I read, saw, or imagined an interview once with some icon of comedy playwriting who said that it was always such a relief to put on that first performance for an audience and hear them laugh because after a while, the joke just isn’t funny anymore. You become immune to it. I think story ideas…continute reading »
I’ve been giving much thought lately to epublishing and self-publishing in particular. There aren’t necessarily good reasons for the things I think, but in this case there were at least two precipitating points along the space-time continuum that contributed. Firstly, I’ve recently decided that ten years of nothing-but-screenwriting is enough. I hope this screenwriting thing…continute reading »
Monday night was the last meeting of my eight-week Advanced Playwriting workshop at South Coast Repertory. Like most good things it was over far too soon. I haven’t attempted to write a play since my brief love affair with Beckett as an undergrad back in the 80s. That attempt at a degree didn’t take. Neither…continute reading »
Why yes, those are multiple Scribometer widgets running in my sidebar. For those of you who have waited so patiently for the next Scribometer update, my heartfelt appreciation to you. The most requested feature — multiple instances — has been incorporated into the upcoming release. You can now track as many projects as you like…continute reading »
Redesigning the blog again. No one cares but me, because everyone reads via RSS feeds these days, right? And anyone dropping by from a Google search or something isn’t going to know anything changed. So — who am I talking to exactly? Besides myself? If for some reason you enjoy visiting actual web pages, and…continute reading »
I’ve made my short story, Miss Spyder, available as a free download in Kindle ebook format and PDF (update: you can read this story even if you don’t have a Kindle with Kindle reading apps for PC, Mac, and other devices.) At under 700 words, it’s short enough that even if you aren’t a fan…continute reading »
A little something special, which will disappear in a puff of electrons tomorrow… We will not drink to blindness, dear We will drink to open eyes That’s my hope for the next decade. “Open Eyes” UPDATE: Link removed. It’s not New Year’s any more. Move on. The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo live at…continute reading »
I just finished the first draft of my latest sci-fi action adventure screenplay. I previously spent a year writing and fine-tuning a heart-wrenching historical drama — not my usual stuff. It was a story I had wanted to tell for a long time and I think it turned out swell. Still, that was new territory…continute reading »
Someday Twitter will get its bits together and stop the flood of sexbots and other spammy followers that glom on to users accounts. That, or Twitter will become the next Internet wasteland, like MySpace. Already, many of my Facebook friends don’t see the point of also having a Twitter account, and with Facebook users have…continute reading »
There’s a new screenwriting book out there that promises to help you write a screenplay in a certain number of weeks. There’s an older book that’s been around a while that promises to help you write a screenplay even faster — in a certain number of days. I’m not really a fan of these books…continute reading »