Wednesday night

It rained all day. Now it's windy as hell. More rain tomorrow as I take Kuro to get his engine light checked. Spring in northern Illinois.

Another great post from tightropegirl. She has this to say about writing for television as opposed to feature film:

Film is splendid, but how can you not love television? Film is short story! Television is novel! Television is the long, leisurely Victorian novel, with a chapter of biting suspense followed by one of black despair followed by one of effervescent farce; where "The Trouble With Tribbles" co-exists with "City On the Edge of Forever." Where three years into a series you can pull one of your heroes aside onto a road not taken and hear things from him you've never heard before. Television, for the love of god! Does not the blood run more quickly with the very word?

What's my analog? Writing a series. Because characters I thought I knew kept veering off in directions I didn't imagine, right to the very end, upset and amazed and unsettled me, right to the very end.

You really do get to the point where you know what type of shoes they'd wear, and what gifts they'd like. I recall some writer-bloggers disparaging LKH for saying that about her characters, and it may sound obsessive. But you don't obsess about it is the thing. You just know.

It's the character that's the tricky part. That's what makes it worth the work, at least for me.

"Don't you understand that the greatest risk you can take is to take no risk at all?"

Yes.

Wednesday night

It rained all day. Now it's windy as hell. More rain tomorrow as I take Kuro to get his engine light checked. Spring in northern Illinois.

Another great post from tightropegirl. She has this to say about writing for television as opposed to feature film:

Film is splendid, but how can you not love television? Film is short story! Television is novel! Television is the long, leisurely Victorian novel, with a chapter of biting suspense followed by one of black despair followed by one of effervescent farce; where "The Trouble With Tribbles" co-exists with "City On the Edge of Forever." Where three years into a series you can pull one of your heroes aside onto a road not taken and hear things from him you've never heard before. Television, for the love of god! Does not the blood run more quickly with the very word?

What's my analog? Writing a series. Because characters I thought I knew kept veering off in directions I didn't imagine, right to the very end, upset and amazed and unsettled me, right to the very end.

You really do get to the point where you know what type of shoes they'd wear, and what gifts they'd like. I recall some writer-bloggers disparaging LKH for saying that about her characters, and it may sound obsessive. But you don't obsess about it is the thing. You just know.

It's the character that's the tricky part. That's what makes it worth the work, at least for me.

"Don't you understand that the greatest risk you can take is to take no risk at all?"

Yes.