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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
Thanks for stopping by! 
November 29, 2010 at 3:47pm November 29, 2010 at 3:47pm
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Not sure if anyone here has heard this yet or not, but 20th Century Fox filed a $15 million lawsuit in the last couple weeks against a woman who made screenplays available for free download on her website. I'm not going to get into details because A) I don't feel right gossiping about information that I don't know firsthand, and B) I don't want to give this case any more attention than it's already garnering, suffice to say that I'm really conflicted about this case.
I know the defendant personally. We're not friends or anything, but she queried my company about her screenplay at one point, and we chatted for a little while. She's also regularly active on screenwriting message boards that I frequent and seems to genuinely care about helping people improve their craft. She's a grandmother (I believe) with a family to support, incredibly sweet, and I'm certain doesn't have anywhere close to the $15 million she's being sued for.
That said, she did break the law. "Script trading" is a very serious problem in our industry (where a screenplay is leaked some way or another, and gets into the hands of screenwriters and movie fans who then pass the script around). The problem is... this is illegal. The studio owns the copyright (and all the associated rights) to their projects. For someone to possess (or worse, in this case distribute) that material without permission is a violation of the studio's intellectual property rights, just as if someone were to go onto your hard drive, grab your latest manuscript and post it online without your permission.
At best (in the case of released movies), it's intellectual property theft with actual damages (the amount they paid for the script). At worst, it's lost profits (in the case of scripts that are still being developed into movies). This woman had both, including a high-profile script to a BIG movie that should not have gotten out... and certainly had no place being made publicly available to the world for free download. This woman - I truly believe - did not mean any harm. She meant for these scripts to be available to writers and movie fans who wanted to enjoy the screenplay or use it as a learning tool, rather than as a way for her to make a profit (she didn't).
This is all very troubling... Fox definitely doesn't need the $15 million, and I seriously doubt they'd get even a fraction of it from her even if they won the lawsuit. If they proceed to the fullest extent permissible by law, they're going to financially ruin this woman and her family. But she broke the law. She not only obtained the intellectual property of someone else without their permission, but then turned around and made it available for free to anyone who visited her website. 
What's even more disturbing are all the people from the message boards who are emailing her and posting online their opinions of what she should do. There's nothing scarier than someone trying to be an armchair lawyer... and there has been some astoundingly bad advice offered... everything from assigning all her worldly possessions to a family member and walking arrogantly into court and telling Fox there's nothing they can take... to claiming an "educational purposes" defense (which won't work if it violates the law)... to taking the "innocent infringer" defense (which also won't work in this case)... to trying to argue that Fox hasn't properly asserted their copyright in the first place (perhaps the most ridiculous suggestion of all). It's truly frightening how many people - with nothing more than a cursory knowledge of the facts, and no legal education - feel qualified to give someone legal advice that could very well ruin her life. I really hope she isn't listening to any of it and is consulting a proper attorney. 
I honestly don't know what to think. On the one hand, it's easy to look at Fox and say, "Come on, guys. This is a little old lady who didn't mean any harm. Make her take the site down and be done with it." But on the other hand, what she did was illegal, and there is a significant financial risk to the studio from what she did, especially by posting the confidential, in-development script.
It's a sad day all around. Sad that Fox is looking to really stick it to this woman. Sad that she posted the scripts in the first place. Sad that other people are misguidedly giving her bad advice or watching the train wreck as if it were some kind of entertainment.
When this is all over, I don't see anyone coming out on top. It's just an all-around awful situation. 
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November 26, 2010 at 1:53pm November 26, 2010 at 1:53pm
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** Image ID #1727843 Unavailable **
BOOM. There it is. This year's NaNoWriMo is officially over (at least for me, in terms of my writing), and I can proudly raise my glass and say that I finished it this year. After a dismal showing last year, I've redeemed myself in 2010 and increased my track record to two successful finishes in three attempts.
This was a tough year for me. New job, the "NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon"  which is bigger than ever this year, and quite a few other obligations both on this site and in my life offline. I freely admit that I hated my story and the last half was pretty much an exercise is perseverance (or stubbornness), where I was just trying to finish for the sake of being finished. I wasn't really ever invested in my story, which is probably why a mystery-esque drama for the first 25,000 spent the last half of the word count including fantasy, science fiction, erotica (lots of erotica!  ), action sequences, ninjas, supernatural phenomena, and travel. 
What did I learn from NaNoWriMo this year? I learned that I can't do it again without a plan in place. This is the third straight year I've gone into the competition without any prep work. The first year (2008), I signed up at the last minute and just started writing. Last year, I had an idea, but no plan, and ran out of steam. This year, I had an idea, but also no plan, and it was a struggle to finish. More than anything, I'm realizing that there's no upside to NaNo if you don't have a plan going in. If you're winging it, it really is a pointless exercise, and other than the satisfaction of saying that you finished the challenge, there's not a lot you have to show for your efforts. Except a rough draft of a story that you're not really interested in... and let's be honest... 50,000 words is a hell of a lot of words to waste on something you're not passionate about. Right?
So that's my promise to myself. Regardless of what else I have going on in my life, if I can't find the time to put together a decent outline for a story and characters that interest me, I'm not going to participate in future NaNoWriMos. It's just too exhausting, and too much work to put into something that I know is going to be buried in the darkest recesses of my hard drive and never see the light of day again. I love NaNoWriMo and I would love to compete every year... but I need to respect myself and my time enough to know that I'm not just throwing it away on a trivial exercise. If I'm going to write 50,000 words, I want it to count toward something... not just be a one-off story that I know I'll never seriously consider reworking.
So there it is. Three past NaNoWriMos, two successful, all with stories chosen and written off the cuff. It's been a great three years, filled with fun, frenzy, and furiously flying fingers on a keyboard... but now it's time to take NaNoWriMo (and my writing efforts) a little more seriously. No more sudden ninja attacks, or sporadic, marathon lovemaking sessions just to bolster the 'ol word count.
Congratulations to everyone who's finished NaNo, or is still attempting to cross the finish line. You all have my most profound respect; it's not easy, and I hope that your novels are coming out the way you hoped they would.
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November 23, 2010 at 1:41am November 23, 2010 at 1:41am
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Saw Megamind last weekend. I have to admit, I was kind of disappointed. Not that it was a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination; it was actually quite funny in several places. But it wasn't as funny as so many of the animated movies that have come out recently. Pixar is the gold standard, but even other studios are putting out great stuff like How To Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda, and Shrek have really set the standard for what animation can be. Megamind was good, it just wasn't great.
More than anything, it was a little slow and inactive. There were a lot of talking scenes, which kind of made me wonder why it was an animated movie. I mean, the whole point of animation is that you're unrestricted by real-life limitations. You show far off worlds and exotic animals and have big bold action scenes... you're limited only by your imagination when it comes to animation. So then why create an animated movie with so many scenes of two characters simply talking to one another?
I'd say wait for this one on video or catch it at a matinee. It wasn't awful, but I'm not sure it's worth the $9 for a full price movie ticket. |
November 19, 2010 at 2:39pm November 19, 2010 at 2:39pm November 18, 2010 at 1:45pm November 18, 2010 at 1:45pm
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I'm trying to be healthier. Really, I am. I finally finished the convalescence following my surgery at the beginning of October and now I can gradually start exercising again. I have to start slow and recover a lot of my strength and endurance, but hey, you've got to start somewhere, right? I'm also trying to eat healthier, but temptation seems to find me everywhere. Today, someone brought donuts into the office. Last week, someone sent us cupcakes as a thank you for work we did for them at a premiere. The week before that, someone left the company and there was a party with cookies and cake.
I'm at peace with the fact that I have absolutely no willpower when it comes to sweets. I have a weakness for anything sugary - especially anything chocolate - and the only way I've been able to make sure I eat better is to keep that stuff out of the house, bring my lunch rather than go out somewhere, etc. But how am I supposed to fight the cravings when there's a friggin' box of donuts sitting on the desk right next to me? I can practically smell the doughy, glazed goodness.
I suppose, in the larger picture, there are worse things to be addicted to than sugar. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs... I don't drink coffee and I rarely drink soda... I don't eat fast food or other foods high in preservatives more than once every week or two... and I'd like to think all of that means I'm living a relatively healthy lifestyle (or not an unhealthy one, at least). Of course, that doesn't change the fact that I need to lose some weight.
Damn you, donuts. Damn you and your alluring siren call. |
November 17, 2010 at 3:53pm November 17, 2010 at 3:53pm
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On track with my NaNo novel... caught up on my HSP class reviews and analysis... working (somewhat) diligently on my next grad school application... UENG newsletter is out... caught up with my SP review credits... on top of my TP review activity duties... halfway done with my official mystery newsletter due on Monday... wow, I'd almost forgotten what it's like to be out in front of things instead of behind the 8-ball.
I kind of like it.
Although I'm sure it won't last. 
In other news, got a new keyboard at work today. I know that probably sounds awfully trivial and horribly pathetic, but after using laptops for so many years, being back on a desktop for work with a big old clunky, loud, clacking keyboard was driving me crazy. My typing speed was drastically reduced, and it was noisy as all hell. I bought myself a slimline, low-profile keyboard with silent keys that barely make a noise as my fingers fly across them. Unnecessary? I'm sure the argument could be made. But for someone who spends 10 hours a day in front of this computer and types incessantly, it was quite possibly the best $20 I ever spent. No more aching wrists, sore fingers, or not being able to hear someone on the phone over the plastic clacking of ancient keys.  |
November 13, 2010 at 4:13pm November 13, 2010 at 4:13pm
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Okay, if you haven't seen ER before and don't want me to spoil it for you, stop reading right now. But that's the only spoiler alert you're going to get, because I'm going to talk about Season 8, which aired almost ten years ago. So if you don't know what happens and don't want to know, don't read any further.
My wife and I are on a mission to see the entire series run of ER on Netflix. We just keep watching season after season. She had seen probably half the episodes at various stages in reruns, and I'd only seen the first and last season, with a few other episodes in between. And damn, what a great freakin' show. I'm a little sad that I missed it during it's actual run. We just got finished with Season 8, which is the season where Peter Benton and Mark Greene both exit the show (in very different ways). I couldn't help but think about how amazing the show was, to make us care about these characters for eight years... to draw us into their lives and show us so many sides of these characters. Peter Benton is a hotshot surgeon who ends up with a hearing-impaired son and having to make a difficult decision between the career he's always wanted and the father he eventually knew he had to become. Mark Greene was a great doctor who struggled with divorce, unrequited love, an unruly teenage daughter, a new wife and baby, and - finally - a brain tumor.
If anybody wants to learn how to write great characters that stay with a reader, watch the first eight season of ER, and especially Season 8. It's a master class in how writers can create characters that feel so real and three-dimensional that you root for them week after week, staying with them through all the highs and lows, and feeling like a part of you has been lost when they leave and aren't in your life anymore.
I hope I can write characters like that someday. |
November 11, 2010 at 6:40pm November 11, 2010 at 6:40pm
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My NaNo novel is plodding along. I'm not making super great progress, but I am managing to stay on track with my word count - I'm actually a little ahead - and there's still plenty of room left in my story. This definitely isn't like last year, where I was pushing and struggling and forcing myself to get the words out, and then ran into a wall at 20,000 words. I have a nice open-ended narrative that I could go on and on and on with, if I wanted to.
The thing I'm stuck on is the fact that I'm not really into my story. It's my own fault... like last year, I let me other obligations and everything get in the way of NaNo prep, so instead of writing the story I had been intending to write, I starting something completely different right then and there on November 1st. And while the narrative is moving along, I'm having a hard time staying invested, which is probably because I don't know my characters all that well.
Anyway, with all that said, I'm at a bit of a crossroads. I've already accepted the fact that, like my first NaNo effort, even if I finish this novel, I'm not going to do anything with it. And that's okay, because NaNo is more of a fun exercise for me anyway, than it is a legitimate attempt at getting a draft of something started so I can get it published. And knowing that, I've wondered if I should just have fun with it, or actually tell a cohesive story, no matter how bland.
Because here's the thing... I have the attention span of an toddler. What I want to do changes every day. So the conundrum in which I currently find myself is - knowing that this story is just for personal satisfaction - do I do what I really want to do and just let loose? Or do I try to finish the story as I started it? My story is basically a college-aged kid on a road trip to find out what happened to his estranged father. Do I keep with this current narrative and finish the story as it was intended (a dramedy), which would give me that nice feeling of accomplishment of finishing a real novel-length work? Or do I go crazy and let loose, giving myself the freedom to take the story in whatever direction I fancy when I start writing (car chases, conspiracy theories, aliens, erotic encounters, or whatever else), which will entertain me throughout November, but would probably feel like less of an accomplishment at the end of the month since there was no effort to stick to a cohesive story?
I honestly have no idea what I want to do. Part of me wants to just say, "To hell with it; it's all for fun" while the other part of me is saying, "This is just your inner procrastinator/critic talking, trying to get you to avoid the hard work writing a story."
So which is it? And what should I do?
Either way, I'm committed to finishing NaNo this year. I'm just not sure if it's going to be with my protagonist and his father experiencing a heartfelt reunion... or my protagonist rescuing his father from a secret alien society in a climactic speedboat chase. |
November 2, 2010 at 2:00pm November 2, 2010 at 2:00pm © Copyright 2025 Jeff (UN: jeff at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Jeff has granted InkSpot.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
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Car purchased
HSP Lesson #1 analysis.