clarkblog

HOW TO KICK YOUR OWN ASS

Comics writer Gail Simone has some honest and tough advice for anyone hoping to make it in the world of comics. Her words are good and sound and wise and can easily apply to anyone wanting to write novels or poems or plays or TV or just about anything else.

Here's a key excerpt on something that I wish I'd realized sooner than I did:

... [P]ut away the excuses that are getting in your way. Don’t share them, don’t give them that power. Move around them. No one can clear that path for you. You have to do it. You have to be smart, talented, and determined like a bastard.   And you have to put the things holding you back aside. Bury them in the yard and plant a tree over them.  Work hard, make art you’re proud of and show it everywhere.  Know what you offer and let others know it. Do it now. Start right now.

If her words scare the hell out of you or piss you off, you will probably be happier doing something else worthwhile with your life. But if you're scared and pissed off and yet still somehow hopeful and inspired, then you know what to do.

Get to work.

PLASTIC MAN

The back floorboard of my car is packed with plastic water bottles. Writers all over Hollywood collect them during staffing season. Every meeting you book could lead to a job writing for a TV show. And at every meeting, someone will hand you a bottle of water, and it will end up in your back floorboard.

I've not had time to empty these sloshing bottles onto my parched plants, let alone recycle the bottles. But if there's an earthquake or alien invasion while I'm driving, I won't die of dehydration for a while.

Nor have I had time to update the blog. I wanted to write something about staffing season and how it's a big crazy game of musical chairs, but Life -- wonderful tho' 'tis -- just isn't giving me any free time right now. Turns out other writers are sounding off on their experiences over at John August's blog, and they're doing a great job of it.

In particular, I commend to your attention this piece by Daniel Thomsen:

I’ve been in LA since 2002 and every single year, the refrain is always the same: “Ugh, this is the worst year ever, no one’s getting work.” I absolutely believe people have been repeating those words since the days we were all fighting over gigs on radio dramas.

Snagging a staff job requires these things: hard work, self awareness, a killer script, a logical connection between your brand and a show that makes it on the schedule, and a fair bit of fortunate timing.

Remember that staffing is a war of attrition. You might deserve a gig this year, but if that gig falls through due to circumstances out of your control — tough shit. Stay focused on the circumstances you can control and prepare for whatever’s next — development season, cable staffing, Subway sandwich artistry, etc.

 

NINE YEARS ON

Nine years ago today, I was in a state of panic and fear and the Twin Towers hadn't even been attacked yet.

I had just quit a safe and secure full-time job to return to graduate school to see if I could be a writer. I've always made my living as a writer, but often the work was anything but creative. I'd lost touch with the spark that had driven me as a child to write stories and draw comics and pass them around to my friends. Maybe I was simply meant to be a journalist, an ad man or a technical writer -- and there's nothing wrong with any of those jobs. But storytelling had once been my passion. I'd lost that and I wanted to find it again.

Less than two weeks into an esteemed writing program at the nation's oldest drama school, I found the pace, workload and creative demands so intense and challenging that my failure seemed all but inevitable. I wasn't hacking it. My hardest efforts resulted in work so poor I felt certain I was going to be kicked out of the program.

So reading was not just a big part of my curriculum, but a thankful solace. Whenever I couldn't sleep, I had a shelf of new theater texts to reach for. The assignment for September 11, 2001, was Aeschylus' incredible play The Persians, written circa 472 BC. And this is what we were discussing in a History of Drama seminar at the exact moment the worst terrorist attacks on U.S. soil took place.

The play is told from the point of view of the Persians, whom the Greeks had defeated years earlier. I believe this to be the only surviving Greek play based on an actual historical event. It's remarkable because it asks the audience to feel pity for the invading army seeking to topple the Greek empire.

The play asks: Why did the Persians lose the war? They were a great army led by Xerxes, a powerful leader, and they believed the gods were on their side. They fell, we learn, because of their unmitigated pride. Hubris. This is a play about wars and the fools who lose them. Aeschylus served up this tragic and chilling cautionary tale to an audience that would've felt freshly the wounds of this conflict.

When this play was first performed, it wasn't long after the Greeks had defeated the invading Persian army, maybe just a generation or less. As my wonderful professor Brian Johnson pointed out, the audience was probably filled with war veterans, some of them horribly scarred and maimed, as well as families mourning lost loved ones. In fact, there's a very good chance the audience was still sitting amidst blood-stained rubble, their very own Ground Zero.

Aeschylus sought to dramatize this defeat from the Persian perspective, but he didn't want his fellow countrymen to gloat or revel in superiority. He believed such things were fatal flaws. So he portrayed the Persians as being defeated not so much by the might and valor of the Greek army, but by their own corrupt values.

The play's theme -- warning against hubris, against the foolishness of believing one's nation is invincible and divined by supernatural higher powers -- has, sadly, become more relevant with each passing year.

Whenever anyone invokes a higher power in the name of war, you have reason to be very afraid, no matter what their religion.

When my classmates and I emerged from class that morning, we instantly knew something was wrong with the world. People everywhere on campus were hugging each other and crying in disbelief. As we learned of the attacks, each of us began to wonder: what the hell good is freakin' theater on a planet where something this catastrophic can happen? Like everyone in the days following the attacks, my fellow storytellers-in-training (actors, directors, designers, etc.) questioned the paths our lives had chosen. We wondered if we were wasting valuable time.

It took me a while but I finally realized that, when catastrophe reared its ugly head, I was doing exactly what I needed to be doing. The poetry and vision of The Persians informed and validated that feeling like nothing else. Even today, whenever I need motivation to write (or even just to get out of bed each morning), I think of Aeschylus and how his words speak to us across the centuries. This is why I write. To speak. To communicate. To  let others in the world know that we share the same dreams and blessings and curses, no matter who -- or when -- we are.

Storytelling binds us as a species. It is one of the most hopeful things we have. Sometimes I dwell on the thousands of Greek plays that are forever lost to us and it's enough to drive me to tears. All those writers and the stories they hoped to pass down to us -- gone. Just gone. We are incredibly fortunate that this particular play has survived the ravages of time. It is a warning, an admonition, a plea for peace and humility in the face of violence. I hope that one day we will truly hear its message.

(Above: bust of Aeschylus; photos from production of "The Persians" mounted in 2006 by the National Greek Theater; bottom photo from 2005 production by Washington, DC's Scena Theatre)

RAW EUREKA

If you want a great behind-the-scenes look at creating a TV show, click on over to Eureka Unscripted, where the writing staff is hammering out the fourth season of SyFy's hit show.

The new eps don't air until summer, but that's plenty of time for you to catch up on the first three seasons of a fun program best described as "Mayberry meets the X-Files."

WORKSHOPPING

I've been accepted to the Warner Bros. TV Writers' Workshop. This intensive program is designed to prepare new writers for a career in television. It's one of the best such programs going in Hollywood and I'm thrilled and thankful beyond words.

As someone who has been applying to this program for years, I'm glad I finally wrote a spec script that got someone's attention. The past specs I submitted weren't up to snuff and I knew that better than anyone.

The workshop isn't the only way into the business, but over the years its reputation and influence have grown considerably. I've met several workshop graduates who landed staff writing jobs right out of the gate and they can't speak highly enough of the program. They also advise me to get ready to write my ass off.

With this and many other life changes happening right now, I don't see Clarkblog picking up the steam it once had. But I'll still be chiming in with pointers to interesting things I find and, hopefully, the occasional flash of insight that will completely revolutionize your world. Right.

And when all is said and done, I'm hoping to provide something I haven't seen anywhere else: a peek inside the intensive months-long journey that is the WB Workshop.*

(* Then again, I haven't read the stack of legal disclosures I have to sign this week and such a recounting may not be allowed.)

SWEET MADNESS

Explore the cultural and political influences that help shape TV's best show: The Footnotes of Mad Men.

GLORIOUS BASTERDS

If someone were to show you almost any of the very separate, very accomplished sequences that make up Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, you'd probably be fairly blown away. You'd think: Wow, that looks like one hell of a movie.

But if you saw a second sequence, then a third, you might think: Wait, these are from the same movie?

I liked Basterds but walked out of the theater confused and unsure about what I'd just seen. Either I was thinking too much or not enough while watching. Judging from some of the more convincing responses I've read, I think it's more the latter. I will probably need to see it again, strangely enough, if only to determine if this film is indeed a candidate for my list of 2009's best science-fiction movies.

Some of the more interesting conversations about the movie (with major spoilers) are at Todd Alcott's blog and this one at The House Next Door.

Here's a good interview with Tarantino at the Village Voice.

THE BEST ROBOT MOVIE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN

This month marks the tenth anniversary of The Iron Giant, one of the best animated movies ever made.

Directed by Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille), it's the story of a towering robot that falls to Earth and the boy who befriends it. Not only is the titular giant one of my favorite robots, I submit that this emotionally-charged story -- deceptively simple but deeply layered -- is one of the best sci-fi movies of all time. It makes me laugh and cry like hell every time I watch it.

Critically acclaimed but ignored by movie-going audiences upon its release, The Iron Giant is well worth your time if you've never seen it. And you won't watch it just once, trust me.

Here's a good tribute up at Wired, and another from Drew Morton here.

PROMISE IN THE SKY

This week -- July 20th, 2009 to be exact -- marks the 40th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. There are many wonderful online resources to commemorate this historic event. Here's NASA's official site. And I'm fascinated with this one from the BBC presenting UK coverage of the mission.

Below is something I wrote in 2005. It's about Apollo 11, and being a boy in Alabama, and someone who changed my life. Out of almost 1,000 posts at clarkblog, this one means the most to me.

* * *

Today is the thirty-sixth anniversary of the first manned Moon landing, one of humanity’s greatest achievements.

Thirty-six years ago in Alabama, I was enrolled in a summer kindergarten class taught by Mrs. Peggy McDowell. She had remodeled the large basement of her house to serve as a classroom for a dozen or so children from my neighborhood.

We learned about numbers and letters there. We drew and painted and made things from clay. We played games in her yard. After afternoon milk and cookies, we pulled out cots and took naps.

When we graduated from Mrs. McDowell’s kindergarten, it was an actual graduation. With our parents watching, we donned caps and gowns and walked across the patio to proudly accept rolled diplomas from our teacher. She played Elgar’s traditional “Pomp and Circumstance” on a portable record player, and today I can’t hear that song without getting misty-eyed at the memory. I remember feeling for the first time in my life that I was marking an important milestone, even if I couldn’t have put it in those words at that age.

Thirty-six years ago today, my fellow kindergarteners and I followed Mrs. McDowell up the stairs to the house where she lived with her family. These stairs were usually forbidden, and even though we had permission to climb them, we were quiet as mice. Once upstairs, we sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor of her den. And on a large black-and-white TV set, we watched in wonder as a man in a spacesuit bounced across the surface of the moon.

That night after dinner I looked up at the moon from my backyard. I thought about the men bouncing around up there, and wondered what they had for dinner. It was a warm, humid night in Alabama. Were they cold up there? Crickets chirped all around me. What did it sound like on the moon? I wondered what we looked like to the astronauts. I wondered about the universe and my place in it as I never had before.

Not counting my parents, Mrs. McDowell was my first teacher. In many ways, she was the most important one I ever had.

In Alabama, a state that has never put education high on its list of priorities, she devoted 22 years of her life to nurturing hundreds, maybe thousands of children. With love and imagination, she made sure they got off to a good start.

Peggy Bailey McDowell died this week, and her family laid her to rest in the small town where I was born.

Today we commemorate the moon landing, as we should. But in my heart and every action I take, I'm honoring an amazing and generous teacher named Mrs. McDowell. She showed young children that they could dream of the moon on a summer day. And she gave us the tools and encouragement to live in the wonderful world that spins below it.

Thank you, Mrs. McDowell. I'll never stop looking up. Promise.

POINTERS

 

Lisa Klink points to the amazing Writers on the Verge program at NBC, which will soon be accepting applications.

Kira Snyder gives good tips on how writers should handle the ups and downs of staffing season.

And Kay Reindl looks at the magical machinery of Bad Robot. With Lost, Fringe and the new Star Trek film under his belt, J.J. Abrams' allegiance to genre speaks for itself.