It’s episode 43 of the podcast and we’re bring you a wrap up of the first Final Draft meet up as well as diving into a deeper philosophical approach to being a writer.
Because we attempted to have a poolside chat, I felt it only right to have LMAFO’s “Party Rock Anthem” as this week’s song.
Keepin’ it short and sweet this week…off to the show!
Till next week…
Breakin' In! 
Totally agree about being a coffee shop writer… but cleaning allows me to avoid writing. Love solving character issues making new scenes on the train, bus or shopping or doing something cool. Buses are great for weird jerks. fun show, guys.
THE ESSENCE OF WRITING IS LIVING
Well put! Great discussion. I’m happy to report that I’ve never written in a coffee shop, and I’ve never (knock wood) stared at a cursor! I always have plenty to write about whenever I’m at a keyboard. (My problem is I skip around between projects too much, and writing too many shorts [20 so far], which there is little market for.)
The only thing I might add is that watching or reading less-trodden news sources such as Chicago Tonight, the McNeil Lehrer News Hour (as I still call it), and antiwar (dot com) can also be quite an inspiration for character and story material. Granted you can’t interact with characters as you could in the subway (which I also like) or bar, but to me it is a far better way to spend time in front of the TV than watching most TV programs (scripted or “reality”).
MEETUP RECAP
Thanks for the recap and the lessons from it. (I can’t believe all those f’tards who actually brought scripts!) And thanks for sharing Alex’s experience — a lesson we (insecure) writers can never learn enough!
I can’t wait to hear the “Krazy Kop” story so I hope you book Fasano soon!
ONCE MORE INTO THE DARKNESS
I ended up seeing “Trek” this weekend after all, and a miraculous thing happened: by thoroughly finding out ahead of time (from all the spoiler-rich reviews) almost all of the bad things, I was actually able to somewhat enjoy the movie! It was like I had been immunized against the bad stuff, instead of spending the whole movie tearing my hair out! So my advice for fans of The Original Series and/or the first two movies: do yourself a favor and spoil yourself silly before going to see it.
Obviously I can’t elaborate further (for the sake of those who want to stay spoiler-free), but I think I can safely say [slight spoiler alert] that the two things that did impress me (neither of which I knew about ahead of time) were the “divine drawing” the natives made early in the movie, and how the full, um, genesis of Spock’s line “It’s what you would have done” near the end was not (completely) spelled out. (Well, for the audience anyway; clearly Spock had been talking to himself.)
On the other hand, I felt the reference to a certain chapel was typical of the kind of “have our cake and eat it too” pandering that really bugs me about these JJ Trek movies. (And since this was one of the few annoying things I didn’t know about ahead of time I was momentarily pissed off and missed the next 30 seconds or so of the movie.)
(By the way, did anyone else think that when Kirk started unraveling the fire hose that he was going to pull a Die-Hard? If so, do you think it was an intentional homage-and-switch or just a coincidence?)
(P.S. I think it goes without saying, but just to be clear I did NOT see the movie in 3-D!)