Craig over at The Artful Writer (see sidebar) has been blogging about mentors and mentor characters, using, I think, rather idiosyncratic definitions and coming up with very strange theories, but read him and you be the judge. Thought-provoking, at any rate.
DMc disagrees to some extent because his mentor experiences have been good, and he's tried to mentor himself.
One thing I've noticed about mentoring is that most people you try to mentor do not pick up the ball. If I'm going to mentor someone, I expect to hand them the ball and let them run with it. Most people walk a few paces and then forget they have a ball in their hands.
When someone in a position to forward your career takes an interest, by god, latch onto that person. Don't be a stalker, but do ask their advice when you can't figure the answer out yourself. If they give you an opportunity to work for or with them, jump on it. If they suggest you pursue something, pursue it. Most of my interns do their jobs and don't ask too many questions. Almost none of them ask for more work. And yet mentoring is part of the deal with an internship. For your hard work, you get experience and advice. If you just do your job, you're wasting your time.
If someone seems interested in mentoring you at all, try to be a friend. The closest I ever had to a mentor was the late Robin Spry. He put me up for Galidor and Charlie Jade, he optioned Unseen and hired me to create a bible for Isaac Asimov's Robot City, an sf series. Partly because I liked me, partly because he thought I was the best screenwriter in Montreal, for which God bless him.
And every two weeks or so, I called him for advice. And took him out to lunch every month or so. And gave him information when I thought it might be valuable to him.
There are a few people out there I think are promising. Where there's work I don't want to do (it doesn't pay enough, for example), I try to throw it to them. I invite them to meet other people who could help them.
Very often, these people let the whole thing drop.
Well, fine. Nobody has to be my friend. But we're both missing out on a mentoring relationship. Which is good for the career of the mentoree (the telemachus?), and the soul of the mentor. (That's why I'm writing this blog, for one thing.)
(The relationship can also be good for the career of the mentor if the mentoree outstrips the mentor, or if the mentor crashes and burns later on.)
DMc mentions that he never answers the question "Do I have it?" because it's awkward. I don't answer the question partly because I don't know. The early drafts of The Star Wars were dreadful fanboy stuff. But also because "having it" is such a minor part of success. The question really is -- and only you can answer it -- "is this the thing I have to do. Because if it's not, you probably won't put in the work you need to do in order to get there. You'll drop the ball.
Friday, December 02, 2005
ANOTHER FRIEND BONED BY BROWN
I just got two books from Michael Wiese Productions and was totally boned on the delivery. I had to pay a $34.01 shipping charge on top of the $9.40 shipping charge they quoted me.This is apparently another case where UPS charged all sorts of customs brokerage fees to ship to Canada. Canada charges a 15% VAT (sales tax) on anything coming in. UPS charges $25 to handle the VAT. Then they charge INTEREST on the VAT paid -- which should be about two cents, but they have a "minimum interest" charge of about $7. Then they tack on a fuel surcharge, etc. It can get up to about $50, even if the VAT itself (the only thing that actually had to be paid out) is two lousy bucks.
Various irresponsible companies, such as apparently Michael Wiese Productions, continue to use UPS even though UPS grossly overcharges their customers. Their attitude apparently is "this is UPS's issue, not ours."
Well, no it's not. Michael Wiese Productions could have used the US Mail. The post office doesn't charge $25 to handle VAT. You just have to go to the post office and pay the VAT itself. Fedex handles customs for free. Only UPS rips off its customers like this.
If you are having anything shipped to Canada, use Fedex or the US Post. Never, ever use UPS. They will rip you off big time.
If it's too late, and you've already ordered, simply refuse the shipment when they ask you to sign for the UPS fee. Then the company will have to eat the shipping fee and refund your money.
Oh and, I recommend you not buy anything from Michael Wiese until they shape up their act.
TAGS - A WASTE OF TIME?
Does anyone actually use tags to find posts?
For a little while now, I've been tagging my posts. However I've never had a referral from Technorati, as far as Sitemeter can tell, and readership hasn't noticably risen.
Do any of you, dear readers, use Technorati tags to find posts to read?
For a little while now, I've been tagging my posts. However I've never had a referral from Technorati, as far as Sitemeter can tell, and readership hasn't noticably risen.
Do any of you, dear readers, use Technorati tags to find posts to read?
Tags: tag; technorati
I'M GOING TO MISS HIM, or, DOWN, FANBOY!
... Dammit. My favorite author Neil Gaiman is going to give at talk at the 92nd Street Y on January 9th about, you know, creativity. I don't think we'll be down in New York that long.
Having written that, I wonder what I'd get from going to a talk about creativity. Oh yes, Neil Gaiman is one of the most creative writers I know. Possibly the most, in some sense. But I doubt he can tell me how to be more creative. It comes from somewhere in his soul, and from somewhere in mine.
So, possibly, this is just the fanboy in me. Normally I keep him locked away, but he surfaces from time to time. For example, I bought the entire run of Sandman starting from issue #8 (#1-7 were just too expensive even for my inner fanboy, and honestly not as good as the others, I felt). I rarely dig them out and read the books -- for that one can borrow the graphic novels from the library. I just wanted to own a bigger pieces of Sandman, I guess.
That is, I guess, why there are fan conventions.
It's an impulse I try to quash because I feel it leads nowhere. I'm a bit of a fanatic about leaving something behind. I have trouble enjoying a work of art or entertainment unless I feel it is something I can use. Fortunately I have an extremely broad definition of "use." You never know when March of the Penguins might trigger something in the back of the soul, and if nothing else, Harry Potter tells you the state of contemporary computer graphics. But I'm obsessed with making new things, with making ripples in the pool, I guess as a struggle against mortality.
Well, speaking of which, a small person is objecting to going to day care, so I've got to go help...
Having written that, I wonder what I'd get from going to a talk about creativity. Oh yes, Neil Gaiman is one of the most creative writers I know. Possibly the most, in some sense. But I doubt he can tell me how to be more creative. It comes from somewhere in his soul, and from somewhere in mine.
So, possibly, this is just the fanboy in me. Normally I keep him locked away, but he surfaces from time to time. For example, I bought the entire run of Sandman starting from issue #8 (#1-7 were just too expensive even for my inner fanboy, and honestly not as good as the others, I felt). I rarely dig them out and read the books -- for that one can borrow the graphic novels from the library. I just wanted to own a bigger pieces of Sandman, I guess.
That is, I guess, why there are fan conventions.
It's an impulse I try to quash because I feel it leads nowhere. I'm a bit of a fanatic about leaving something behind. I have trouble enjoying a work of art or entertainment unless I feel it is something I can use. Fortunately I have an extremely broad definition of "use." You never know when March of the Penguins might trigger something in the back of the soul, and if nothing else, Harry Potter tells you the state of contemporary computer graphics. But I'm obsessed with making new things, with making ripples in the pool, I guess as a struggle against mortality.
Well, speaking of which, a small person is objecting to going to day care, so I've got to go help...
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
REAL VS. REALISTIC DIALOG
Saw a guy chasing a crying girl down the street, and of course I paused to see if he was menacing her, but he wasn't chasing her very fast, he was just keeping up with her, and he let her get into her car and lock it before he started pleading with her.
I didn't eavesdrop too closely, though I had the excuse of walking the dog. But I was amused to hear him actually come out with "I lied to you because I didn't want to hurt you," followed after some mumbling with "I was telling the truth just now."
Ohhhhh, boy, do you need to take Remedial Dialog, I thought. Who'd believe a character who said anything as lame as that?
But I didn't tell him that.
Need I say it? Sometimes they want stylized dialog. Sometimes they want realistic dialog. But no one wants real dialog. And the fact that something actually happened is no excuse for putting it in a story.
I didn't eavesdrop too closely, though I had the excuse of walking the dog. But I was amused to hear him actually come out with "I lied to you because I didn't want to hurt you," followed after some mumbling with "I was telling the truth just now."
Ohhhhh, boy, do you need to take Remedial Dialog, I thought. Who'd believe a character who said anything as lame as that?
But I didn't tell him that.
Need I say it? Sometimes they want stylized dialog. Sometimes they want realistic dialog. But no one wants real dialog. And the fact that something actually happened is no excuse for putting it in a story.
AS AMERICAN AS HAVING A DOOR ON THE JOHN
[POLITICS] Right-wingers have been proposing all sorts of petty amendments to the Constitution, mostly as wedge issues. An amendment to prohibit burning the flag. An amendment to ban gay marriage.
Recently I heard the excellent idea that both liberals and libertarians ought to push for a Right to Privacy Amendment.
A Right to Privacy Amendment would prohibit the government from regulating private behavior except where it can demonstrate a compelling social interest. If a state or city, for example, made homosexual acts illegal, the burden would be on it to demonstrate that homosexual acts hurt other people, rather than the burden being on the accused to prove that government has no business in the bedroom. Likewise if someone wants to take peyote, the state would have to explain why that's anyone's business but his own. On the other hand, if someone wants to molest their child, the state would have little problem showing that it has a compelling interest in protecting the safety of minors.
It would not automatically establish a right to terminate a pregnancy. The anti-abortion argument is that the fetus is a human being, and the state obviously has a compelling interest in protecting human beings. However any attempt to restrict abortions would start from the presumption that a woman's body is her own business, and any law restricting them would have to establish that the fetus is an independent person under law. In other words a Right to Privacy Amendment wouldn't settle the argument, but it would, I think, force people to face the underlying issue.
Many state constitutions establish an explicit right to privacy -- California's does, in its first paragraph:
A Right to Privacy Amendment would make a nice wedge issue itself, splitting the libertarians who'd like government to stop bothering them at all, from the religious right, who'd like the government to bother everyone who doesn't live in a manner of which they approve. And I'd love to hear any politician explain to Americans why they should not have a right to privacy.
Recently I heard the excellent idea that both liberals and libertarians ought to push for a Right to Privacy Amendment.
A Right to Privacy Amendment would prohibit the government from regulating private behavior except where it can demonstrate a compelling social interest. If a state or city, for example, made homosexual acts illegal, the burden would be on it to demonstrate that homosexual acts hurt other people, rather than the burden being on the accused to prove that government has no business in the bedroom. Likewise if someone wants to take peyote, the state would have to explain why that's anyone's business but his own. On the other hand, if someone wants to molest their child, the state would have little problem showing that it has a compelling interest in protecting the safety of minors.
It would not automatically establish a right to terminate a pregnancy. The anti-abortion argument is that the fetus is a human being, and the state obviously has a compelling interest in protecting human beings. However any attempt to restrict abortions would start from the presumption that a woman's body is her own business, and any law restricting them would have to establish that the fetus is an independent person under law. In other words a Right to Privacy Amendment wouldn't settle the argument, but it would, I think, force people to face the underlying issue.
Many state constitutions establish an explicit right to privacy -- California's does, in its first paragraph:
SECTION 1. All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.However, at the federal level, the US Supreme Court has had to extract a "penumbra" of a right to privacy from various other amendments, e.g. the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violate....Presumably it did not occur to the Framers that this did not establish a right to privacy, or I imagine they would have made it even clearer in the Bill of Rights.
A Right to Privacy Amendment would make a nice wedge issue itself, splitting the libertarians who'd like government to stop bothering them at all, from the religious right, who'd like the government to bother everyone who doesn't live in a manner of which they approve. And I'd love to hear any politician explain to Americans why they should not have a right to privacy.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
CREDIT!
I just heard from the WGC that after all the hard work and writer's statements and arbitrators reading and re-reading, the Bon Cop / Bad Cop credits are... exactly what the producer proposed in the first place. Which gives me my second feature writing credit.
Whoo hoo! Feature credits are always good, even on bad movies, and I think this movie could be a hit, in Canada at least. I haven't seen the dailies, but the script was really funny.
And, under WGC rules, a substantial production fee is divvied up among the credited writers. And money is always good.
Contrary to US credits, which are generally in order of who contributed the most, Canadian credits are given in the order the writers worked. I was the last writer on the show, so I've got the last credit. I like looking like a script doctor. I love writing my own stuff, but rewriting other people's material is its own challenge and reward.
And let's face it, there's more work for script doctors -- and because you come on late in the production, there's more money available and less time to do your job in. When you're on a flat rate, less time is good.
Whoo hoo! Feature credits are always good, even on bad movies, and I think this movie could be a hit, in Canada at least. I haven't seen the dailies, but the script was really funny.
And, under WGC rules, a substantial production fee is divvied up among the credited writers. And money is always good.
Contrary to US credits, which are generally in order of who contributed the most, Canadian credits are given in the order the writers worked. I was the last writer on the show, so I've got the last credit. I like looking like a script doctor. I love writing my own stuff, but rewriting other people's material is its own challenge and reward.
And let's face it, there's more work for script doctors -- and because you come on late in the production, there's more money available and less time to do your job in. When you're on a flat rate, less time is good.
Tags: screenwriting; film
Monday, November 28, 2005
FIREFOX PLUG
Strangely, browser share on this blog has held firm for the past 6 months -- even though Firefox is much more secure, faster and less buggy than Internet Explorer.
Please, folks, seriously consider switching to Firefox 1.5. For some wacky reason, they will give me a buck if you download a Google toolbar for it off the link on the right sidebar. But you should get Firefox itself for your own sake. (Mac users: I'm still pretty happy with Safari, but it doesn't work for all sites. I keep Firefox as my backup browser. It hasn't failed me yet.)
Please, folks, seriously consider switching to Firefox 1.5. For some wacky reason, they will give me a buck if you download a Google toolbar for it off the link on the right sidebar. But you should get Firefox itself for your own sake. (Mac users: I'm still pretty happy with Safari, but it doesn't work for all sites. I keep Firefox as my backup browser. It hasn't failed me yet.)
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