GALLEYS DONE

I sent my unbound galleys back to my publisher with my teeny tiny trims and revisions. I think Crafty TV Writing reads well. I was surprised how much more information it seemed to have than my first book, without feeling overwhelming. It won't be any fatter than Crafty Screenwriting, but the writing's denser.

Holt, my publisher, should be getting the bound galleys in a few days. These are prototypes of the book, with a plain cover and lots of typoes. We'll send these off to TV writers and network execs who might be willing to give us a blurb or two. (Writers, that is, who I haven't already hit for an interview!) One kind reader is getting a copy to David Mamet, who's writing TV these days. I'm hoping to convince Amy Sherman-Palladino to give me a quotation. And thank you to Stephen Gallagher, Bridget Carpenter and Ken Levine, who have graciously offered to read the book.

Your further suggestions in this department are welcome. Also, if you know any journalists, whether mainstream or in the biz, who'd like a review copy, please let me know. The book's coming out in June.

We're getting there!

Technorati tags: screenwriting; TV

INSANELY SIMPLE, REALLY GOOD

[POLITICS] In today's Times, conservative columnist David Brooks suggests:

all legislation should be posted online for 72 hours before the vote.

This is brilliant. Imagine if the people had a chance to comment on legislation before it got voted on. Imagine if the crazy field of bloggers, thousands of them, had 72 hours to smoke out the pork. Nothing quite as tasty as smoked pork.

To keep it simple, one could require that no new earmarks (goodies for specific companies and districts) be added after the posting; only trims would be allowed.

Of course our representatives will hate the idea and claim it's unwieldy, but we ought to demand it. Democracy in action, people. Accept no substitutes.

Technorati tags: corruption; politics; blogs

GRAY GETS ON THE BLOGWAGON

There is now a blog for the writers of Gray's Anatomy. And they even have comments, so you can thank them, or complain what a whiny little punk Meredith Gray is. Up to you.

As usual, some of this is informative -- how they came up with their Christmas episode, starting with "a boy with a heart two sizes too small" -- and some of it is anecdotal -- they used real leeches and animatronic preemies -- and a lot of it is writers congratulating everyone they worked with like it's an awards show. Worth a look for the first and second of these.

Technorati tags: Gray's Anatomy; TV; blogs

PLEASE NOMINATE THIS BLOG

It's time for nominations for the Bloggies, the blogging equivalent of the Oscars, except with, like, wayyy less money, and the participants need not be wearing tuxedoes. Or even clothes.

If you have enjoyed this blog in the past year, or found it useful, please feel free to nominate it for Best Entertainment Blog and/or Best Canadian Blog. As well as any other blog you admire. Here's the entry form.

Oh, and nominate John Rogers for Best Political Blog. Just so we can see him blush.

Technorati tags: blog; Bloggies

NETFLIX.COM / ZIP.CA

Was chatting with DMc, who's contemplating the large stacks of DVD's piling up in his living room, and observing that at the point where you can't find DVD's you know you have, you probably have too many.

I recommended Zip.ca, Canada's version of Netflix. (UPDATE: Too bad I can't recommend them any more.) The obvious benefits of having a video store that mails you disks are (a) don't have to go out in the cold (b) can keep them out indefinitely, so no late fees (c) internet video stores have 10x as many dvds as even more your most comprehensive brick-and-mortar (or, in SoCal, stucco-and-cement) video store. If you watch your videos within a day or two of receiving them, you can easily watch 12-15 movies a month for your $25 fee, bringing the cost down to under two bucks.

The less obvious benefits are that you actually wind up seeing stuff you wouldn't take home from a video store. Stuff like The Motorcycle Diaries or anything by Todd Solondz. You look at it and go, hm, am I really up for that? The critics liked it, but maybe it sucks.

If you're like me, you're not going to pay $5 to rent something that might suck, but it nags at you that you don't know for sure. Then you do rent the disk, but it sits on your TV for a couple of days while you wait for the right moment to experience incestuous masturbatory fantasies and suicidal angst, or whatever. And the moment doesn't come. So you return it and you're out the $5. Or worse, you return it late, and now you've paid $8 for a movie you don't watch.

With Zip or Netflix, you just rent it, and it's one of four movies you could see, and if it sits around for four or five days, you know you're never going to watch it and you can just cross it off your list.

You also get a lot more TV shows on Zip and Netflix than you do at the store. And you don't have to cram all four episodes into one night, you can watch them one per night with, again, no late fees.

Oh, and I can look movie ratings up on the IMDB while I'm shopping for things to watch.

As I told Denis, since I got Zip, I'm probably watching twice as much stuff, but five times better stuff, and for half the cost. And since watching stuff is part of my job, that is a damn fine thing.

Now ask me about my DVR!

Technorati tags: Netflix; TV; film

EXEUNT ANNATEVKA

We were channel surfing last night, the whole family, and came across Fiddler on the Roof, which neither Lisa and I had seen in decades. My gosh that's a great movie. Topol is brilliant. The script is funny and warm-hearted and bitter and hopeful. The songs are as powerful as any opera's.

I spent a lot of time explaining to Hunter about Cossacks and Jews. He's mystified why people would treat each other differently because of religion or race. I hope his whole generation grows up that way.

There's a funny irony at the end of the movie, of course: their world is shattered, their village destroyed, and they must all go off to a strange new land -- where, on the whole, they will work like dogs and their children will become businesspeople and their children will become moviemakers and make a movie about their grandparents suffering in the shtetl.

Technorati tags: racism; musicals; film

Best of 2006

And here are my favorites of 2006:

Best New Blog
Jane Espenson: It's great when top professionals give up their tradecraft for us lesser mortals, and somehow Jane finds the time to do it between writing episodes of shows we'd all kill to staff.

Favorite Blog
Dead Things on Sticks: If talking sense can fix Canadian TV, DMc is the man to do it. And if you're south of the border, there's lot of stuff to learn about creating and staffing TV shows. Sure, Denis is a good friend, so this is arguably logrolling, but part of the reason he's a friend is because he's so smart and funny.

Favorite Shows

This is the year Slings and Arrows made it to basic cable, so this is the year I discovered it. Probably one of my top five favorite current TV shows. If you didn't catch it on TV, rent the DVD.

This was also the year we ploughed through the entire run of Sopranos, and rediscovered the joys of Northern Exposure. And it was great fun to watch the Walking with Dinosaurs / Walking with Prehistoric Monsters / Walking with Cavemen series with Hunter.

Favorite Books

Probably the most directly useful book I read this year was John Badham and Craig Modderno's book on directing actors, I'll Be in My Trailer. I got to use it while casting my short film. Packed with specifics on what to do and what not to do.

The most fascinating book I read was 1491, which develops the thesis that the New World was heavily populated with advanced farming civilizations prior to the arrival of Columbus, and that the impression of Indians as primitive Neolithic hunter-gatherers was a result of 96% mortality rates in plagues that swept the continents long before most European diarists got anywhere near them.

Other books that will in no way help my career unless I am very, very lucky include Rubicon, about the fall of the Roman Republic -- the book that inspired the HBO series Rome; Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game; and Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: A Biography, about the Victorian explorer/rogue/linguist/translator.

In the land of fiction, obviously there was Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, which Lenny Henry was kind enough to read to me on my iPod. I also caught up to Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon The Deep. And, purely for research, mind you, most of the DC Vertigo Lucifer series.

Best Toy I Definitely Did Not Buy For Myself, It Was For My Daughter You See: Darth Tater.

Best First Sentence (Jesse Anne Epstein): "I'm not sleepy!" She says it a lot.

Best Song: "Furry Happy Monsters" by REM.

Best New Agent: Amy Stulberg.

Best Pork Buns: Dobe and Andy, 1111 St. Urbain

Happy New Year! May your year be a happy and successful one.

IT HAS BEEN THIS BAD, REALLY

I've been dipping into Hail to the Chiefs: Presidential Mischief, Morals and Malarkey from George W. to George W., which is funny, and reassuring. Yes, it has been this bad before. The perfect present for the depressed liberal in your family. Wait another three years, and who knows, you can give it to the depressed conservative in your family. If you're all still talking, that is.