Mark Evanier added to his long-running series on “Rejection” last month. This one is about his own personal experience that writers (and others) don’t actually get hired by friends who then hire them back. I’m not going to lie, I probably like this because it scratches me right in the confirmation bias. Nevertheless, his personal experience rings true with mine. People like to work with people they know, sure. But they also want to work…
Columnist Chris Erskine has a humorous, but not inaccurate assessment of the state of the venerable spec script: the thing Hollywood doesn’t like at all…. until it loves it. I really want to see the Scriptnotes crew comment on this.
The writers at FiveThirtyEight have never been afraid to get wonky. So when they look into how to best pursue a regular course of exercise — surely something that people are grappling with now since we’re still in the glow of New Year’s resolutions — I found it worth reading.
Continuing on this week’s theme of writing and publishing, John August, has launched a new podcast called, well, Launch. I’ve mentioned his Scriptnotes podcast before, which is well worth a listen if you’re interested in screenwriting. But John August doesn’t confine himself to scriptwriting. He has a company that makes apps related to scriptwriting. He’s made writer’s aids and a decent card game. And now he’s written the first of a series of novels about…
When it comes to writing, most of the beginning of this decade, I was mainly focusing on regularly writing: simply putting in the time. That’s where I worked to write 20 minutes a day, every day (with occasional time off for good behavior). For the past year or two, I have been tracking pages written and finishing drafts — not simply time writing. This year, the logical continuation is to understand what to do when those finished drafts amount to…
88 years is no small feat, but when my wife and I talked, we agreed, it would have been nice to see Ursula K. Le Guin, who passed away last week, reach a hundred. Far and beyond the worlds she created was her perspective: on writing, being a writer, and, well, managing to live this crazy life and perhaps make it a better place while being a writer. I only discovered her work later in…
Especially with the Virginia legislature elections this past November, I have been following what, if any, measures may be introduced to add more non-partisan redistricting to electoral districts. I’ve been happy to see the cheerfully wonky site FiveThirtyEight look into gerrymandering in general, but two recent pieces, both by Galen Druke. One is a reminder of what went down in Arizona when they tried to ensure that districts were competitive. The more recent entry is…
Copyright is always a topic of interest to writers and public domain in the United States is of added interest what with Congress’ tendency to extend copyright. As it happens, a whole host of published works (films and books) are set to enter the public domain next year. Timothy Lee notes in an article for Ars Technica that, strangely, that might happen. (He also links to his excellent 2013 article on the same subject).
A common household dinner strategy of ours is to have roast chicken one night and chicken soup the following night. This past weekend was an excellent weekend for soup. But anyway, one thing has always puzzled us: why are raw, uncooked chickens more expensive than cooked, ready-to-eat chickens? Daniela Galarza over at Eater.com exposes the grocery conspiracy.
New years, like birthdays, are popular times to look at the year ahead and take stock at the year past, and I certainly join in as well. One topic that’s come up with several friends and acquaintances both online and off for the past few weeks has been job satisfaction as well as what to do with one’s life. My current main breadwinning gig, project and program management, has nothing to do with what I…