Not a Blog

The Strike Comes to New Mexico

May 29, 2023 at 8:01 am
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Last week the Writers Strike reached the Land of Enchantment, with picket lines in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe that shut down a couple of shoots.  The biggest turnout was Friday, when we picketed the Greer Garson Studios for most of the day.

HEY HEY HO HO
CORPORATE GREED HAS TO GO

Santa Fe does not have as many WGA members as California, of course, but while we don’t have the numbers, we yield nothing to California when it comes to determination.

Some friends from distant lands joined us as well, including Neil Gaiman and Nnedi Okorafor.

Rebecca Roanhorse as also on hand, along with bestselling author Douglas Preston (from the Authors Guild),  director/ producer Chris Eyre from DARK WINDS,  Melinda Snodgrass of WILD CARDS and STAR TREK fame, and all sorts of other good people.

Thanks to our friends in the Teamsters and IATSE, who have been staunch allies from the start, and to all the people who HONKED to show their support as they drove by.

HEY HEY HO HO
MINI-ROOMS HAVE GOT TO GO

The strike is in its fourth week, but the Guild is more determined than ever.

A number of productions have been shut down, but so far the AMPTP won’t even come back to the table.    There’s nothing to do but redouble our efforts.  The issues here are too important for anything less.

I hope you’re with us.   If so, HONK when you see our signs, in LA or SF or anywhere else.   And never never ever cross a picket line.

We’ll be back when you least expect us.

Current Mood: determined determined

VOYAGING Vol. 1: THE PLAGUE STAR Graphic Novel COVER

May 23, 2023 at 8:21 am
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We are pleased as punch to be announcing the new cover for the upcoming graphic novel adaptation VOYAGING:Vol 1: The Plague Star.

With some excellent recommendations from some old friends and a few new ones, check out the full description below as well as the official cover reveal and Raya Golden’s amazing final art without text.  Check out more of Raya’s work and be sure to pre-order your copy today!

Many of you are familiar with the Thousand Worlds and this particular set of short stories as well as their most amusing antagonist.  Raya has chosen to keep that a bit of a surprise for prospective new readers and in the spirit of the Red Wedding we hope you’ll keep the secret a bit as well.

(wink wink)

 

 

“Voyaging is an overly accomplished piece of science fiction that’s as visually stunning a graphic novel as anything I’ve seen in my 52 years on Earth. George RR Martin’s story is as imaginative as you’d expect from a master of fantasy (and longtime comic book fan), but it’s Raya Golden’s hypnotic art that makes this book shine brightly. With her clean, vibrant style, Golden is instantly in a class with elder statesmen like Frank Quietly. An absolute must-see/must-read!”

— Kevin Smith AKA Silent Bob, comics connoisseur

 

“Vivid, spectacular, and riveting until the very last page!”

— Sarah Andersen, New York Times bestselling author of Fangs and Sarah’s Scribbles

 

George RR Martin has created a whole army of memorable characters, but Haviland Tuf marches (or at least, saunters amiably) in the vanguard of that army. Voyaging is an absolute joy as Raya Golden brings a space opera to life. It’s funny, scary and delightful.

— Neil Gaiman 

 

Current Mood: satisfied satisfied

Cooters In Atlanta

May 19, 2023 at 7:17 pm
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This year’s Atlanta Film Festival was held April 20-25 in Atlanta (natch), Georgia.   I was on hand, along with some friends, minions, associates, and, of course, our cooters, to present a special screening of our short film, NIGHT OF THE COOTERS, based on Howard Waldrop’s classic short story.

The film was very well received, I am pleased to report.  (I do wish Howard had been on hand to enjoy the applause, but alas, he’s still in Texas and not able to travel for the present).  Vincent d’Onofrio, who directed the short and starred as Sheriff Lindley, took a short break from playing the Kingpin and flew down from New York to join us.

I don’t think I have been back to Atlanta since worldcon went there, many years ago.   It was great to be back.  The weather was perfect.  We got to enjoy a Braves game from one of the owner’s boxes, and they brought me out onto the field to the sound of the GAME OF THRONES theme to start the game by shouting “Play Ball.”  (I was tempted to shout “Let’s Go Mets” instead, but (a) the Mets were not playing, and (b) the Braves fans might have stoned me to death).   It was a great day for the Braves, fwiw:  they won 11-0, with five home runs, and the pitcher had a no-hitter going for seven innings or so.

We stayed at the historic Clermont Hotel.   The festival folk were wonderfully hospitable, and we got to visit some great old movie theatres… I have a soft spot for old movie palaces.   A ballroom at the historic Fox theatre was the site of the festival’s awards presentation.  Very cool.

Vincent and I were honored with a couple of awards from the festival:  his was the Phoenix, and mine the Originator.   We were in great company.   Jimmy Carter was also presented with an award, accepted for him by one of his grandsons and Francis Ford Coppola.

Baseball games and awards are wonderful, of course, but the real highlight of the visit was getting to have dinner with Francis Ford Coppola, one of the greatest directors of this, or any other, age.   A fascinating guy, and I loved our conversation.   He spoke with such passion about the film he is now making that I can’t wait to see it.

 

 

Current Mood: cheerful cheerful

Writers On Set

May 8, 2023 at 11:18 am
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I want to say a few words about what I think is THE most important issue in the current writers’ strike: the so-called “mini rooms” that the Guild is hoping to abolish, and the terrible impact they are having on writers at the start of their careers.

A look at my own career may be instructive.   For the first fourteen years of my career, I wrote only prose; a few novels, and lots of stories for ANALOG, ASIMOV’S, and various other SF magazines and anthologies.   Much as I enjoyed television, I never dreamt of writing for it until 1985, when CBS decided to launch a new version of THE TWLIGHT ZONE, and executive producer Phil DeGuere invited me to write an episode for them.   A freelance script; that was how you began back then.   I decided to give it a shot… and Phil and his team liked what I did.   So much so that within days of delivery, I got an offer to come on staff.   Before I quite knew what had happened, I was on my way to LA with a six-week deal as a Staff Writer, at the Guild minimum salary, scripts against.   (In the 80s, Staff Writer was the lowest rung on the ladder.   You could tell, because it was the only job with “writer” in the title).

What I knew about television production when I got off that plane at Burbank was… well, so minimal I can’t think of a pithy analogy.  But I learned.  I learned in the writers’ room from Phil himself and the amazing staff he had assembled for TZ:  Jim Crocker, Rockne S. O’Bannon, the incredible Alan Brennert, Michael Cassutt, and a bevy of fantastic freelancers.   And not just about dialogue and structure and the language of scriptwriting.  I learned about production as well.   The moment I arrived, Phil threw me into the deep end.   I wrote five scripts during my season and a half on TZ, and I was deeply involved in every aspect of every one of them.   I did not just write my script, turn it in, and go away.   I sat in on the casting sessions.   I worked with the directors.   I was present at the table reads.   “The Last Defender of Camelot” was the first of my scripts to go into production, and I was on set every day.   I watched the stuntmen rehearse the climactic sword fight (in the lobby of the ST ELSEWHERE set, as it turned out), and I was present when they shot that scene and someone zigged when he should have zagged and a stuntman’s nose was cut off… a visceral lesson as to the kind of thing that can go wrong.   With Phil and Jim and Harvey Frand (our line producer, another great guy who taught me a lot), I watched dailies every day.    After the episode was in the can, I sat in on some post-production, and watched the editors work their magic.   I learned from them too.

There is no film school in the world that could have taught me as much about television production as I learned on TWILIGHT ZONE during that season and a half.  When TZ was renewed for a second season, I was promoted from Staff Writer to Story Editor.  (More money, and now scripts were plus and not against).   Started sitting in on freelance pitches… and now I was allowed to talk and give notes.   Sadly, the show was cancelled halfway through the second season, but by that time I had learned so much that I was able to go on to further work in television.   I did a couple stories for MAX HEADROOM, but my next staff job was BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.   They brought me on as Executive Story Editor, one bump up from my TZ rank.   Over the next three years, I climbed the ladder, rung by rung:  Co-Producer, Producer, Co-Supervising Producer, Supervising Producer, Co-Executive Producer.   When B&B finished its run, I started writing features and pitching pilots, landed an overall deal at Columbia, created and scripted STARPORT and THE SURVIVORS and FADEOUT… and DOORWAYS, which we filmed for ABC.   I was Showrunner (along with Jim Crocker) and Executive Producer on that one.

That was my first  ten years in television;  1985-1995, more or less, long before HBO and GAME OF THRONES.

NONE OF IT would have been possible, if not for the things I learned on TWILIGHT ZONE as a Staff Writer and Story Editor.   I was the most junior of junior writers, maybe a hot(ish) young writer in the world of SF, but in TV I was so green that I would have been invisible against a green screen.   And that, in my opinion, is the most important of the things that the Guild is fighting for.  The right to have that kind of career path.   To enable new writers, young writers, and yes, prose writers, to climb the same ladder.

Right now, they can’t.   Streamers and shortened seasons have blown the ladder to splinters.   The way it works now, a show gets put in development, the showrunner assembles a “mini-room,” made up of a couple of senior writers and a couple newcomers, they meet for a month or two, beat out the season, break down the episodes, go off and write scripts, reassemble, get notes, give notes, rewrite, rinse and repeat… and finally turn into the scripts.   And show is greenlit (or not, some shows never get past the room) and sent into production.  The showrunner and his second, maybe his second and his third, take it from there.   The writer producers.   The ones who already know all the things that I learned on TWILIGHT ZONE.

The junior writers?  They’re not there.   Once they delivered their scripts and did a revision of two, they were paid, sent home, their salary ended.   They are off looking for another gig.   If the series gets another season, maybe they will be brought back.   Maybe they won’t.  Maybe they can’t, since they are off in another mini-room for another show.  If they do get brought back, they may get a promotion… but that’s not guaranteed.   I know writers who have been Staff Writer on half a dozen different series, and others who have been “Writer’s Room Assistant”  (which is the new entry level gig, since no one buys freelance scripts any more) three or four times, never getting off the bottom rung of the ladder so matter how talented they are.   And when a junior writer does finally get a better title, even one that will put a P-word on their IMDB credits,  they still won’t have any producing experience.   In many cases they won’t be asked to set even when the episodes they wrote are being filmed.   (They may be ALLOWED on set, if the showrunner and execs are cool with that, but only as a visitor, with no authority, no role.   And no pay, of course.   They may even be told they are not allowed to speak to the actors).

One of the things the AMPTP put forward in their last offer to the WGA is that some writers might be brought onto sets as unpaid interns, to “shadow” and “observe.”   Even that will not be an absolute right.   Maybe they will be let in, maybe not.   These are the people who wrote the stories being filmed, who created the characters, who wrote the words the actors are saying.   I was WAY more than that in 1985, and so was every other staff writer in television at the time.

The juniors may have worked for as long as half a year on the show.   All of it in a room, with other writers.   But they won’t be part of the casting.  They won’t be meeting with the director.   They won’t be at the table read.   No one will bring them into the editing suite so the editor can explain what he is doing.   The line producer will not sit down and go over the budget with them  (as Harvey Frand did with me), or patiently explain why they can’t have nine matte paintings or that huge montage.   They won’t be sharing lunch with the stars.   If a stuntman’s nose is cut off, they will need to read about it VARIETY, since they will be off in another room on another show.

Mini-rooms are abominations, and the refusal of the AMPTP to pay writers to stay with their shows through production — as part of the JOB, for which they need to be paid, not as a tourist —  is not only wrong, it is incredibly short sighted.   If the Story Editors of 2023 are not allowed to get any production experience, where do the studios think the Showrunners of 2033 are going to come from?

If nothing else, the WGA needs to win that on that issue.   No matter how long it may take.

Current Mood: determined determined

STRIKE!

May 7, 2023 at 9:45 am
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The writers’ strike is on.

No one wanted this — no writer with an ounce of sense, anyway — but the producers and the studios and the networks and the streamers gave us no choice.   The Guild negotiated right up to the final deadline on May 1, but it takes two to tango.    In the waning hours of May 1, the Writers Guild of America declared a strike.   The action began on May 2.   There are pickets in front of every studio lot and sound stage in LA, and many in other cities as well.   Get used to them.  I expect they will be there for a long time.

I am not in LA, so I cannot walk a picket line as I did in 1988, but I want to go on the record with my full and complete and unequivocal support of my Guild.

How long will the strike last?   No idea.   Maybe the AMPTP members will come to their senses tomorrow and offer some meaningful concessions, and the whole thing can be wrapped up next week.   I would not bet the ranch on that, however.   I have been through several of these since I first started writing for television and film in 1986.   The 1988 strike, the first I was a part of, lasted 22 weeks, the longest in Hollywood history.  The 2007-2008 strike, the most recent, went for 100 days.   This one may go longer.   The issues are more important, imnsho, and I have never seen the Guild so united as it is now.

Writers’ strikes tend to be longer than other labor actions.   That’s the nature of the beast.   My father was a longshoreman.  When the ILA went out on strike, work on the docks shut down at once.   The ships did not get unloaded.   The trucks did not move.   The cranes froze in place, the fork lifts stayed where they were when their drivers walked off, the bananas rotted in the holds.   It does not work that way with writing.   Everyone has seen this storm coming a long way off… and accordingly, studios and streamers and networks  have been stockpiling scripts for months.   As of May 2, the pens are down and the computer screens have gone dark all across Hollywood, but production will continue so long as there are scripts to shoot.   The proviso being, of course, that those scripts must be shot EXACTLY as they were as of midnight on May 1.   Not a word can be changed, cut, added, not a scene can be altered.   All that requires writing… and from now until the strike ends, the writers will be on picket lines, not on sets.

(Many of you will be wondering, rightfully, about the impact of the strike on my own shows.   The second season of DARK WINDS wrapped several months ago.   Post production has been completed on five of the six episodes, and will soon be done on the last.   The show will likely air sometime this summer on AMC.   No decision on the third season will be made until after the strike.   Peacock has passed on WILD CARDS, alas.   A pity.   We will try to place it elsewhere, but not until the strike is over.   The writer’s room on A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS: THE HEDGE KNIGHT has closed for the duration.   Ira Parker and his incredible staff of young talents are on the picket lines.   Across the ocean, the second season of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON started filming April 11 and will continue in London and Wales.   The scripts for the eight s2 episodes were all finished months ago, long before the strike began,  Every episode has gone through four or five drafts and numerous rounds of revisions, to address HBO notes, my notes, budget concerns, etc.   There will be no further revisions.   The writers have done their jobs; the rest is in the hands of the directors, cast and crew… and of course the dragons).

((Some of you, I fear, may be having anxiety attacks just now, on the mistaken assumption that this strike affects WINDS OF WINTER.   You can relax.   The WGA is a union of film and television writers.  It has nothing to do with novels, short stories, or any other form of prose fiction, nor comic books and graphic novels, nor stage plays, nor the editing of collections and anthologies   I have on-going projects in all those areas, and that work continues unabated.  And WINDS continues to be priority number one)).

I am not going to try to explain the issues at stake here on my Not A Blog.   Others have done that far better than I could.   Whistle up Google and you will find dozens of stories on the internet detailing what the Guild is asking for on behalf of the writers it represents.   The details are there, for those of you who are interested in going more deeply into the disputes.   Needless to say, money is a big part of it.   The move from broadcast and cable to streaming has severely impacted residuals for writers (and directors and actors as well).   Television seasons have been shrinking; from 22 episodes on network, to 13 on cable, to 10, and now to 8 and 6.   Since writers are often paid by the episode, that’s hurt too.   Writer incomes are down across the board.   The details are in the news stories.

And there are other issues, one of which I think is especially important.   So important that I think it deserves its own post.  Look for that tomorrow.  For today, let me close by saying I am very heartened by the support we’ve received from the Teamsters and the other unions, and from many individual members of SAG and the DGA as well.   I hope we will have the support of all of you reading them as well:  the viewers, the fans, the people we are making these shows for.

It could be a long fight, but with you on our side, we cannot lose.

 

Current Mood: determined determined