Authoring & Playwriting

What a cool opportunity!! Thanks for sharing Sam!! Will Anna be taking pitches too?

Sounds great!

Congratulations, Terrence Sellers! Looking forward to the chapters and illustrations!

Sounds awesome Terrence Sellers Can't wait to take a look.

That's brilliant news - congratulations!

Congrats, Terrance.

Sounds great - natural dialogue is so important.

The webinar was incredible! I recommend watching it on-demand: www.stage32.com/webinars/How-To-Write-World-Class-Movie-Dialogue

Read The War of Art. It's a great way of looking at this. It's not specifically about writing. It's about creating art because you have something to say that is important and you would be doing it whether you're getting a paycheck or not. Any artist, composer etc. Even working out, learning a new language, any goal you have that you are struggling to motivate yourself to accomplish.

It's easy to motivate yourself to do something when there's a paycheck coming. Creating because you really want to? That's way harder. That's what The War of Art describes. The resistance to creating when it's something personal, something you're passionate about. Because there are a million excuses not to bother and a million more distractions.

Not everyone has that drive to push past all that and dedicate themselves to creating something personal that means something to them and for many, the desire to do this gets beaten out of them by the relentless, often failed pursuit of making their art into an occupation.

I recently spoke with a screenwriter who is being paid for a few TV shows she's writing. She no longer writes on her own because she's writing for a living. While many would think that's the definition of success, I think it's a trade off. A brilliant movie or book might be within you at any time. You can miss opportunities to share those ideas if you're not paying attention to what your own imagination is trying to bring forth.

Does creativity come from our own share of, and access to, the collective subconscious ?

Peter Gartner That's a question for executives and agents who hear pitches and receive scripts. No doubt they get waves of similar scripts at a time, all with similar plots and themes from various writers all over the place.

Where do we get our ideas from ? Something we've seen or heard or read about ? Or maybe something deeper ? Maybe we're closest to opening the door when we dream, if we can remember any of our dreams.

I've had numerous stories inspired by dreams. One was even inspired by a retweet by Ramsey Campbell. Sometimes I'll see something, or something happens, that gives me inspiration. And other times I'm prompted to create something from someone's suggestion.

The A+ is up. Not a work of genius but it looks good ;-)

Amazon’s set up is confusing for me. Word of mouth can help- Especially on social media.

Debbie Elicksen “and the royalties are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000% better than a traditional publisher.” Unless of course some algorithm deletes your book and the royalties are confiscated (stolen) because Jeff Bezos was feeling a little short of cash! Not that I’m twitter and bisted about it…

D.E. White - Do you find your A+ content doesn't link directly to your other works? Seems totally ridiculous that one can't just click on the "Also by..." products and go directly to those.

Ah David, Amazon isn't in business to promote your product, they are in it to promote Amazon's products. Notably their advertising services and AWS data centres and distribution systems. Attention on a writer is attention not on whatever the Amazon algos deem most likely to pry open your wallet.

I love a good easter egg in films, the surprise is so much fun!! This would be a good question for Dane Johnson, I'll share it with him.

Thanks Shellie Schmals! There are so many legal issues involved, this could be a bar exam question.

Certain aspects of genre stories like fairy tales, westerns, heist and gangster pictures, etc. are not protectable by copyright. These elements are called scènes à faire. They are the stock elements without which such a story could not be told, like a gunfight happening at high noon, gadgets hidden in common objects, and a fairy tale happening "far, far away."

Short phrases are usually not protectable by copyright because they generally lack the minimum creativity required. But sometimes they can be, either alone or all together. Copying a collection of common phrases or dialogue in the same sequence, for example, could support an infringement claim. Copying one of the distinctive lines from a nonsense poem like Jabberwocky could also infringe (fortunately, that poem is in the public domain in the U.S. because it was registered with the Copyright Office before 1927).

Copying dialogue that references a character name, such as “E.T. phone home” could also be a problem under both copyright and trademark law.

Props might also sometimes need to be cleared before use in a film. As long as the use shown in the film is the item’s normal use, and the prop is the actual item (not a derivative work), you are probably not going to face a copyright or trademark infringement claim if your character uses it in that way. Using props as just set dressing (not a focus of the scene, like a poster prominently displayed in the background) is also likely not infringement.

That isn’t to say that someone might still sue (and of course this comment is not legal advice). For example, a construction equipment manufacturer didn’t like the way its bulldozers were used by the villain in the film George of the Jungle. They apparently thought it tarnished their trademark since their logo was shown on the equipment as it tore up the jungle, and they sued to block the movie’s release. But the bulldozer was used in the film just as bulldozers are used in real life.

If you are sued for infringing someone’s intellectual property, there may be other defenses such as fair use in any of these kinds of cases. But since you really don’t want to have to deal with being sued even when you do win, It’s smart to clear every use (or be thoroughly prepared to explain why you’re on solid legal ground).

Thank-you Shellie Schmals and Dane Johnson for a lesson about why movies cost so much to make: lawyers. Truly a legal minefield. Your information was much appreciated.

Wow Dane Johnson - I never knew it could be that involved! Thanks for sharing that information!

@Mogan Aitken -- love it!

Wake up everyday at 5:30. Have an ad campaign set up in the morning hours and advertise 8-11. Comment with others and look for new opportunities to advertise. Do my writing during the day 12-4. Share ads and respond.

But what makes me an author is my love and passion for writing. the soul reason why I studied Development Psychology in College was to learn how people think. It may sound sadistic but I like it when people find my Horror stories creepy or unusual.

Writing is always about passion. It’s an art. If you only do it only for money then you might as well be a Patent Clerk.

A patent clerk, @William Schumpert? You mean like Einstein?

@William Schumpert bravo, l concur completely

William, your tenacity is admirable. If your socials marketing numbers hold up (prove themselves) I'd hire you in a flash for publicity. Grow your business, man. Keep us antisocial media types informed and in mind as a nearly bottomless market.

Love how the colours come together in this one, Angel Luis Martinez Jr. The copper tones of the girl's hair, the frame of the mirror, and that soft, slightly retro look - suggestive of something haunting. Lovely image.

Coming out at the end of this month! Have other work later this year.

Here you go...

Beautiful covers everyone!

Lovely covers and so on point for genre! It's great to see artwork that's really unique too.

Keep quiet and take the cash ;-)

Oh yeaah... who am I, not to take the money and run?!

Besides, once I've spent it all on a beer and a sandwich, just let em try to get it back!

Lol!

Maurice Vaughan Noooo! Not another one, Maurice!

Haha Geoff Hall Yup, another. How's your weekend going?

I can always pretend I don't speak English. It's an easy sell.

Isn't that what cell phones are for too? :)

It's evidence of "thought" patterns since 1454!! Begs the question!..... Did the thought patterns exist even before?