Wordish Wanderings - March 12th, 2008

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Waxing Moon

Saturn Retrograde

Sunny and mild

Happy Birthday Me!

Going back to yesterday’s discussion about writing for actors, I had a few questions on that, which I will try to answer.

If you write for a specific actor during the development process, unless the actor is a producer on the piece, or it’s for the actor’s company, you often don’t get the actor for the role.  Either the actor doesn’t feel it’s the right fit, or the advisors don’t think the actor should do it (and may not even tell the actor about the script) or simple scheduling conflicts.  So you (or the next writer on the project) do a major rewrite every time a different actor is interested.

It’s much easier to create the material without Imaginary Casting and then tweak it once an actor’s assigned.

Of course, some actors bring with them their own writers to rewrite their dialogue – a practice I really HATE.  If you’re good enough, you can make any good script your own without having your own people rewrite it.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Waxing Moon

Saturn Retrograde

Cloudy and mild

Thanks for all the good wishes yesterday.  I had a nice, low-key birthday with family and some friends.  A good way to start the newest year of my life.  I’m definitely more optimistic this year than I was last year.  Last year for my birthday, I was still in post-flood trauma, in Vermont in a rented car, and hadn’t yet bought my new VW (which is the best car I’ve ever had in my life).  I loved being in Vermont, but I was still in such shock (and little did I knew in a few short weeks we’d have to deal with an even worse flood) that I couldn’t really deal.  This year, in spite of feeling as though the world is headed for Apocalypse, I’m a bit more optimistic about my personal journey.  I haven’t quite decided if I hope the Riders pass me by or if I’m going to set a trip wire, but we’ll deal with that when it happens.

Good day’s work on the thriller.  And good day’s work honing the Tracking Medusa query letter.  I’ll keep putting the final changes into the Medusa manuscript today in and around working on the sci-fi horror novella.  I need to finish the first draft this weekend, so I have a few days to revise it.  I’m playing with some concepts that people are either going to love or the concepts will hit a nerve and people will flinch – that’s what I want.  We’ll see what happens.  Heck, I’M flinching as I write some of the scenes.  And the next assignment from Confidential Job #1 arrived – I plan to work on it this weekend.