ALEX AND THE TERRIBLE, VERY BAD, NO GOOD DAY

Today wasn't really bad, except that calls I hoped would happen were put off, and some calls that happened seemed to promise mirages. And Lisa hated some pages I wrote. And the Pikapie did her best to run out into traffic. I knew that you had to watch kids, and I'd noticed that she is not very good at responding to the word "No!", but I'd never seen a child toddle with such determination in the direction most likely to get her killed as fast as possible. Whee!

Nothing bad actually happened, she did not really get close to a moving car, and I think she did not much like the speed at which she was yanked back to the curb, or Daddy moaning in pain from his bad arm afterwards, so maybe she will pick up a small hesitation the next time. (I won't count on it, either.) But nearly getting your child killed does put a damper on your day.

I don't know how the parents of soldiers manage it.

I LIKE THIS STORY

I just do. It made me cry and all, the way "Puff the Magic Dragon" still does.

ANOTHER REASON NOT TO WRITE A CLIP SHOW

Apparently the WGC has changed the rules on clip shows. Now, if you write a clip show, you get a percentage of the all-important Production Fee proportionate to the amount of live footage shot. So, if 50% of your show is clips, you only get 50% of the Production Fee. That can really affect your mortgage payments.

This is particularly unfortunate because clip shows are harder to write than regular shows. You have to work the clips into the episode in some way that excuses your reusing old footage, and, hopefully, sheds new light on it. So story editors usually get stuck with writing clip shows, because free lancers don't know the show well enough.

There's a good argument for the change. Under the rules, producers have to pay the production fee to anyone who wrote the clips in question, also in percentage proportionate to the amount of clip footage used. So if they had to pay the full p.f. to the writer of the ep, they'd wind up paying well over 100% of the p.f. on the ep. Which is arguably unfair.

A better solution is not to write clip shows. But that's like saying, "Don't run over schedule and over budget." 'Cause that's why you usually need a clip show. You've run out of time.

Well, now you know.

STORM KING

On our way up from New York back home to Montreal, we visited Storm King. It's an estate of rolling hills, lawns and trees, and huge sculptures from the 1960's -- all those big structural statements, arrangements of pipes and blocks and so on. In the city they would seem sort of beside the point -- the city itself is an arrangement of blocks and pipes -- but in the countryside, in the blazing fall foliage, they were remarkable. The place is arranged so you are always coming over a ridge and discovering something new in the valley or at the top of the next ridge. We got there much too late -- it wants a day, and we only had an hour, thanks to utterly inadequate signage -- but it was worth the detour. And the Pikepie had fun beebling about on the grass. Truthfully she is happy everywhere. It's nice to take her places where she can amuse herself in nature...

AN ANNOYING HABIT

Showcase keeps putting "Next Week on the L Word" right after the last frame of the episode. That means you can't really absorb the emotional meaning of the ending. It also makes it hard to avoid "Next Week On." I don't watch "Next Week On" because I already plan to watch the show. I don't want to know how it's going to turn out. "Next Week On" is more likely to make me miss the show than see it -- sometimes "Next Week On" has something obviously dorky and I think, "oh, don't need to see that."

So, Showcase: wouldja please cut to a commercial? Just one commercial, at least? Thanks.

THE AUDIENCE

A visit to a dear friend of mine yesterday put me in mind of the old story: The jazz band flies into Nowheresville, Wyoming, in the teeth of a snowstorm. And there's no van to pick them up, and the town has no cabs. So they have to hoof it down the road through the snow to their hotel. Ten miles, in their second-best shoes, down a gale-swept road, and night is falling and their feet are freezing. And they come to a small farmhouse by the side of the road. Smoke is coming out of the chimney, and the light inside is warm and inviting. They're drawn to the house, and they peek inside the windows to see the farm family: Mom and Dad sitting on the couch, Mom knitting and Dad reading. The kids are laughing and playing a board game on the carpet in front of a fire, while Grandma's sleeping comfortably in her wing chair. And one jazz musician turns to another and says: "Man, how can people live like that???"

SURREALITY TV

The Chicago Sun-Times writes about a Radar Magazine article exposing just how much of reality shows is fictionalized. They talk about Frankenbyting -- editing what people say so they appear to be saying something they never said or meant -- and adding sounds to imply o.s. characters (oops, participants) were having oral sex when they weren't. They even hire actors to dub in things they didn't say.

What I found remarkable about America's Next Top Model was what wasn't faked. On Season One, when Adrian won, there was nothing faked about her reaction. I've never seen anyone so happy. It was the reaction of a girl who had never won anything before in her life, who just got handed the keys to the castle. It was Cinderella when the Prince shows up looking for the girl who fits the glass slipper. If you want to see what thunderstruck looks like, that's it.

TWO ACTS, THREE ACTS, FOUR ACTS, FIVE

I'd like to hear a little more from readers about this move to five act structure. (Especially since WriterAction doesn't let members of sister guilds participate. Not very neighborly, eh?)

How do you experience a five act story differently?

Are there more "soft outs" (act breaks that aren't cliffhangers or heavy emotional moments?

Does it feel like a longer story?

What are the flavors of the different outs?