Y TV?
BooM got all memey. She says write about why we write for TV not anything else. We know the BooM. We like the BooM. We will comply with the BooM.
Why TV? Because early on, I realized that working in jobs you even marginally dislike is no fucking way to live. I wanted to do something I loved. And at the time (this being, like, 12). I loved pop culture. And hey, newsflash, apparently I'm still 12. I loved comics and TV and movies and books. I also liked drawing quite a bit but quickly realized I lacked any talent or skill in that regard, and realized that the fun part was no in the execution, but in the creation of whatever little world was gonna be confined to that 8 1/2" x 11" sheet.
I remember getting a class assignment in school to write our own King Arthur legend/myth/story. It had to be at least three pages. Mine was 15 (little rushed in the third act...my hand was tired).
So I decided I wanted to write. I wasn't sure what at first. I tried comics...I still do from time to time. I tried mysteries...short stories...I think I even sent one or two off to Ellery Queen before I realized that that just wasn't working. I'd like to try that again sometime though, now that I actually know how to write things...some.
Hey, how about movies...big money there, right?
Maybe, but you know what...just not interested. Still, really, not all that interested. I don't have single stories to tell. I have multitudes. My characters want more than 2 hours, they want 13 with an option for a back nine...to start.
Once I started my first spec script*, I felt like I made the right choice. I felt very much at home. All those years being glued to the TV actually did count for something. The form was burned into my psyche. I thought in act breaks. Hooray for the short attention spanning of America!
I realized I love TV more than thought. If you've been reading this site for a while, you've seen my occasional rants about television being not just a medium but an art form. Serling was Shakespeare...and were Willy alive today he'd either be a showrunner or hacking out a Grey's spec in a Starbucks. TV is every bit as good as a film or a play or novel in ways that those things can't touch...when done well, it incorporates all those things. (Though, I'm not saying TV is superior, each of those things has strengths which TV lacks).
It's in my blood and my brain. My huge wall of over 200 TV on DVD sets should tell you that. Or how about the fact that there is always...always an open file on my laptop and that file is always a TV spec or pilot in progress? I do not stop. I don't want to. And if I never get anyfuckingwhere, I will die a miserable old man, working in a job he doesn't really like, with an unfinished TV script on his holographic neural interface thingy.
Maybe I should just use this post for my personal essays in next year's applications.
*And that first spec script actually got me somewhere, ask me and I'll tell you. Just not here.
Oh, and the matter of tagging five people...as I said...I will comply...gimme John Rogers, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Jane, Our Man in Los Angeles and Amanda.
I remember getting a class assignment in school to write our own King Arthur legend/myth/story. It had to be at least three pages. Mine was 15 (little rushed in the third act...my hand was tired).
So I decided I wanted to write. I wasn't sure what at first. I tried comics...I still do from time to time. I tried mysteries...short stories...I think I even sent one or two off to Ellery Queen before I realized that that just wasn't working. I'd like to try that again sometime though, now that I actually know how to write things...some.
Hey, how about movies...big money there, right?
Maybe, but you know what...just not interested. Still, really, not all that interested. I don't have single stories to tell. I have multitudes. My characters want more than 2 hours, they want 13 with an option for a back nine...to start.
Once I started my first spec script*, I felt like I made the right choice. I felt very much at home. All those years being glued to the TV actually did count for something. The form was burned into my psyche. I thought in act breaks. Hooray for the short attention spanning of America!
I realized I love TV more than thought. If you've been reading this site for a while, you've seen my occasional rants about television being not just a medium but an art form. Serling was Shakespeare...and were Willy alive today he'd either be a showrunner or hacking out a Grey's spec in a Starbucks. TV is every bit as good as a film or a play or novel in ways that those things can't touch...when done well, it incorporates all those things. (Though, I'm not saying TV is superior, each of those things has strengths which TV lacks).
It's in my blood and my brain. My huge wall of over 200 TV on DVD sets should tell you that. Or how about the fact that there is always...always an open file on my laptop and that file is always a TV spec or pilot in progress? I do not stop. I don't want to. And if I never get anyfuckingwhere, I will die a miserable old man, working in a job he doesn't really like, with an unfinished TV script on his holographic neural interface thingy.
Maybe I should just use this post for my personal essays in next year's applications.
*And that first spec script actually got me somewhere, ask me and I'll tell you. Just not here.
Oh, and the matter of tagging five people...as I said...I will comply...gimme John Rogers, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Jane, Our Man in Los Angeles and Amanda.