedited the film.
It was sent back to the studio. They re-edited it again. And my brother complained about how half of their hard work ended up on the floor. My brother got so disllusioned by film (he was in LA for a while, and had numerous friends who interned - one with Tim Burton on Nightmare Before Xmas, one with Oliver Stone, and one with Speilburg - he told me horror stories about all three), he left, changed his major, and runs his own graphic art/marketing company in NY. He told me that I did not want to be a screenwriter - screenwriters are treated like dirt in Hollywood. Be novelist instead. (Which was fine with me - I prefer the format of the novel to the script have done both and read enough of both.)

And a lot of novelist agree to. Chandler, Fitzgerald, Sue Grafton, and William Goldman have all stated that screenwriting was hellish. They all did it for the money or a love of movies, only to be disllusioned. Grafton refuses to sell the rights of her novels to the screen because of her disillusionment. TV writing is better than film writing - the writer had more control over the product and is often in charge, not the director. TV of the mediums is more the writers - which may be one of the reasons I love it. Theater is the actors- they have control. Film - the directors/editors/cinematographers - they have control. It's good to know, because you can decide what to see often based on who is at the head of each. A good actor can make a mediocre play fantastic. But a good actor cannot save a film from a bad director, and can't save a tv show from bad writing. All are collaborative, but writers have more control in tv over the others. Also there are more jobs in TV. But it is hellish. You don't do it unless you really love it and are driven. Heck you don't write period unless you are driven and love it.