Square Pegs

As you’ve noticed, I am greatly preoccupied by the Writers Guild of America strike. Not only is the gleaming BS headquarters based in Southern California, but I know people on the picket line. I’ve grown accustomed to seeing some of them hard at work while I’m pretending to do the same. I also know people on the other side of the table. I have had a vested interest in both sides of the issue for as long as I can remember. There are strong, valid arguments being made by both the writers and the producers. There is also a bit

As the world settles into a potentially long winter of reruns and very bad reality television, the role of the writer in Hollywood is gaining new attention. We all know that someone writes those words that Angelina Jolie speaks on the big screen. We are newly aware that David Letterman’s “Top Ten List” isn’t created off the top of his head. We understand that the seemingly effortless banter of Jon Stewart is the result of hard work by a writing team. The fact that the entire motion picture industry can be brought to its knees because the writers are striking

Today, as those of you feverishly attacking your keyboards know all too well, marks the beginning of National Novel Writing Month. Every year, during the month of November, thousands of people band together for a common cause: to write a novel over the course of what is surely the second-hardest month of the year. That so many achieve this goal — quality be damned! — is a testament to the human desire to create. For those of you who choose to participate (and I won’t be one — plates can only hold so much), the goal is to completed a

As you know, the potential for a writers’ strike in Hollywood has been occupying more than a fair share of my brain power these past few months. Since I’m just an interested but casual observer, I can well imagine the tensions it’s creating for the real players. Especially since it appears the two sides are further apart than ever. It is a decided risk to strike for higher residuals. No mean feat, considering they started on opposite sides of the payscale spectrum. The story in a nutshell. Both the writers and the studios want to change the way residuals are

As I read my morning edition of Publisher’s Lunch (for me, it’s really more of a breakfast thing), I noted this line from Michael Cader: “It’s interesting that as online contest fever for unpublished works continues to grow, press attention is diminishing.” He then goes on to detail the latest social networkesque publishing contest to hit the writing world. This trend, which I believe was first started by Romantic Times Magazine and Dorchester Publishing, has started to capture the imaginations of publishing professionals everywhere.

I was reading comments on a blog and paused over one that said that libraries are “free options” in the book world. Over time, that idea roiled around in my little brain. Are libraries really free? ‘Cause if they are, then, wow, finally there’s something in this world without a catch. It is time that we all become activists for reading. Libraries are free only in the sense that it costs nothing to borrow a book. As long as you return it within the proscribed time. If you’re late, you get to pay a fine. Whether or not another patron

So here’s the deal: depending on how you interpret the numbers, one in four Americans didn’t read a single book last year* or three out of four Americans read at least one book last year. If you stick with the latter statistic, that’s a whole lot of reading going on. Remember, this is a really big country. The survey fails to wonder whether online reading plays a minor or major role in people’s lives. Americans are readers (as noted in my detailed pool-side survey of human behavior). Americans, possibly very much like our ancestors, are also busy people. At the

Today’s theme is “What I Did On My Summer Vacation”, though the fact that summer revelries have been condensed into 2 1/2 days should tell you something. Mostly that the child-free of the world are able to schedule their vacations for less crowded times of the year. Even though the trip is short, I, naturally, packed enough books to open a bookstore in an emerging nation. You never know when you’ll need an extra. The first book I chose was a particular reading disaster — it’s by an author that I so truly believe has a great novel in her

Okay, I admit it. I was looking forward to a more contentious summer. A summer filled with knock-down, drag-out fights. You know, the stuff in movies. By the ones who make the movies. To date, the negotiations between the Writers’ Guild and the studios have been remarkably, boringly civil. Which is to say, they’ve been almost non-existent. After starting off strong, the two sides exchanged a few blows before retreating to their relative corners. The studios, who had (rather lamely) introduced a plan to do a “study” took their offer off the table. Probably because any study that ends with