Interview: Diablo Cody

Gread WD Interview with Oscar winning screenwriter Diablo Cody, by Chad Gervich.

Enjoy!

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After taking home the Oscar for her very first screenplay, stripper- turned- memoirist- turned- screenwriter Diablo Cody is ready for her close-up.

Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody knows she’s not the best example of how to sell a screenplay. In fact, she’s probably the worst example of how to sell a screenplay. So if you’re reading this in hopes of finding a viable path to literary stardom, don’t. Move to L.A. Shoot a short. Get a job at a studio. There are a million better paths than Cody’s, which begins in suburban Chicago and takes an odd detour through the strip clubs of Minneapolis.

Cody was born in Lisle, Ill., where she attended Catholic school before heading to The University of Iowa to write short stories. Three years after graduating, 24-year-old Cody was withering away as a copy typist at a Minnesota ad agency. Her media studies degree was doing nothing for her. Her dreams of being a writer were going nowhere. She was blogging about the mind-numbing effects of corporate America, but no one was reading.

She took a job as a stripper to have something to write about. And when readership spiked, Cody turned her acerbic observations and
no-holds-barred storytelling skills into The Pussy Ranch (diablocody.blogspot.com) a regular blog that attracted a large following.

One of those readers was Mason Novick, a manager at Hollywood’s powerhouse management/production company Benderspink. Novick contacted Cody, who told him she’d not only written a blog, she’d written an entire memoir called Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper. Novick read the manuscript, loved it, and sold it to Gotham Books, who published it in 2005.

Novick then suggested Cody write a screenplay. A few weeks later, she sent him a script for the teen-pregnancy movie Juno.

Since its September 2007 debut at the Telluride Film Festival, Juno has been nominated for nearly 60 awards, including winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Today, the 30-year-old Cody is working on her next films, Universal’s Girly Style, a raunchy women’s road trip movie, and Fox Atomic’s Jennifer’s Body, a comedy-horror flick about a high-school girl who must stop a possessed friend from eating boys in her hometown. She’s also gearing up her Steven Spielberg-produced Showtime series, "The United States of Tara," starring Toni Collette as a mother with multiple personalities.

Regardless of the genre she’s writing in, Cody is a master of using her own life experiences to create narrative gold. Here, the anomalous writer talks about her writing process, its flaws and what she’s learned in her short—yet illustrious—screenwriting career.

YOU’D NEVER WRITTEN A SCREENPLAY BEFORE JUNO. YOU’VE SAID YOU SIMPLY HAD A MENTAL IMAGE OF A PREGNANT TEENAGER INTERVIEWING POTENTIAL ADOPTIVE PARENTS. SO WHEN YOU GOT THE IDEA, HOW DID YOU BEGIN THE PROCESS OF EXPANDING YOUR IMAGE INTO A FULL-FLEDGED STORY?

I had gone to the bookstore, and while I hadn’t bought any books on how to write a screenplay, I’d bought a couple of scripts so I could see how the formatting works. I just needed to know how a Hollywood screenplay looked on the page, which was something I was totally unfamiliar with. I had American Beauty and Ghost World, and interestingly enough, the producers of Ghost World wound up producing Juno.

My now-ex-husband convinced me to use our last $200 to buy Final Draft, so I just sat down and started writing a movie. It’s that simple.

DID YOU OUTLINE? SKETCH OUT ANY SCENES?

Initially, I didn’t have an outline. I remember about halfway through thinking, this would be a lot easier if I knew exactly where I was going in a more structured way. So then I started doing a beat sheet, and that wound up being really helpful. Now I do that for every script.

AT THE TIME YOU WROTE JUNO, YOU’D ALREADY PUBLISHED CANDY GIRL, WHICH IS A MEMOIR AND A VERY DIFFERENT FORM THAN A DRAMATIC SCRIPT. HOW DID THE MEMOIR-WRITING PROCESS DIFFER FROM WRITING A SCREENPLAY?

It’s harder! People are always surprised to hear that the ridiculously skimpy stripper memoir was a challenge to write. But to be frank, when you write a screenplay, it’s really a skeleton, and you’re going to have cameras and actors and a director adding color and substance, turning it into a whole new animal, whereas prose is a one-man show. It’s all gotta be on the same page. So I find writing prose more mentally taxing. At the same time, in a screenplay, you have to be more efficient, have a better grasp of narrative economy, and you have to be able to express more with fewer words. Each is challenging in its own way. Each is fun in its own way. For me, writing essays, prose and fiction is a great way to be self-indulgent. I really just love to open a blank document and spew, whereas with a screenplay I have to be more judicious.

DID WRITING CANDY GIRL HELP YOU WRITE JUNO? WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM WRITING A MEMOIR?

Writing the memoir might not have helped in terms of mechanics, but it helped me in terms of discipline, because I knew I could sit down and complete something, and I had never done that prior to the book.

HAVING WRITTEN JUNO, WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT SCREENWRITING? WHAT MISTAKES DID YOU MAKE IN YOUR WRITING PROCESS THAT HELPED YOU GROW INTO A STRONGER WRITER?

Oh my goodness—I made so many mistakes! I still cringe at certain lines in the movie. The fact is, when I wrote Juno—and I think this is part of its charm and appeal—I didn’t know how to write a movie. And I also had no idea it was going to get made! It was really just a hypothetical in every way. So I thought to myself, Well, writing for me has never felt like work, I’ve always considered writing to be play. So I thought, I’m going to enjoy myself as much as I can. I was just having fun, and you can hear I was having fun. And in a way, I was having too much fun, if that makes any sense. I needed to be pulled back a little. When I watch it now, the dialogue seems very self-indulgent and undisciplined. But that’s one of the things people like about the film, so I can’t argue.

I READ THE SCRIPT FOR YOUR NEXT FILM, JENNIFER’S BODY, AND IT’S VERY DIFFERENT FROM JUNO. MOST OBVIOUSLY, IT’S A HORROR FILM. HOW DID YOUR WRITING PROCESS EVOLVE FROM JUNO TO JENNIFER’S BODY?

I hadn’t really evolved significantly at that point. I wrote Jennifer’s Body in the summer of 2006 before I had done any TV writing. It was maybe the fourth script I’d ever written, and at this point I think I’ve written nine. And also, at the time I wrote Jennifer’s Body, Juno had not yet been made, and my life hadn’t changed that significantly. So I couldn’t have been aware that there would be this Juno phenomenon and certain aspects of my writing would get attention. Now that I’m in the revision and pre-production process, I’m trying to make sure Jennifer’s Body isn’t too similar to Juno, which obviously wasn’t a concern to me at the time because Juno didn’t exist, except as a script.It wasn’t a movie and people weren’t walking around in T-shirts with my dialogue on them.

ASIDE FROM BEING A HORROR MOVIE, JENNIFER’S BODY IS DIFFERENT FROM YOUR PREVIOUS WORK IN OTHER WAYS, TOO. CANDY GIRL IS A TRUE STORY. AND WHILE JUNO MAY NOT BE A TRUE STORY, IT’S A VERY PERSONAL, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MOVIE.

And so is Jennifer’s Body. So is everything I write. It will be a miracle the day I write, like, a Vietnam movie—a movie that clearly has no relation to anything that’s happened in my life. I just have a tendency to tap into my own emotions and write personal stories.

HOW IS JENNIFER’S BODY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL? WHAT PART OF DIABLO CODY’S LIFE DOES THAT MOVIE REFLECT?

Honestly? The horror aspects of that script are obviously not real, just as the premise in Juno wasn’t real. [Juno director] Jason Reitman likes to say, “In Juno, the movie is not about pregnancy; pregnancy is the location.” In Jennifer’s Body, the horror aspect is a way of expressing realistic emotions of jealousy and love and pain that I had as a teenager. It’s the dark side of teenage girls, whereas Juno portrays girls in a very positive, bright light.

I’VE READ INTERVIEWS WITH YOU WHERE YOU TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU HATE TALKING ABOUT THE SCREENWRITING PROCESS. ARE YOU IN AGONY RIGHT NOW?

[Laughs] You know, I love talking about writing, but I hate when people ask me over and over again, “Where did you get the idea for that?” You don’t just get the idea one day because you saw a billboard. It’s not this instantaneous thing.

HOW DO YOU ACCESS THOSE DEEP, DARK, PERSONAL PLACES THAT ALLOW FOR AUTHENTIC, HONEST WRITING, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU’RE NOT WRITING SOMETHING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL, LIKE JENNIFER’S BODY? DO YOU HAVE SPECIAL RITUALS?

No. Unfortunately, what I should do is develop some sort of ritual to ignore the Diablo instincts, because my writing does have a tendency to be too self-reflective. I wish I could branch out and relate to how other people feel and write a period piece about some emotionally guarded old man who never had a crush on a track runner. I can access my emotions too easily. What I need to do now is work on my craft.

YOU’RE WORKING ON YOUR FIRST TV SERIES, AND BEING A SHOWRUNNER IS AN ENORMOUS JOB. ARE YOU READY?

Right now, we’re really gearing up to shoot this thing within weeks. Up until this point, it hasn’t been that different of a process. Obviously the writer has more control in television. But for me, it hasn’t been that different of an experience, because I was lucky enough to be included in the filmmaking process for Juno. So I never had that experience of being left out and not feeling like I’m claiming the spoils. Jason Reitman and I collaborated every day on that film, and now it’s just another collaborative process. What I’m curious to see is how the turnaround time in television affects my writing, because God willing, if they order more episodes, I’ll have to work at an accelerated pace. And I’m kind of looking forward to that.

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Brian M Logan
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Graphic Novels are Hollywood's Newest Gold Mine

Great article on graphic novels by Rebecca Wintes Keegan.

Enjoy!

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Superman Leaped 40 years' worth of tall buildings on the printed page before he landed his first feature film, in 1978. In 2003, Wesley Gibson, the cubicle-dwelling assassin in Mark Millar's nihilist graphic novel Wanted, had producers circling before his first issue even went to print. Millar's work is unlikely source material for a big-budget movie; one of his obscenely named villains is made of fecal matter from 666 evildoers, including Adolf Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer. Nevertheless, Wanted is now a glossy summer action movie starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman, directed by new-to-big-studio-movies Russian Timur Bekmambetov.

Graphic novels--long comic books for grownups--have always had mostly cult appeal. Last year's most successful, the 13th volume in a Japanese manga adventure series--Naruto, by Masashi Kishimoto--sold 80,000 copies, far short of 2007's hottest novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, which sold more than 1.5 million copies. The point of the comics was largely their transgressiveness. "They're the last pirate medium," says Millar, a Scottish writer who consults for Marvel Comics on more mainstream fare, like Iron Man. "They're the last medium for a mass audience where you can do anything you want."
But the creations of oddball loners like Millar scribbling at drafting tables have also become the movie industry's most reliable development tool. Thanks to the box-office success of A-list superheroes like Spider-Man and the X-Men, Hollywood's appetite for comics-fueled material is insatiable. Titles from the darker corners of the genre, including gritty graphic novels like Wanted and Alan Moore's watershed deconstructivist superhero tome Watchmen are getting the big-screen makeover. Stories and characters first written for an audience of a few hundred thousand geeks at most are reaching, at the box office and on DVD and cable, popcorn-chomping crowds that number in the tens of millions. "The dalliance between Hollywood and comics is becoming a marriage," says Frank Miller, creator of the graphic novels Sin City and 300. "The downside is in the heads of people who make comic books. Everybody wants money and fame."

Times weren't always so flush in Toontown. In 1997, "George Clooney killed comic-book movies," says Millar. Joel Schumacher's joyless Batman & Robin, in which Clooney legendarily donned a bat suit complete with rubber nipples, left fans feeling abused. Studios turned their attention to fantasy literature like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. But when Spider-Man bested two wizard movies and a Star Wars prequel in 2002 and X-2: X-Men United broke $200 million at the box office in 2003, hand-drawn heroes swung back into favor. The joke in Hollywood now is that in a risk-averse era, comic-book adaptations have a distinct advantage: the drawings mean studio execs can see beforehand what the movie will look like.

At first, it was the family-friendly superheroes who made the leap to multiplexes, with the help of directors like Bryan Singer and Chris Nolan. Slowly, lesser-known comic books got a shot. Some, like Sin City and Hellboy, became modest box-office successes by adhering to the distinctive spirit of their creators. Others, like Road to Perdition and A History of Violence, attracted audiences with sophisticated stories that few people knew were derived from graphic novels.

Then came the spear that pierced the industries of comics, movies and ab videos: 300. "I was pretty sure we were making a boutique movie," says director Zack Snyder of his R-rated, blood-spattered retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae. With no stars and a lot of leather bikini bottoms, 300 grossed more than $200 million in the U.S. alone. "The movie struck a chord because it was unapologetic," says Snyder, who is directing Watchmen for release next March. "It's difficult to find a movie that feels true to itself. You feel the hand of Hollywood, the moviemaking by committee, on everything."

In the case of 300, the hand audiences felt was really Miller's, since whenever Snyder made a creative decision, he asked himself, What would Frank do? Comic-book-movie directors like Snyder, who see themselves as stewards of another person's vision rather than architects of their own, have made comic-book creators Hollywood's latest big-budget auteurs. Because they work with such low overhead compared with moviemakers, comic writers and artists can take many more creative chances than directors. "You don't have endless development meetings that turn your brain into milk," says Miller. "You get to at least see what an individual has to offer." After co-directing Sin City with Robert Rodriguez in 2005, Miller is completing his comics-to-movies arc by directing The Spirit, an adaptation of a 1940s crime-fighting strip, for a December release.

The other axiom 300 proved to Hollywood is one the comics industry has known for decades: "The audience for comic-book movies is overweight guys in their mid-30s," says director, comic-book-store owner and overweight guy in his late 30s Kevin Smith. Actually, the average age of a comic-book buyer is 23, but Smith's point--that there are fans aplenty to support R-rated comics franchises--has been digested. Even PG-13 comic-book movies are maturing. Batman keeps getting darker scripts, like Nolan's The Dark Knight, starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger (in his haunting last performance, as the Joker). Marvel Studios' first two movies, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, star Robert Downey Jr. and Ed Norton, Oscar-nominated actors with indie credibility. And Hellboy, who is back this summer for a sequel, is hardly your standard man in tights. He smokes cigars, drinks Red Bull and collects kittens. "Kids aren't kids anymore," says Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. "They're so exposed to everything. They wouldn't accept really simplistic superheroes." It's likely that a superhero movie like Watchmen or The Dark Knight couldn't be appreciated by audiences without the simpler fare that came before it. You can't deconstruct the superhero until someone has constructed him, rubber nipples and all. "Watchmen is thick and complicated and violent and political and critical of America," Snyder says. "It's huge."

Watchmen, easily next year's most anticipated comic-book movie, is based on a graphic novel that's more than 20 years old. What Hollywood would really like is the next big thing. If studio execs can't find one they like by thumbing through publishers' catalogs, they'll create it themselves. In May, Disney announced that Ahmet Zappa, son of Frank, will head up its new Kingdom Comics, a publisher with the express purpose of developing graphic-novel film projects for the studio. This month TokyoPop, a Los Angeles-based manga publisher, announced the creation of a comics-to-films unit. Though it may be good news for any comic-book writer with a mortgage to pay, all those carnivorous studios make some comic-book fans nervous. "As soon as you start reverse-engineering the process, it's broken," says Snyder. Miller, who now needs bodyguards at comic-book conventions, cautions his industry against embracing fast nickels at the expense of good products. "You can't make a sword with more than one blade," he says. "Comic book, movie and game. It's bound to be bad at all three."

Millar, meanwhile, is giddily anticipating the opening of Wanted on June 27, even though the poopy bad guy didn't make the final cut. (Imagine the missed merchandising opportunities!) Millar views the graphic-novel-to-movies trend as being likely to stoke creativity, not stifle it. "Hollywood eats up ideas quickly, but comics come up with 300 new ideas a month," he says.
His next comic is about a 100-year U.S. war in the Middle East, with superpowered soldiers and flying Islamic fundamentalists. It's the kind of idea that would get squashed at a studio meeting, where the poor performance of all the Iraq-war movies would be trotted out. But then, Millar doesn't need anyone's green light. He just needs an artist and a pen.

Four Famous Comics Junkies on graphic novels they'd like to see on film [This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine.]

WHO Frank Miller, creator of Sin City and 300 Mark Millar, creator of Wanted Kevin Smith, director and comic-book-store owner Mike Richardson, founder of Dark Horse Comics WHAT Bone By Jeff Smith The Walking Dead By Robert Kirkman The Dark Knight Returns By Frank Miller Concrete By Paul Chadwick WHY The "fully realized adventure fantasy" is "Disney meets Moby Dick." "A chronicle of life after zombies have taken over. It should be an HBO series." "An intense, quasifuturistic, retired Batman with real-world issues." "A speechwriter is encased in concrete. Kafka meets Beauty and the Beast."

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Comprehensive List of Book Clubs

Comprehensive list of book clubs. Just Google the name of the club in question, or click on the link at the bottom of the list for direct links to the clubs listed.

Enjoy!

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General Interest Book Clubs

Doubleday Book Club
Book of the Month Club
The Literary Guild
Quality Paperback Book Club
Business Book Summaries Book Club
Doubleday Large Print Book Club
Zooba Book Club

HomeStyle Book Club Audio Book Clubs and Rentals

Audible Gold Audio Book Club
Audible Platinum Audio Book Club
Simply Audiobooks Digital Audio Book Club
Simply Audiobooks Audio Book Rental Club
JiggerBug Audio Book Book Club

Childrens' Book Clubs

Childrens' Book-of-the-Month Club
Scholastic Disney Wonderful World of Reading Book Club
Scholastic Dr. Seuss & His Friends Book Club
Baby Einstein Baby Book Club
Scholastic Baby's First Disney Book Club
Scholastic Disney Princess Book Club
Scholastic Nick Jr. Book Club
My First Steps to Learning Book Club
VeggieTales Book Club
Highlights Top Secret Adventures Book Club
Highlights Mathmania Book Club
Highlights Hidden Pictures Playground Book Club
Highlights Puzzlemania Book Club
Highlights Which Way USA Book Club
Scholastic Phonics Reading Program
Hooked on Phonics Phonics Program
Scholastic Book Clubs
Highlights Book Clubs

Mystery, Romance and SciFi Book Clubs

Mystery Guild Book Club
Science Fiction Book Club
Harlequin Romance Book Club
Harlequin American Romance Book Club
Rhapsody Book Club
Worldwide Mystery Book Club
Harlequin Blaze Book Club
Harlequin Historicals Book Club
Harlequin Presents Book Club
Harlequin Intrigue Book Club
Harlequin Kimani Romance Book Club
Harlequin Medical Romance Book Club
Larger Print Harlequin Romance Book Club
Steeple Hill Love Inspired Book Club
Harlequin Book Clubs

Special Interest Book Clubs

The Good Cook Book Club
Crossings Book Club
One Spirit Book Club
Black Expressions Book Club
Crafters Choice Book Club
History Book Club
Club de Libros Mosaico (Mosaico Book Club)
Military Book Club
Movie Clubs
Columbia House DVD Club
Disney Movie Club
Blockbuster Online
Netflix DVD Rentals

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Brian M Logan
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Seven Things Authors Must Know to Be Successful

Article by Jerry D. Simmons.

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Publishing is a very competitive business and the choices for getting a manuscript into print are numerous. Everyone who writes has to make a decision on what’s best for them and their manuscript or book, but the decision should be based on their personal goals and not what someone else is trying to sell you. There are plenty of so-called “experts” who only have themselves in mind, so choose wisely and keep in mind these seven crucial points.

First: Publishing and marketing of books is a business. It’s about making money and the last thing you want as an author is to have the “experts” taking money out of your pocket selling you products and services that can’t hold water in the marketplace for bookselling.

Second: If you decide that New York is where you want to be as an author and you find an agent, the business is interested in good stories, not great writing. Having the talent to string words together in a way that defies description is wonderful, but that alone doesn’t sell. Publishers are looking for good stories: the only thing they can sell.

Third: There care clearly two parts to being an author. The first is improving your storytelling skills to the point where you are ready to publish. Secondly, you have to be willing to actively market and promote your book. Publishers require it, your audience demands it, and there is no other way around it. If you want to do nothing but write, keep your day job because that is not the road to success in publishing.

Fourth: Place yourself in a position to succeed. Become a student of the marketplace so you can speak intelligently about the business. Bookstores are your laboratory, visit regularly and observe. The more you visit the quicker you will start to see changes in the market. Read your competition, not the bestsellers but the authors you never heard of who occupy a place on bookstore shelves in the category in which you write.

Fifth: You have choices on how to publish your work; don’t be foolish, but follow your heart. Your choice depends on your personal goals, so follow your dream.. Anything is possible. It takes information, knowledge of the market, and learning how to evaluate what makes sense and what doesn’t. The more information you obtain, the better decisions you will make.

Sixth: It is very easy to get published, but extremely difficult to market and sell books. Make good decisions based on solid information, and you will not fall victim to the “experts” looking to make a buck on your vulnerability. Spend a little for professional advice before you invest time and money in a venture that won’t get you where you want to go.

Seventh: There are no guarantees in publishing, never, not one. Anyone who tells you there are has only one thing in mind, to sell you something you probably don’t need. Stay as far away from these “experts” as possible, they are looking to take advantage of an unsuspecting writer and capitalize on your dreams which they don’t care about.

It’s not about just getting published, it’s about getting published correctly, in a way that makes sense in the marketplace, and fits your personal goals as an author. We’re not launching rockets, just publishing books. However, follow the successful path, seek expert advice before you make decisions, and you’ll save both time and money in the process. Remember, as an author the possibilities are endless and the opportunities boundless. You can become anything you want with the right information.

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Brian M Logan
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Mark Twain Speech Against Being Underpaid as a Writer!

Very funny extract from one of Mark Twain's Speeches (1910).

And modern writers thought they had it bad...

Enjoy!

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In 1883 … I was scrambling along, earning the family's bread on magazine work at seven cents a word, compound words at single rates, just as it is in the dark present. I was the property of a magazine, a seven-cent slave under a boiler-iron contract. One day there came a note from the editor requiring me to write ten pages on this revolting text: "Considerations concerning the alleged subterranean holophotal extemporaneousness of the conchyliaceous superimbrication of the Ornithorhyncus, as foreshadowed by the unintelligibility of its plesiosaurian anisodactylous aspects."

Ten pages of that. Each and every word a seventeen-jointed vestibuled railroad train. Seven cents a word. I saw starvation staring the family in the face. I went to the editor, and … I said, "Read that text, Jackson, and let it go on the record; read it out loud." He read it: "Considerations concerning the alleged subterranean holophotal extemporaneousness of the conchyliaceous superimbrication of the Ornithorhyncus, as foreshadowed by the unintelligibility of its plesiosaurian anisodactylous aspects."

I said, "You want ten pages of those rumbling, great, long, summer thunderpeals, and you expect to get them at seven cents a peal?" He said, "A word's a word, and seven cents is the contract; what are you going to do about it?" I said, "Jackson, this is cold-blooded oppression. What's an average English word?"

He said, "Six letters."

I said, "Nothing of the kind; that's French, and includes the spaces between the words; an average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three letters and a half. I can put one thousand and two hundred words on your page, and there's not another man alive that can come within two hundred of it. My page is worth eighty-four dollars to me. It takes exactly as long to fill your magazine page with long words as it does with short ones -- four hours. Now, then, look at the criminal injustice of this requirement of yours. I am careful, I am economical of my time and labor. For the family's sake I've got to be so. So I never write 'metropolis' for seven cents, because I can get the same money for 'city.' I never write 'policeman,' because I can get the same price for 'cop.' And so on and so on. I never write 'valetudinarian' at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen. Examine your obscene text, please; count the words."

He counted and said it was twenty-four. I asked him to count the letters. He made it two hundred and three.

I said, "Now, I hope you see the whole size of your crime. With my vocabulary I would make sixty words out of those two hundred and five letters, and get four dollars and twenty cents for it; whereas for your inhuman twenty-four I would get only one dollar and sixty-eight cents. Ten pages of these sky-scrapers of yours would pay me only about three hundred dollars; in my simplified vocabulary the same space and the same labor would pay me eight hundred and forty dollars. I do not wish to work upon this scandalous job by the piece. I want to be hired by the year." He coldly refused. I said:

"Then for the sake of the family, if you have no feeling for me, you ought at least to allow me overtime on that word extemporaneousness." Again he coldly refused. I seldom say a harsh word to any one, but I was not master of myself then, and I spoke right out and called him an anisodactylous plesiosaurian conchyliaceous Ornithorhyneus, and rotten to the heart with holophotal subterranean extemporaneousness. God forgive me for that wanton crime; he lived only two hours.

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Interview With Novelist, Dan Ronco

Cool interview with Dan Ronco, author of the Techno-Thriller, UNHOLY DOMAIN

Enjoy!

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Dan Ronco's latest novel is a suspenseful techno-thriller filled with adventure, romance and greed. A former successful engineer and businessman, he used his knowledge and experience to craft Unholy Domain, a story that delves into controversial, provocative themes like the ethics of genetic engineering, the question of what limit to put on technology, and the reconciling of religion and science. The novel also focuses on the relationship between a father and a son. With issues of such magnitude, Unholy Domain promises to be a thrilling, entertaining read. Ronco was kind enough to give me a few minutes of his time to answer my questions.

Thanks for being here today. Why don't you begin by telling us a little about yourself?

Born into a tough neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, I learned powerful lessons about family, friendship and violence. My escape was fiction, and I spent many hours reading in the local library. Nurturing a passion for technology, I went on to gain a BS in Chemical Engineering from NJIT. Not enough challenge. Always fascinated by new technologies, I was awarded a full fellowship at Columbia University and gained a MS in Nuclear Engineering. Although I designed submarine nuclear reactors for three years, I discovered I enjoyed software development more than reactor design, so I changed career direction and achieved a second MS; this one in Computer Science from RPI.

Fascinated by virtually all areas of software development, my expertise grew to include coding, design, project management, quality improvement and finally, general management. My niche was software consulting and my team assisted many large corporations and governmental organizations. Always looking for the latest challenge, I built and managed several consulting practices. I'm especially proud of two accomplishments – assisting AT&T greatly improve the quality of the first commercial UNIX release and helping Microsoft to create a world class consulting organization. Positions held during my consulting years included Senior Principal with an international accounting/consulting firm, President, Software Technology Management Inc. and General Manager with Microsoft.

When did you decide you wanted to become an author?

Eight years ago I decided to leave consulting and concentrate on a long held desire to write fiction. A successful engineer and businessman, I had the breadth of experience to understand and synthesize rapidly evolving strands of technology. It became clear that fundamental change would turn our society upside down within the next few decades. Humans will have to adapt rapidly to gain the advantages of these changing social and technological innovations. Indeed, we will have to adapt rapidly just to survive.

I scoped out a trilogy of novels to expose three oncoming challenges; computer viruses enhanced with artificial intelligence (set in 2012), the oncoming clash between religion and technology concerning what it means to be human (2022), and the beginnings of the integration of human and artificial intelligence into a network entity (2032). Each novel is written as a thriller – packed with adventure, sex, greed and romance – as well as realistic science and technology. The three leading characters – Dianne Morgan, a female mega-billionaire obsessed with power; Ray Brown, her onetime lover and a brilliant software architect; and David Brown, Ray's genetically gifted son – are fascinating and all too human.

PEACEMAKER, my first novel, was released in August, 2004 with outstanding feedback by critics, authors, and most importantly, by customers. My next novel, UNHOLY DOMAIN, was released April 2, 2008 by Kunati Books, with an excellent response. The final novel of the trilogy, tentatively entitled TOMORROW'S CHILDREN, should be released next year.

Tell us a bit about your latest book, and what inspired you to write such a story.

UNHOLY DOMAIN delivers all the excitement of a great thriller while also delving into provocative themes: the bioethics of genetic engineering, the question of what limit (if any) should be placed on technology, the problem of reconciling faith in God and respect for his creation with the technological promises of artificial intelligence, and the age-old issue of family ties and the loyalty of a son to his father. How could anyone not be inspired by issues of such magnitude?

UNHOLY DOMAIN features David Brown, a brilliant but troubled young man raised in the dark shadow of his long-dead father, a software genius who unleashed a computer virus that murdered more than a million innocents. When David receives a decade-old email that indicates his father may have been framed, he plunges into a gut-wrenching race with the real killers to discover the truth about his father ... and himself. As David tracks through his father's startling history, he stumbles into a war between the Domain, a secret society of technologists, and the Army of God, a murderous cult with a sacred mission to curtail the spread of technology and roll civilization back to a simpler era. Hunted by killers from both organizations, David unravels his father's secrets, comes to terms with his own life, and then falls in love with a woman from his father's past.

Did your book require a lot of research?

My novels are set in the near future, so it's my responsibility to bring the reader into a world that is realistic, compelling and consistent with existing trends in science and culture. My stories exist at the point advanced technologies threaten our institutions, beliefs and even our survival.

As a result, I read constantly in subjects such as artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, robotics and other advanced technologies. I have a passion for technology, so reading isn't a chore, it's a gift. I am equally fascinated by human values and culture, such as economics, politics and religion. Searching for stress points, I attempt to project current technologies and trends two or three decades into the future. UNHOLY DOMAIN, for example, explores the potential for conflict between religious fundamentalists and scientists on the leading edge of artificial intelligence.

What is your opinion about critique groups? What words of advice would you offer a novice writer who is joining one? Do you think the wrong critique group can 'crush' a fledgling writer?

I have been in a critique group for seven years, and it has been a positive experience. The five of us meet once a week and we each read our most recent compositions, usually about ten pages. Each reviewer provides feedback describing good and bad aspects of the writing. We offer advice with the intent of helping the author; nobody shows off. The author considers the feedback and decides what, if anything, should be modified.

Actually it's more than just a critique group. Our coach and group leader begins each session with a twenty minute discussion of a writing topic. While the coach leads the discussion, we all participate. I'd have to say we are many things: a critique group, a workshop, and a gathering of friends.

The secret of our success is compatibility and talent. We keep the group small and invite an occasional new member only if she gets along well with the existing members. It is also important that her writing skills are at a reasonably good level. Bringing a novice into the group wouldn't be fair to anyone.

How was your experience in looking for a publisher? What words of advice would you offer those novice authors who are in search of one?

One of the biggest mistakes I made with PEACEMAKER, my first novel, was to not check out the publisher thoroughly. When he called me, I was thrilled, and it seemed that everything was working out. Wrong. The publisher was a nice guy, he was very enthusiastic about my novel and we seemed to hit it off. However, he had a couple of problems: he had been in business less than a year and really didn't know much about book marketing; and he was underfunded, so he couldn't hire talented, experienced professionals. As a result, his business went underwater and all his authors were left scrambling. That's why I had to become the publisher for PeaceMaker, which consumed a great deal of my time.

So the lesson is to not become dreamy-eyed when a publisher offers to pick up your book. Treat it like making an investment. Check out the size, experience, financial resources, number of employees, references from other authors, bookstores that carry his works, etc. Better to walk away than sign up with someone who doesn't have a good track record. I checked out Kunati carefully, and they have been an excellent publisher for UNHOLY DOMAIN.

Do you have a website/blog where readers may learn more about you and your work?

Yes, please stop by http://www.danronco.com/ to say hello, read an excerpt of UNHOLY DOMAIN, read my blog or view the incredible trailer for the book. And there's much more: the complete PEACEMAKER novel, cool videos, book reviews and articles by guest authors. If you enjoy science fiction or technology thrillers, this is a great place to visit.

Thanks for stopping by! It was a pleasure to have you here!

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Cheers!
Brian M Logan
ThatActionGuy.com
EMAIL ME HERE

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The Top Ten Tips for Improving Your Writing

Here they are - the top ten things you need to know before you should even think about setting pen to paper.

Enjoy!

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1. Before you can be a writer, you must be a reader.

Can’t emphasize this one enough folks. You can’t write poetry if you don’t read poetry. You can’t write an epic novel set in a war torn country if all you’ve read are teenage romance stories. Every genre and every style has hidden rules, hidden clichés, and hidden opportunities. You have to understand what you’re writing before you write.

Equally, the more widely-read you are, the more original and textured your story will be. If all you’ve read are fantasy novels, and you decide to write a fantasy novel, you’ll produce something pretty mundane. If you decide to pull in stuff from your reading of crime novels, or even post-modern science fiction, you’ll add some originality to your story.

And the nice thing is - you don’t have to work at it. All you have to do is read - which is something you should enjoy doing anyway!

2. Know your audience

Writing for thirteen year olds is different to writing for thirty year olds. Writing for ten year olds is different to writing for the intellectual elite. Know who you’re targeting.

3. Kill the adverbs

Adverbs are descriptive words that add nothing at all to what you’re writing.

“To hell with you!” she shouted, furiously.

or

“To hell with you!” she shouted.

Adverbs can be recognized by their tendency to be other words with an ‘ly’ stuck on the end. Happily, furiously, tenderly, lovingly, sadly. One of the basic rules of writing is “Show - Don’t tell”. Adverbs are telling. They are weak, and they assume your reader isn’t smart enough to work out that if someone’s shouting, they aren’t the happiest bunny around. Your context should be strong enough for people to figure out what’s going on - if it’s not, then adverbs aren’t going to save you.

4. Simple is better

You might be writing a complex post-modern story with layers and metaphors that will be keeping the English lecturers happy for decades - but you still should look for the simplest way to express what it is you’re trying to express. Tortured, high-tension metaphors should be avoided. So should mixed metaphors. Unless there’s a really good reason why you can’t just say something is red, avoid lyrical allusions to roses.

This rule is one that you’ll break, and break a lot - but always know why you’re breaking it.

5. Plan first, re-draft after

We all know you’re a genius. But as someone much smarter than me once said “Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration” (Thomas Edison). However good your concept is, the only way you’ll get it to shine is by working on it. That means you plan meticulously, and you re-draft as many times as it takes. Planning means more than saying “I’m going to write a story about a knight!” or “I’m going to write a blog post about global warming!”. It means researching your facts, background and audience, and it means deciding exactly what it is that’s going to happen.

There are many ways of planning, which are beyond the scope of this article. But find a way that works for you, and use it.

6. Don’t listen to your friends, listen to your critics

Okay, sometimes we all get discouraged and need an ego-boost. At these times it is worth getting your friend’s unconditional love and support. But if you want to improve as a writer, then you need to learn to accept criticism. You also need to learn when criticism is well-founded, and when it is simply a matter of taste. Nothing will teach you this except practice, and possibly a well-developed confidence in your own ability.

If someone tells you your sentences are too long, and there aren’t enough paragraphs - don’t tell them it’s your style. Instead, thank them and take a good long hard look at those sentences and paragraphs of yours.

7. Don’t expect to make a living from it

Maybe you’re writing a blog and you’re expecting money to flow in from Ad-sense. Maybe you’re writing a novel and expecting to become the next Stephen King. Don’t. Success is part skill, part persistence - but mostly luck. Quitting your job and investing forty hours a week into your writing may well be the best thing you ever do - but it’s much more likely to be the worst thing you ever do.

If you start to have moderate success doing it part time, then you can make an informed decision. But never just leap into the blue.

8. Write what you know

This means if you’re a biology graduate with ten years environmental activism behind you - it’s probably a good idea to write something that uses that. It can be far-fetched or it can be very close to home. What you shouldn’t try and do is write about the nitty gritty of police work in a murder case. Unless the murder relates somehow to global warming.

If you’re thirteen years old, and all you know is school - take a think about what makes you unique. Maybe you were adopted. Maybe your dad is a priest. Maybe your best friend firmly believes in aliens, and takes you out to the fields every night to look for traces of their spaceships. Whatever it might be, use that as springboard for your ideas.

This doesn’t mean fantasy and science-fiction is out. It just means some science-fiction is about two aliens meeting and falling in love, some sci-fi is about space war, and some sci-fi is about paranoid cops going crazy.

9. Spelling and grammar are important

You don’t have to know all the rules by heart, but you should know when to use an apostrophe, when to use a full-stop, and when to make a paragraph. With spell-checks everywhere, online dictionaries spreading like wildfire, and a compulsory education up until 16 if you live in the UK, you have little excuse.

Avoid internet fads. Typing like a txt msg will make you no friends.

10. All rules can be broken

Just know the rules - and know why you’re breaking them.

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Cheers!
Brian M Logan
ThatActionGuy.com
EMAIL ME HERE

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The Published Novelist: Nine Essential Qualities

Article by Inglath Cooper

Enjoy!

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What does it take to write books for a living? How can you make sure you take care of your gift?

So what does it actually take to make it as a selling writer? And beyond that, what does it take to ride out the tough spots in a highly competitive field?

These are questions I get asked on a regular basis from readers, as well as people who are just plain curious about someone who chooses to sit alone for hours at a time, creating characters and whole lives out of thin air. Admittedly, they're good questions. Following are nine qualities I believe are important in someone who wants to write novels for a living and make it a lasting career.

1. An absolute, bordering on abnormal, love of books.

We book fiends are easy to spot. We're the ones who make several trips a week to Barnes & Noble --yes, we like the coffee, but we're really there for the books. We peruse the new fiction titles with the same gleam in our eyes miners must have had when sifting for gold. Panning our findings for new authors whose stories might, just might, live up to those we've labeled our favorites. There's always the possibility we'll find a diamond somewhere in there. And when we do, it reinforces our determination to find another.

2. An absolute love of writing.

That is, a true appreciation for the stringing together of individual words to paint a picture for a reader, a picture that conveys our vision of the world as it is or as we would like it to be.

I wrote my first story at age nine on my mama's old manual typewriter. I still remember how it felt to finish it, the thrill of stacking up the pages that were visible evidence of the mini-world I had created.

From my earliest memories, I wanted to write stories that did for someone else what my favorites did for me. Show me another world. Bring to life people I'd be thrilled to know.

But how could someone like me be a writer? In my mind, writers were on par with neurosurgeons and physics professors, something way beyond reach for a small-town girl like me.

It wasn't until I was a junior at Virginia Tech majoring in English that I admitted to myself this was what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write books. Farfetched as it sounded. I think for a long time I didn't tell anyone. It just seemed too preposterous, as if they would laugh at the idea, and with good reason. I started my first manuscript while I was in college, longhand in a dark blue spiral ring notebook. It was set on an island somewhere, and I'm sure I would now find it all but unreadable, even though at the time, it was invaluable to me, proof that I could put a story on paper.

3. The desire to be the best writer you can be.

If you're just starting out, give yourself permission to learn how to write without the pressure of thinking about getting published. When I wrote that first manuscript in college, my goal was to get published. I not only wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a published writer. From where I stand now, I wish I had approached the whole process from the angle of doing whatever I could to learn how to tell the best story I possibly could. I felt I had to prove myself, and it seemed to me then that publication was the ultimate proof that I could write.

If I could start over again, I would take a step back from the pressure I put on myself to sell and concentrate solely on learning how to tell my story in a way that would make it hard for a reader to put it down.

4. A need to surround yourself with positive writers and lovers of books.

If you get involved in a critique group, make sure it is one where the objective is to encourage and improve. Not tear down and belittle. There are people out there who are not careful with their words, who in a two minute diatribe can rip apart months and months of work and completely deflate a writer of all confidence.

Can you tell I'm speaking from experience?

It is so very important to make sure you are on the same page with your critique partners. Maybe even come up with a list of guidelines for the group. Discuss the things you are looking for in a critique.

If you're in a writing class, make sure it is one where the above objectives are primary.

This is not to say that you only want to show your work to people who will tell you you're the best thing since Fitzgerald and Faulkner. It is to say that there is constructive criticism, which we should all be willing and eager to seek out. And there is destructive criticism, which can completely destroy a writer's vision and belief in herself.

5. The will to make a place in your life for writing.

This sounds obvious enough. But there are all sorts of reasons not to write. The mortgage needs to be paid. The children need to eat. Pesky little everyday responsibilities like these.

Seriously, I've gone through all sorts of changes in my life, but the one thing I've always done is find a time to write that works for me, regardless of what else is going on. When I was in college, I wrote after classes for a certain amount of time each day. When I got out of college and went to work for a law firm, I got up at four a.m. and wrote before going to the office. When I became a mother, I started writing before my children got up in the morning and also during their nap. The point is to give your writing a regular time slot. It's the every day exercising of your writing muscle that will develop your skills and define your voice.

6. The determination to never let yourself believe you're there.

Once you've sold that first novel, it's tempting to tell yourself you've arrived, that it will be clear sailing from here on. Not quite how it worked for me. There is always room to grow. I try with every book to do something different than I've done before. Force myself to stretch in some way. Try something I previously thought was beyond my ability. It's amazing what we can dredge up from inside ourselves if we make our goal being the best we can be with every book.

7. The commitment to figure out what your process is.

After selling my first book, I went through a period of not being able to sell a second. I sold my first novel as a complete manuscript. That book was a story of my heart, and I wrote it as I saw it. When my publisher asked to see something else, I submitted a couple of proposals that were rejected. And I figured out somewhere along the way that I needed to get a good portion of the story down before I let someone else see it.

I do sell on proposal now. But I write a chunk of the book before I write the synopsis. This is how I learn what is going to happen in the story. This is my process. I know this about myself now, and while it is tempting to show my editor something at a much earlier stage, I try very hard to refrain from doing so.

Figure out what your process is and don't veer from it.

8. The ability to protect your gift.

Publishing is a tough business. An incredible number of people want to be writers. The competition to sell is intense.

When I had difficulty selling my second and third books, I began to wonder if I had what it took. I realize now how fragile my confidence was then and that I took those rejections as validation that I didn't really have what it took to be a writer. By the time I finally sold that second book, I was experiencing all the symptoms of burnout. It was an extremely dark time in my life, and I walked away from writing under the assumption that it would never again be a part of me.

I didn't write for two years. The desire to do so began to trickle back eventually, until I finally got up the courage to pull out my laptop and begin a story. I wrote the complete book the same way I had written my first published novel. Told the story as I saw it without letting anyone else inside my vision. I sold that book, John Riley's Girl, and it won the 2005 Rita Award for best long contemporary. This award was more meaningful to me than I can say. I wrote this book because I love to write. After a two-year period of burnout, I was given another chance. I no longer see the well of creativity inside me as an infinite thing that I can draw and draw from, but, instead, as something that can and will dry up and go away if I am not careful to protect it.

9. The ability to step back and refill the well.

Find things that replenish your spirit. Take a vacation and do not allow yourself to write, but simply to absorb the world around you.

Read, read, read. Read great books. Don't read mediocre books unless you want to be a mediocre writer. Strive for excellence and seek out excellence. And hopefully, your love affair with writing books will be a long and lasting one.

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Cheers!
Brian M Logan
ThatActionGuy.com
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How to Produce a Short Film

Article on producing a short film.

Enjoy!

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Get started on producing an indie film now.

Taking on the task of producing a short film might seem like an impossible feat, but if you can assemble a good team and if you break down each stage of production down into small blocks of tasks, you’ll come to realize that producing a small-scale movie isn't too bad. On an indie movie set (I’m going to assume, if you’re reading this here, you’re interested in making a small-budget indie flick), a producer is essentially a director’s right-hand man. You two will be working side-by-side for the duration of the filming process, and that includes the prep before the shoot and the aftermath. Just follow these steps and you’ll be on your way to Kevin Smith-like fame in no time. [Note: I’m also going to assume you have a solid script and a director.]

Pre-production

Step 1

You and your director need to go over the script and see what characters will be cast and what locations will be needed—those are the essentials. With this information, you can get started on your first two tasks: Setting up auditions and securing locations and location permits if necessary.

Step 2

This might be one of the hardest parts of being a producer: securing funding. Some producers fund their films with their own money, some hit up their family, some reach out to investors (who help out with the promise of a producer credit or a cut of the profits). If you’re Kevin Smith, you run your credit cards to the max and sell your comic book collection. This step is up to you—just whatever you don’t try not to use your own money.

Step 3

Once you have a list of roles, start hitting up local colleges, local newspapers, alternative weeklies and coffee shops—anywhere creative types hang out—and post notices for open auditions. Depending on your budget, you’ll have to let people know that you’re auditioning for a indie film, which means little or no pay. You’re going to have to entice them by telling them you’ll feed them and they can use their performance for their clip reel. Basically, this whole venture is for experience--for everyone.

Step 4

Start plotting out locations. This is an indie film so you do not want to pay for places to film. Look into friends’ houses, apartments—if you know the owner of a store, ask them if you can use their shop after hours. You might have to tweak your script around for this, but considering all the money you’re going to be spending, $1,000 permits to film in a park for a few hours is not good.

Step 5

Assemble a crew. This might be the most important part of the production-end of your film. I’ve been on indie film shoots where everyone on the crew was a rookie except for one experienced guy who worked on "Pulp Fiction"--he was sort of like the unofficial leader of our shoot. When we were scrambling around without a clue, he would round us up and give us step-by-step directions on what to do next. My point is, get a rookie crew if you have to, but get one guy who’s been on a movie set before—and expect to pay him something.

Your best bet for a crew is local film schools or colleges with media departments. Look for camera operators, lighting specialists, a script supervisor, a boom mike guy and runners. Of course, realize that there are going be times when you’re the person holding the boom mike or running cable. When you’re the producer on an indie film, you’re the utility player and you’re going to do just about everything once—even fill in for a role on camera.

Step 6

Now that you have the auditions, locations and crew on the burner, now you just have to rent equipment. Back in the days of “Clerks” and “Reservoir Dogs,” all action was shot on film and if you lived in places like Boise, Idaho, you were screwed because no one rented pro-level cameras. But now, almost every small-budget indie film is being shot on handheld digital hi-fi cameras—you can get a great rig at your local electronics store—you don’t even have to rent them anymore, you can just buy them. The other advantage to digital is no traditional film, and you can ask any film producer and they’ll agree, film will drain your budget almost immediately.

With digital, you can shoot and erase whenever you want.

Step 7

Going with a digital camera is almost non-negotiable on indie sets these days. For everything else, you can go to equipment rental shops. These places always offer packages so look for a deal like that. One time, on a film I was working on, the producer was able to get a package deal (cameras, lighting rigs, cables, play-back monitors) and have it delivered to the set in a 15-foot moving truck. We were able to load and unload the truck from shoot to shoot—it worked brilliantly.

Production

Step 1

Your job as producer doesn’t let up during production even though you’re not going to be that involved in the creative process (although depending on your relationship with the director, you very well could make some important creative decisions). At this point, you’re going to have to be one step ahead of the filming schedule, calling ahead to make sure the next day’s location is still booked, calling around for last-minute props and negotiating deals with rental companies.

Step 2

A fed crew is a happy crew so make sure your catering tables are always stocked with bottled water, soda and snacks. Also, lunch is a big deal. You’re probably not paying your cast or crew much (if anything) so make sure lunch is more than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. On the shoots I was on, the producer was able to wrangle his mom to make lunch. Or you can consider barbeques: they're cheap and fast. Just remember, get lunch started about an hour before you actually break—you don’t want your cast and crew to be standing around while the guy in charge of lunch is trying to light the coals.

Step 3

Keep yourself free during filming. While it’s going to be part of your job to make sure actors arrive to the set on time, cameras have film in them and the director is unburdened so he can concentrate on the creative end of things, you’re the person who picks up the slack. So be prepared to do the most menial tasks on the set. Don’t be shocked if you find yourself as the guy behind the barbeque every now and then either.

Post-production

Step 1

Filming is done and you’ve returned all the rental equipment. Splurge on a cast party. And remember, as the producer in charge of the budget, you can never buy too much booze.

Step 2

If you went the expensive route and shot with film, find a facility with an editing bay. These facilities are usually one-stop shops for all your production needs. As a matter of fact, the place you rented your monitors, cables, lighting rigs and cameras probably have editing bay rentals, too.

Step 3

If the indie film you produced was shot on film (and if you’re a smart producer, it was), you don’t even need to rent an editing bay. If you have a good computer (it has to be a Mac in this case), you can load it with Apple’s Final Cut Pro. You'll be able to professionally edit your film with synched sound and everything--it’s an amazing program. It’s a little difficult to learn at first, but if you can master it, you’re in business. It’s also expensive and if you don’t have a Mac, you can rent a editing suite with a Final Cut Pro rig and rent by the hour, day or week.

Step 4

On to the website. While your director (and editor if you have one) is cutting and splicing the film, this is when you start in on the administrative stuff. These days, a website dedicated to the movie is a must. Look around at some of the websites that are out there. Most of the big budget sites suck: too much java, too little content. If you’re adept at designing websites, do it yourself (or hire someone cheap who knows their way around Dreamweaver) and showcase your film in a very simple and minimal fashion.

Make sure there are pages for the film synopsis, cast, crew, film stills (if you shot in digital, grabbing a still is easy) behind-the-scenes photos and a page with contact information. When your film is edited, make sure to post a few key scenes on the website.

Step 5

When your film is fully edited, you’ll have to look around for a company that will mass-produce your finished product onto DVDs. You’ll also need cover art for the DVD cases.

Step 6

Now that you have a polished-looking DVD with cover art, you can start submiting it to film festivals. (How else are you going to get the film discovered?) Get trade magazines like Variety and read the ads. I guarantee that every issue has at least one film festival ad in it. Pick and choose your festivals wisely thouhg. Not every fest will suit your movie. Plus, these festivals almost always charge entry fees.

Step 7

When you send your DVD and entry submission to these film festivals, you’ll want to include some sort of press kit along with it. Lots of filmmakers and producers are going with digital press kits, but they always look low rent. Go for the traditional hard copy kit. It should include the sypnosis of the film, short bios on the actors, director and you. You should also send along a disc of hi-res still shots because if the festical organizers like your film, they’re going to want to include your film in print ads to promote the festival.

Step 8

When you get accepted by a film festival, it’s your job as the producer to research the town it’s being held in and start contacting the press there. Newspapers, alternative weeklies, local blogs with a little heft--send them your press kit and let them know you, the director and your cast are available for phone interviews. Also, find out who the big critics and writers are, and make sure they get festival screening passes to your movie.

Step 9

Obviously, this is just a basic overview—the thing about producing a short independent movie is that the whole process is unpredictable. You can only set yourself up for the basics, but as long as you know things will go wrong every day, at least you’ll be prepared to deal with the pitfalls.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS ARTICLE CLICK HERE

Cheers!
Brian M Logan
ThatActionGuy.com
EMAIL ME HERE

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Fundamentals of Fiction, Part II: "Read, Read, Read!"

Article by Marg Gilks.

Enjoy!

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"Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the most. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window." -- William Faulkner

Why am I writing an article about reading for aspiring fiction writers? Because once you become a writer, you'll never be "just a reader" again. Every time you open a book -- any book, as Faulkner said above -- you'll be walking into a classroom.

Look at your favorite books. Why are they your favorites? What is it about that story that appeals to you, while other stories leave you cold, or disliking them? I don't want you to dismiss this question with a shrug and "It's fantasy. I like fantasy." I want you to decide exactly what details of that story made you like it above others you read. The characters -- how they behaved or the way they spoke to one another? The interesting or exciting or intriguing events that unfolded in the course of the story, so you couldn't put it down? The feeling that you were right there with the characters, or that you knew them really, really well? Or because someone else felt the same way or thought the same things you do, and wrote them down in a way that made you think, "Yes, that's exactly right!"

Someone made that book your favorite. Its author drew on skill, technique, and his or her own emotions and experiences to make the story come alive for you. It was no accident. That was the work of the writer.

Looking at your favorite story with that in mind puts a whole new twist on it, doesn't it? Goodbye, reader; enter writer-in-training.

So, now that you know you liked the characters, say, because the writer made them likeable, look at how he or she did that. Look at the bad guys too, realizing that the writer wanted them to be unlikable. Think about every detail you learned about the characters. Reread the story and pay attention to every instance where you learn something about the characters, where they do something that lets you get to know them a little bit more. Look at the writing in these spots: the word choices, how the character is described, what the character does or says. Pay attention to how you feel when you read these details about the character, and then try to figure out why.

Apply this to every aspect of the story. If at some point you could vividly imagine the sounds and smells and the overall squalor of a tenement in Victorian London, stop reading and examine the words and descriptions the author uses to bring it to life in your mind. If you feel your pulse speed up with excitement or your shoulders tighten with tension or you become very curious, stop and examine the writing at that point and try to figure out what the author did to make you feel that way.

Do this with every story you read. If you hate a story, examine it to figure out why -- what, exactly, you didn't like. You'll be learning from others' mistakes -- or, if it's a matter of taste rather than error, you'll learn what type of writing does not appeal to you. This, applied subconsciously as you write, will contribute to the gradual development of your own writing style.

After a while, you'll do this automatically. You'll be absorbing and learning every time you read.

What else can you learn from reading? If you prefer a certain genre, such as mystery or romance or thriller, reading widely in that genre -- both contemporary and past offerings, by many authors -- will tell you what's already been done, how it's been done, and whether it's been done to death already.

By reading what's been done well already, you will learn technique; by reading voraciously, you'll develop an understanding of the conventions of your chosen genre so you can write more effectively within that genre yourself; by reading contemporary offerings, you'll gain an understanding of the market that will enable you to pitch your own stories more effectively. However, don't read for trends.

Consider these scenarios. Say you have a story idea about Mars, an idea so original, you're sure it will be a hit with publishers. But when you send it to publishers, it's rejected again and again. Perhaps one rejection will include a scribbled "Unoriginal. Already done." Belatedly, you investigate, only to discover that everyone from C.S. Lewis to Kim Stanley Robinson has written about Mars. If you had read widely in your genre, you might never have written that story now languishing in your drawer, or you would have slanted your story in such a way that it was truly fresh in an arena where Mars has been "done to death."

"But I've read everything," you think, "and there are tons of stories about wizards being published right now. I have an idea for a wizard story just like those -- that one will get published."

Don't count on it. The stories you're reading now were purchased months and months ago. Publishers will have moved on to other things. Read to learn, not to jump on a bandwagon that rolled by last year.

Read everything, Faulkner said above, and well you should. Read outside your genre. That romance novel you disdain now could offer you valuable insights into technique when you're faced with a love scene in your murder mystery. Read nonfiction as well as fiction. Many successful writers, including Shakespeare, drew on history and mythology for story ideas. That obscure piece in the morning newspaper may give you an idea for a story. An article on ladies' fashions in Elizabethan England could provide you with the details that bring your historical fiction to life.

Read novels and read short stories; read poetry. Poetry will tune your writer's ear to the rhythm of language, and make your writing beautiful. Novels and short stories each have their own technical requirements; studying overall story arc in a novel will teach you about plot and structure; the length restrictions imposed by short stories will both allow you to study technique in condensed form and teach you how such important aspects as characterization and setting can be conveyed to maximum effect in a minimum of space.

Have I convinced you yet? Good! Now pick up a book, and start learning how to write.

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Brian M Logan
ThatActionGuy.com
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So You Wanna Get a Book Published?

Article on getting a book published.

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1. KNOW HOW THE PROCESS WORKS

The first rule of getting a book published is to avoid writing a book. Whoa, what the hell are we talking about? Yes, it's very counterintuitive, but the main goal of anyone who wants to publish a book is to land a literary agent, before spending years writing something nobody wants to read. (Of course, if you're reading this SYW because you've already churned out a work of genius, don't fear; go directly to 2. Prepare a proposal.) Let us explain: the literary world is a very closed community and the people who green light publication accept books only through very specific channels. Think about it: nobody could ever handle reading the mountains of spew that aspiring authors churn out all the time, so the system has established filters to weed out most of the garbage. You need to learn what the filters are and how to get through them. Namely, agents.

Agents -- what do they do, exactly?

An agent is a separate individual who performs much of this filtering process. You most certainly don't want to send a manuscript directly to a publishing house. They won't read it. They consider pieces only if they come recommended by an agent. Agents read manuscripts, or ideas for manuscripts (known as queries and proposals), and decide whether a project has promise. If it does, the agent signs a contract with the author, promising to use best efforts to get the thing sold to a publishing house, in exchange for around 15% of the deal. Editors at publishing houses would much rather deal only with agents who have a good track record for presenting quality ideas, so agents can be very choosy about who they sign. Landing an agent, therefore, is the whole idea of the game. Once you have one of those on your side, she will work incredibly hard to get your idea sold.

Agents, in turn, don't particularly like reading 300-page manuscripts either. In fact, they don't like reading much more than 1 page. So the first step to getting an agent to even pay attention to you is to send them a query letter. A query letter is essentially a short summary of your idea, who you are, and why you are qualified to write this project.

But you say, "Wait. I don't wanna give up fifteen percent of my book-deal-to-be. That stinks." Can you proceed without an agent? Don't even try. And are they worth the cash? You bet: 85% of zero is nada, and you got nada without an agent there, Chekhov. Don't worry, though, there are thousands of literary agents all across America and a few excellent guides that give you tons of information about what they like to represent and how to contact them. The very best is the Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents, 1999-2000 : Who They Are! What They Want! And How to Win Them Over! by Jeff Herman. But first you need to know what agents want.

2. PREPARE A PROPOSAL

The first step to getting your name in print is to prepare a proposal. Remember, the proposal is a document that acts as a thorough outline of your idea for a book. Although you will ultimately contact agents by sending a query letter first, if any agent wants to follow up with you by reading your proposal, you will need to have written it already. So here's what to write:

General Overview: The first 2 pages or so should be a general summary of the entire book. If it is a non-fiction piece, just explain what you intend to write about and what topics you will cover. If you are writing fiction, provide a very general synopsis of your plot.

Market: Next, write a 3-page description of the market to whom you think your book will appeal. Describe the age, socio-economic, and educational characteristics of the audience you think your book will draw.

Competition: This section is where you provide a description of the other books out there that also cover this topic. Be honest here because an agent can easily find out if you're omitting some best-seller. Remember, a market filled with similar books can be a very good sign that there is money to be made here. Hell, who wouldn't have written a Titanic book in '98 if they could have? Thirteen-year-old girls couldn't buy enough of all that nonsense.

Authors: This portion of the proposal is a 1-page description of yourself and your co-authors, if any. Boast all you can because your agent is going to want to think that you are a great author for this book, to convince a publishing house to pay you for your idea.

Chapter Summary: The bulk of the proposal will be chapter by chapter outline of what you intend to cover in your book. If you are writing fiction, here is where you may have to include up to twenty pages of actual samples. If the piece is non-fiction, stick to the minimum, either outlining or briefly synopsizing the heart of each chapter.

Delivery: This is a 3-sentence snippet at the end of the proposal that describes how many words you think the finished book will be and how long it will take you to write it.

For a sample, check out this real proposal. (To look at this file, download Adobe Acrobat Reader, available here for free.) And these resources will help you flesh out your proposal in more detail: Be Your Own Literary Agent : The Ultimate Insider's Guide to Getting Published by Martin P. Levin, and 30 Steps to Becoming a Writer : And Getting Published : The Complete Starter Kit for Aspiring Writers by Scott Edelstein.

3. RESEARCH AGENTS

When you attempt to contact agents, be aware that they divide themselves into fiction and non-fiction camps. So grab that Guide to Literary Agents and start thumbing the pages. (Here's another great source: 1999 Guide to Literary Agents: 500 Agents Who Sell What You Write by Donya Dickerson.) These directories list agents by various categories, and spend a page giving you detailed information about the agent. In particular, you can see what the agent does or does not like to see in a query and a proposal and, more importantly, what books they have represented in the past.

The second thing you should do is compile a list of twenty agents whose general interests align with the kind of book you're planning on writing. (It also helps to actually be capable of writing the book.) If you've just come back from a fantastic trip to Borneo and think you can spout off about it as well as any hippie schmo, look for agents interested in travel non-fiction. Or, if you've got a burning desire to embellish tales about how your parents abused you, make a note of agents who specialize in fictional human dramas. You get the point. If you don't, you're not smart enough to be a writer.

4. CONTACT AGENTS

Once you've got your list of 20 target agents, you can start to get the word out. The way to make contact with these people without an official introduction is to churn out a query letter. (Of course, if you have a contact of some sort in the publishing world, then by all means, use it.) A query is a 1-page attention grabber that gives busy agents enough information about you and your project to tickle their interest without boring them with details. These people are constantly shuffling hundreds of pages of manuscripts, letters, and faxes, and the last thing they have time for is some unsolicited bore. Keep it short and to the point, and use the following structure.

The Teaser: In the first paragraph, toss out a teaser. Come up with a first sentence that really grabs the agent's attention. If you're a former astronaut or a Harvard lawyer, throw it at them. But you don't need to be incredible to survive this beauty pageant - what you really need is a nice fit between who you are and what the book you've written is about. For example, "I have been a school janitor for 30 years and I propose to write a book about all the incredible things I have found in kids' lockers." Now, there's nothing unbelievable about that combination, but there must be a compelling fit between who you are and what you intend to write.

Expanding the Idea: Next, write 3 or 4 sentences about what you will write, and if you have a great example of an anecdote that exemplifies your idea, be sure to include it. Rather than lamenting the constraint of having only a paragraph to make your pitch, celebrate the fact that you can show off your best stuff.

All About You: The third paragraph should contain more information about yourself. Provide another 3 or 4 sentences describing relevant facts that demonstrate the connection between you and your idea. If that means flexing your academic credentials, be sure to do so, but only if those accolades are relevant to your idea. Perhaps your idea requires you to demonstrate that you are a dirtbag. Fine - the cardinal rule is to show that you have a good idea for a book, and that you are the perfect person to write it.

The Closer: In the final paragraph, mention that you will show your proposal to only one agent at a time - agents don't like having to worry that someone else is going to snatch their prize. Mention why you have decided to send it to them, perhaps alluding to having seen their credentials in the directory of agents. Finally, be sure to tell them how to get in touch with you with a phone number, address, and email information.

Remember, this query letter should be an appetite-whetting morsel. Do not exceed 1 page or you can kiss the agents' attention goodbye. Keep it short and make it a tease. Then sit back and wait. Check out this sample query letter.

One last important note: Don't forget to include a self-addressed stamped envelope, in case they want to contact you by mail.

5. CHOOSE AN AGENT

Agents will respond to your query in one of two ways: by phone if they're interested and by mail if they're not. So, that means the good news comes early. Typically, you're not going to be deluged by agents' phone calls. These people hear about book ideas every day of their life and you can be sure that they're pretty skeptical by the time your query landed on their desk. Expect a limited number of responses - one is all you need. When you do hear from someone, kick your project into high gear. Having an agent interested in your project is huge.

First, be sure to return an agent's call and tell her how flattered and delighted you are that she has expressed an interest in your project and that you will be choosing which agent you will send your proposal to in a few days. Then, wait a few days to see whether you hear from any other interested parties. If you do hear from more than one, repeat the flattering phone call, but then begin the appraisal process. The best way to decide which agent to send a proposal to is research his previous work. You will want to go with the best agent for you, and reading about the titles she has sold previously will shed a lot of light on your decision-making process.

To decide which agent to send your proposal to, we suggest the following rough guide. Look up her entry in one of the Agent Guides and make a list of the books he has previously represented. To keep the calculation easy, simply tally up the number of books that are either written by an author you have heard of or published by a company whose name you recognize. That's a pretty crude calculus, but also an effective one for picking the most accomplished agent. And they know that.

After you've come to a decision, act quickly. Be sure to inform the agent of your choice that you are going to send her, and only her, the proposal.

6. SIGN A CONTRACT

Now you wait some more. You have to give your agent time to read your proposal and float the idea around the office. If she loves it, she'll call in a couple of weeks. If she doesn't, she won't - it's like a bad relationship at this point. But, you need to get back on the market, so give her a friendly heads up if you haven't heard anything after six weeks: call the agent and say that you'll be passing on your proposal to another interested party if you still don't hear back within a week. If nothing, then go back to other agents who responded to your query and send it to one of them. Or if you didn't have any others biting at the query, start the whole process over again, either with a new book idea or simply with a fresh list of agents. There's a ton of both out there.

If you do hear good news, get psyched. You have an agent who wants to sign you. The best part is that you don't have to do any more work at this stage. The agent will send you a contract stating that she will attempt to sell your book using her best efforts and if she is, he will receive 15% of the deal. These contracts are only 1-2 pages long and don't usually need to be reviewed by an attorney. Just watch for two things: that the agent isn't looking to be your exclusive representative for more than a year (which is about the standard), and that she isn't going to charge you for the cost of office overhead if the book isn't sold.

Once you sign the contract they send you, make any changes to your proposal they suggest. They want to hone your piece into a selling machine. Once it's ready, they'll start making your pitch to publishing companies.

Getting the publishers to fork over cash for mere ideas is not an easy task, so be ready for your agent to forward you a number of negs from some of America's finer publishing houses. But comfort yourself by thinking about how badly you'd be abused by sending your manuscripts cold to these people.

When something does pan out, you're all set. Your agent will negotiate an advance for your book - as low as a few hundred dollars to as high as several thousand. Of course, the agent skims 15% for services rendered, but you're still sitting pretty. Cash the check and start writing your book. Send us a copy when you're done. For free, of course, cheapo.

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Cheers!
Brian M Logan
ThatActionGuy.com
EMAIL ME HERE

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The Attitude of a Successful Writer

Article by Jim Denney.

Enjoy!

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In his book Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, Laurence Block wrote, "It continues to astonish me what a widespread and enduring fantasy 'Being a Writer' is for the population at large. It's a rare day when I don't encounter some misguided chap who expresses the desire to trade places with me. And it's on those not-so-rare days when everything goes wrong, when the words won't come but the rejections fly thick and fast, when the bank account's gone dry again and editors don't even bother lying about the check's being in the mail, that otherwise sane folks tell me how much they envy me."

I've noticed that, when people find out what I do for a living, they often say, "I always wanted to be a writer," or, "I bet I could write a book if I put my mind to it." The people who tell you such things might be pizza delivery guys or doctors or astronauts, yet they all admire writers. They all have a secret wish that they could write. They all think they could do what you do if they had the time or the opportunity or if their lives were different somehow.

But you know what? I've never met a writer anywhere who wanted to be anything other than a writer. Take any person who says, "I am a writer," and I don't care how penniless he is, how long it has been since his last paycheck, how much he struggles with self-doubt, writer's block, and unreasonable deadlines--he does not, even for a moment, consider changing jobs. Why? Because writing is not a job. It's a mission. It's a calling. It's more essential to your soul than a career. It is not just your profession--it's your identity.

A computer programmer can go to seminary and become a preacher. A school teacher can tender her resignation and become an exotic dancer. But can a writer give up writing and become something else? Unheard of! Writing is not what you do, it's who you are! If you are a writer, there is nothing else to be.

If you know in your bones what I'm talking about, if you know that you have to be a writer, then you must write. You only get one life, and the life you've been given is made up of a finite number of heartbeats. Between your first heartbeat and your last is a brief span of time in which you are permitted to write your books and speak your piece. When your time is up, they will put you in a box and throw you in a hole to make room for the next writer waiting in line.

So now is your time, my friend. If you're going to write your books, you'd better get at it. Here are the keys to maintaining the attitude of a working writer as you pound your dreams into reality:

• Stay cool under pressure. Writing requires intense mental concentration. Pressures are distractions, and distractions are corrosive forces that can stop the flow of your writing. Marital and family strife are deadly to your inspiration. Financial stress can make it hard to put two coherent thoughts together. Deadline pressure can make you freeze like a deer in the halogen highbeams.

Understand, I'm not telling you to eliminate pressures and distractions from your life. It can't be done. The problems and pressures of life are inevitable, so you must learn to cope. One of the best survival skills a writer has is the ability to remain cool under pressure. There may come times when you are under intense deadline pressure and intense financial pressure at the same time--way too much work and no money at all. It will seem massively unfair and unreasonable--but you still have to finish the work in order to collect your next check. Money or no money, stress or no stress, you've got to write.

My most important asset in the early days of my freelance career was a sense of perspective. I looked at things this way: Okay, there's no money--so what's the worst that can happen? I put off some bills and make my apologies to a few creditors. The check will eventually get here.

Meanwhile, I can still write, I still have my health and my family, and life goes on. On the scale of bad things that can happen to a person, a little short-term financial stress just doesn't even budge the scale.

• During bad times, avoid self-pity. Unless you somehow manage to write a best-seller right out of the box (and I'm not sneering at that--it has been done), accept the fact that it takes time, patience, and persistence to build your career and achieve your goals. That's the way it should be. If writing was easy, everybody would do it.

At times, you may be tempted to look with envy upon your workaday friends with their secure jobs and regular paychecks. You'll be tempted to feel sorry for yourself. Don't. You have a lot of things going for you that they don't have:

1. Unlimited upside potential. Sure, the money is lean and the checks are slow at first. But your friends, the nine-to-fivers, top out at a certain level. They reach a point where they are making as much as they can make, and they can't advance any higher. A talented, focused, determined writer has unlimited upside potential. If you can write as well as Stephen King, Tom Clancy, or J. K. Rowling, you can become a one-person publishing empire and deforest half of Saskatchewan with your brilliant words. And why shouldn't you?

2. You're doing what you love. How many of your friends can say that? Most of the people you know are just marking time until retirement. Few are doing what they really love to do. If your friends won the lottery today, most of them would quit their jobs tomorrow. But if you won the lottery, would you stop writing? No way! Sudden wealth would just give you more freedom to write what you want.

3. You are a writer. You aren't mowing lawns or delivering pizza. You aren't cold-calling on disinterested prospects. You don't have to wear a pager to the opera, be on call at all hours of the night, or answer to a mean-tempered, autocratic boss. That's not to disparage the people who do those jobs, because all honest work is honorable. But you have something better than a job. You have something nobler than a career. You have a calling. You have a purpose in life. You are a writer.

• Think like an editor. If you want to write books, then ask yourself, "What sells?" Become acquainted with trends, bestsellers, and niche markets. Spend time in bookstores, checking out the racks and the displays, figuring out what sells. Read the trade journals, like Publishers Weekly. Know what editors are looking for, and make it your business to deliver it.

I continually encounter people who want to write a book about their own life or the life of someone close to them. Unfortunately, such books rarely get published. Your grandfather may have been a fascinating man who led an interesting life, but the truth is, if your grandfather didn't win a war, a Super Bowl, or an Academy Award, it's going to be tough finding a publisher for your grandfather's life story. Non-fiction book publishing today is celebrity-driven, event-driven, and publicity-driven. Competition is fierce. If you want to sell your book, you've got to think commercially.

Magazine publishing is another thing altogether. There are thousands of magazines filling hundreds of niches. Even the story of your grandfather's adventures as a ringmaster with a traveling flea circus--if the story is well-written with just the right slant--will sell to one or more of those magazines. You just have to do your homework and familiarize yourself with the markets. That means you must research potential markets in Writer's Digest and on the Internet. If a magazine doesn't post writers' guidelines on its website, then invest in some stamps and ask for them (send an SASE). Most important of all, read the magazine. Get to know its content, focus, readership, editorial personality, and slant. Study the contents page--and study the actual content.

Select a few publications you'd like to write for, then make it your goal to crack that market and keep selling articles there. After you conquer one publication, use your credits to impress editors at other publications, so you can sell to even better-paying markets.

• Finally, have fun! Novelist Piers Anthony once told me, "I hardly need to generate the motivation to write because I love to write and I do it all I can." And writer-editor Robert Darden told me, "My most exciting moments as a writer occur when I'm working on my fiction. It's like a drug--I crave it. Writing fiction is the greatest joy in this business--and when writing is fun, you can't keep from writing!"

So do what you love, have a blast, and write!

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Cheers!
Brian M Logan
ThatActionGuy.com
EMAIL ME HERE

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