Notes On Script Writing Books

One of the last writing classes that I took before my Capstone class in college was script writing. The professor that taught it was also the professor I took my novel course with the second* time around.

I will never forget that semester. That class was by far one of my favorites. We watched movies. The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and Cool Hand Luke were on the list. (To this day I cringe when thinking of Cool Hand Luke and all those eggs…) We read scripts and dissected them to see what made them great. On some level I am sure it helped that the professor had just sold the movie rights to one of his early novels. I know it didn’t hurt to know that we were learning from someone that had seen some success.

The book that the professor chose to have us read was Lew Hunter’s Screenwriting 434. If you are interested in writing a script this is literally the only book that you will need to read. Seriously. I can not say enough good things about this book. It’s easy to read and understand.

Scriptfrenzy being less than a day away, I pulled the book off my shelf and flipped through it to re-familiarize myself with the ins and outs of script writing and I realized that I still remembered everything as if I had just taken the class. That made me feel good and a bit more confident that I can meet the challenge of scriptfrenzy again this year.

*[Dirty little secret: I didn't get a passing grade the first time I took the novel class. On the letter grading scale I made a D. This was due to the fact that I didn't turn in a complete manuscript. I did however pass the second time with a B.]

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Friday Wrap Up

This week was a slow week:

• I finished reading and wrote a semi-review of I Am America (And So Can You!).
• Picked up three other books to read.
• Wrote a loose outline for my scriptfrenzy idea. Yes, I am going to attempt to write a script, even though I haven’t been doing much else recently.
• Had some visitors from Ravelry come and visit my various blogs and leave comments. (It was much appreciated!)
• Began an experiment over at a place I call room 7609.
• As I mentioned in a past entry I’ve been writing a lot about my yarn projects.

See, didn’t I say that it was a slow week?

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I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert

Synopsis: From Stephen Colbert, the host of television’s highest-rated punditry show The Colbert Report, comes the book to fill the other 23 hours of your day. I Am America (And So Can You!) contains all of the opinions that Stephen doesn’t have time to shoehorn into his nightly broadcast.
Dictated directly into a microcassette recorder over a three-day weekend, this book contains Stephen’s most deeply held knee-jerk beliefs on The American Family, Race, Religion, Sex, Sports, and many more topics, conveniently arranged in chapter form.
Always controversial and outspoken, Stephen addresses why Hollywood is destroying America by inches, why evolution is a fraud, and why the elderly should be harnessed to millstones.
You may not agree with everything Stephen says, but at the very least, you’ll understand that your differing opinion is wrong.
I Am America (And So Can You!) showcases Stephen Colbert at his most eloquent and impassioned. He is an unrelenting fighter for the soul of America , and in this book he fights the good fight for the traditional values that have served this country so well for so long.

Okay, so here’s a little background: My husband and I watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart just about every night before going to bed. On several occasions I’ve stayed up to watch the Colbert Report. I sit there most nights trying not to hurt myself from laughing.

This book was like watching an extended episode of The Colbert Report. And too me that is funny. I read a few reviews of this book before I began to read it and was rather surprised to see that many people think that the views represented within the pages of I Am America Stephen’s actual views. Come on folks. Think about this for a moment. The man makes a living making fun of Conservative Republicans. The “character” he portrays in his nightly show is fairly far removed from what he believes. Just listen or watch his interview with Larry King you’ll see.

One of my favorite portions of the book was the complete transcript of Stephen’s “Roast” of President Bush. But I’m not going to give any of it away…Go read it for your self.

Coming Soon

I am about to begin reading I Am Legend for the first time. I have not seen the movie. Expect an immediate review the moment I am done reading it. I am really looking forward to reading some thing that is almost (if not already) a classic. Soon after that I will be reading Love In The Time Of Cholera.

I am still laughing my way through Stephen Colbert’s I Am America (And So Can You!). I think it will be a bit difficult to review though.

I have a scene that has been rattling about my head the last few days and I think I may be writing something a little later on today, perhaps if my dizzy spell will finally cease.

I have been posting quite a bit over at the Pirate Hooker. (And I wonder why I haven’t been writing any fiction lately) I seem to be getting my “yarn-craft” on instead of my “write-craft”. [Just for those that went to look at the last time I mentioned the blog, I've finished TWO more projects]

What happened to my grand plans of writing a short story every month? Or the 1000 words per day?

Semi-Writing Related

Since I haven’t been doing much fiction writing I wanted to point out that I have been writing over at The Pirate Hooker recently. Take a look. There are even pictures!

Friday Wrap Up

Bullet Points brought to you by the Letter H as in Henry the Cat turned 1 today.

• Wrote a little
• Read a lot
• Worked on Everything Else but not writing
• Wrote entries for The Kitchen Goddess and The Pirate Hooker

Words To Think On

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

–Cyril Connolly (1903 – 1974)

Arthur C. Clark

Another Science Fiction author passes from this realm to the next. May he find what he was searching for.