We're Number Three!

I was very pleased to see that Complications Ensue is #3 in a list of 60 Best Blogs for Aspiring Screenwriters!

I have no idea who this guy is...

... but he has some interesting things to say. Check out his post about why you don't like DOLLHOUSE.

Earl Pomerantz Blog

Earl Pomerantz (COSBY, BECKER, MAJOR DAD, etc.) has also decided to join the ever-growing club of pro monkeys who pontificate for the benefit of aspiring and emerging monkeys. Here's a post about writing "like yourself" in his blog Just Thinking.

Check it out!

Man, we did not have this stuff when I was coming up. All you could do was try to get a booth at Nate'n'Al's next to the booth full of old Jews and eavesdrop -- hopefully they were veteran writers. (If you guessed wrong, there was at least the best raisin bread I have ever had.)

I wonder how anyone sells a screenwriting book these days?

(Thanks to Pardis P for the heads-up.)

Link Policy

(Not a Charlie Jade post. Heh.)

Every now and then someone asks me to take a look at their screenwriting blog, hoping I'll link.

If you have a screenwriting blog and you want my readers to check it out, please write me with a link to your best post. If I go to your blog and the first post is about how you're trying to get a job, working in a job, or slogging through a rewrite, I'm not going to recommend it. Sorry to be tough, but posts like this may be true, they may be you, but they are not news:

My writing has been in a bit of a mess lately. After finishing a (rough, rough, rough) draft of a screenplay earlier this summer and a particularly busy late summer on the work front, I've been bouncing around between miscellaneous screenwriting and prose projects, unable to commit myself to any one of them. It's been frustrating, to say the least. I'm writing, but I'm not getting anywhere.

If on the other hand you have written a post that says something new and clever, maybe I'll like it too, and post a link.

If you have just started a blog, likewise, please wait until you have said something you're proud of. I'm not going to link to the post that says you've just hopped on the blogwagon.

I do sometimes check my blog referrals. If I see people coming to my blog from a post on your blog, I might check it out.

This rule also applies, by the way, to sending your work to a connection you might have. If you have a connection in showbiz who is not obliged to read you (such as blood kin, or someone you're sleeping with), never show them a first draft or a first screenplay. Show them your best draft of your cleverest screenplay, the one with the smasho hook. If they aren't impressed with your first submission, they won't be inclined to give your second submission much attention.

Your Clearinghouse for Blogs

Here's an interesting blog project. Film Industry Bloggers has a slew of professionals who blog weekly about what they do. Check'em out:

MONDAY
The Genre Director - Brian Trenchard-Smith
The Personal Assistant - By Avery
The Production Assistant - Brandie Posey
The Screenwriter - Joe Gazzam

TUESDAY
The Digital Video Assist Operator - Glenn Cannon
The Film Journalist - Kate Tremills
The Production Designer - Mark Tanner
The Storyboard Artist - Warren Drummond

WEDNESDAY
The Actor - Liesl Ehardt
The Australian Filmmaker - David Parker
The Casting Director - Matthew Lessall
The Music Supervisor - Dominique Preyer

THURSDAY
The First Assistant Director - Philip Elins
The Independent Filmmaker - Jen McGowan
The Screenwriting Professor - Coleman Hough
The Non-Industry Spouse - Laurie Gazzam

FRIDAY
The Animation Prod. Coordinator - Christine Deitner
The Documentary Producer - Amy Janes
The Reality TV Producer - Top Secret
The Script Analyst - Megan Close

SATURDAY
The Dreamer - Lauren Petre

Fast and Cheap

"Fast, cheap and good: pick two" runs the proverb. 

John Gaspard likes to focus on the fast and cheap, and he's written two books interviewing quick'n'dirty moviemakers. Now he's got a blog where he does more interviews. He's got Roger Corman, one of the Blair Witch guys, and some low-down filmmakers you may never have heard of ... but they make films.

Check it out!

In Which I Link to Lisa Klink

The fabulous Jane recommended I read these posts, How Not to Get an Agent and Advice from a TV Lit Agent, by Amanda the Aspiring Writer. Amanda has done the Right Thing. Rather than, say, spend three years at film school, she has taken her 2007 BA and got a job answering phones at a Lit Agency. She is learning what gets bought and how it gets bought. If you are emerging or aspiring, you should get to know Amanda.

Meanwhile, Amanda the Aspiring Writer's blogroll includes Lisa Klink's What It's Like. Lisa Klink is a Very Accomplished TV Writer. Lisa Klink is answering your aspiring and emerging writer questions like crazy. You would be crazy not to get her perspective.

How the hell has she been writing for a year and I didn't run across her blog? Boy, it's getting to be like Grand Central in rush hour, here in the blogosphere.

Creativity

Adrian Saker has a new blog about creativity. Household Name is about how to become one. He has a nice couple of thoughts about where ideas come from (and here's part 2).

Oh, and a very nice post about why you should buy my book. Thanks, Adrian!

I met Adrian when he hired me to story edit a very cool screenplay about a firehouse dog. If you're a producer, ask to read it.

If This Is LA...

Although this Jane is not Jane Espenson, she has a charming aspiring writer blog called "If This is LA, I Must Be A Screenwriter." You have to admire the logic in that. Check it out.

Criterion Collection

Matthew Dessem is working his way through the entire Criterion Collection, writing down thoughtful thoughts about classic films. Check out his blog.

Brooligan

Friend-Through-The-Blog, tv writer (THE ELEVENTH HOUR starring Patrick Stewart) and novelist (THE KINGDOM OF BONES) Stephen Gallagher has succumbed to the temptation of blogging. You can read his musings at Brooligan.

I don't know what a brooligan is, but it sounds rowdy.

Well, Damn, Kay!?

Trust DMc to smoke out that my old writing group buddy, Kay Reindl hath now a blog. It's called Seriocity. (Actually she's had it for a year, so it's filled with bloggy goodness. But I never spotted it!)

Kay has a wit like Dorothy Parker. We kept her in the writing group even though she never showed us anything she was writing. (She was writing all the time, just not bringing it into the writing group.) She was fondly dubbed "The Queen of Spleen."

Kay got her break in style. If I remember the story correckly, she was writing barbed commentary on a Millennium fan site about how broken a certain episode was, when she got an email from Chris Carter. Yes, the showrunner. Who liked to read the fan sites.

He wanted to know, basically, "Since you're such a smartypants, how would you have fixed it?"

She told him.

He wrote back, basically, "Hmmm. Yeah. That would have been better. Got any spec scripts?"

She wrote back, "Sure. It just needs polishing."

At which point she and her writing partner sat down and banged out a spec in three days.

And they got hired onto the show.

Every now and then showbiz will work the way you would, naively, hope it would. Just to screw with everybody. Star Trek: The Next Generation was actually willing to read your spec Star Trek: The Next Generation script. If they liked it, they bought it.

Do not haunt fan sites hoping the showrunner will recognize your brilliance. Do not send spec scripts of the show you'd like to write for, to the show you'd like to write for. Your mileage will vary.

But do be ready to seize the day.

Q. No One's Linking To My Blog!

Q. No one's discovered my blog. Will you link to it?

Generally, if I check out your blog and I think there's something there for this blog's readers, I'll link.

But here's my advice, too: a blog is like a TV show. It needs a hook to get people to read it. It needs to create a compelling, attractive world (in TV terms, an "attractive fantasy"). And it needs consistency.

My hook is something like "screenwriting thoughts from a guy who makes a living at it."

You don't have to be a pro to get an audience, though. You just have to find your groove. If you focus on one thing, the Net will probably funnel readers your way who are looking for what you're selling. The key is consistency. This blog is about watching and writing TV and movies; subgenre, craft and career issues. I used to rant about politics on it from time to time, but I stopped because I didn't want to chase off readers on the right, and the politics had nothing to do with the craft. I also don't talk about my personal life much, because that's not what the blog is for.

If you're not attracting an audience, ask yourself if your blog has found a groove. Or in marketing terms, does it have a Unique Selling Proposition? Or in story terms: what's it about?

So, if you can tell me what your blog is about, and that has something to do with screenwriting, I'll probably link. I'm even more inclined to link if you point me to one or two really good posts you're proud of. (= your sample scripts!) If your blog is just your daily life and thoughts and wit, then I probably won't link. Not because there's anything wrong with diary blogs, but for consistency's sake.