55 lines
2.6 KiB
55 lines
2.6 KiB
From: Jms at B5
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<TITLE>The Last, Worst Hope for (95-12-15 02:21:31)</TITLE>
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[America Online postings by JMS]
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<A HREF="/cgi-bin/lurkfind">Search</A>
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- <A HREF="51.html">Previous</A> - <A HREF="53.html">Next</A>
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<H2>The Last, Worst Hope for </H2>
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95-12-15 02:21:31
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<PRE> Thanks. No, you can't please everyone, I learned that lesson a long
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time ago. What you have to look at are the percentages. No matter *how*
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wonderful the work, there will always be a certain portion who won't like it
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because it isn't to their tastes. That simple. (I like bluegrass,
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classical, Japanese music, celtic music, hard rock, and others...can't abide
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straight-ahead country music or opera. That's just how I'm hardwired.) So
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basically, a work of superior quality will get about 40% who love it, 50% who
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think it's good, and 10% who hate it. A middle of the road work gets
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30/30/30. A flop gets the first breakdown but in reverse. There's never
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been a novel, story, song or painting that everyone on the planet thought was
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nifty, without dissent. So as long as the percentages favor the notion that
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we're doing right, I'm okay with it.
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As far as the assessment of this latter stuff being my best work...god,
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I hope so. I've been writing and selling since I was 17; in TV for a tick
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over 10 years, and the absolute honest truth is that I think I'm just now
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*starting* to get halfway decent as a writer. So many years you spend just
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pumping out the bad stuff, the cliche characters, the implausible plots,
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until you finally get to the good stuff. I write 7 days a week, 10 hours a
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day, 52 weeks a year, except for my birthday, my spousal overunit's birthday,
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christmas and new year's. I'm in constant battle with the English language,
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slamming together different combinations of verbs and nouns and adjectives,
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hoping to provoke an explosion whose flare can illustrate a notion, or incite
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a moment of reflection. And half the time I feel like it's a losing battle;
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the language beats you every time. But if script #152 is just 1% better than
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script #151, well, that's progress.
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And then I make the mistake of sitting down and watching something by
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Serling or Chayefsky or Rose or Corwin, and conclude instantly that I should
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get out of the profession before somebody discovers I'm a fake. THOSE guys
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could WRITE. Hell, they didn't just write, they thunder'd and lightning'd
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over the typwritten page, and the echoes have followed us down for decades.
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So maybe someday, if I work hard, and write to the best of my ability, and am
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sufficiently honest in what I write, I'll be good enough to carry their
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pencil cases....
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jms
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</PRE>
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