Watching TV can be research. Really!

Good afternoon!

I know I don't have to tell you fellow writers out there that sometimes the sheer act of sitting down and writing is hard to to.  Sometimes just sitting down is hard to do.  Real life doesn't always accomadate the writer's whims, does it?

So often I find myself telling people, "I just don't have time to write."

That's not completely true.

There are times in the day when I can, and I do write.  The hour before work starts when I'm sitting in my office because hubby and I car pool and I get there early.  I often crank out a couple hundred words in that hour.  My lunch hour is another time of the day when I either write more into my notebook or I'm reading, which is also a vital skill writers must have.

While nothing replaces the actual act of sitting down and putting words to paper...or flash drive...I have found something that, while it seems pointless and time wasting, is actually a solid basis of research for writers.

Watching TV can be a very helpful tool in avoiding cliched writing, and an even better tool in spotting good writing.

Case in point:  Recently I've started rewatching the early 90's sitcom "Wings."  for those of you not familiar, this was a show about two brothers who ran a tiny airplane business out of a tiny airport in Nantucket.  Surrounded by a goofy cast of characters, brothers Brian and Joe Hackett managed to just avoid bankruptcy and killing each other each week.  Back in the day, I really liked the show.  So, when I found it available on streaming through Netflix, I started watching.

The thing about watching reruns in the streaming mode is that there's really no break and one runs the risk of losing whole days to a "marathon."  Not that I've done that....no of course not!

The first couple episodes, my daughter sat with me and watched.  I asked her what she thought of the show.  She said, "I'm wondering why it sucks so much."  A few more episodes in, she was hooked.

That might seem like a waste of time, watching this TV show that was on the air 20 years ago.  But it's not.  Getting lost in a marathon of episodes, I can watch episode to episode how the characters grew, what made them better, what made the show better.  I can pinpoint the good writing, and note the cheesy cliches, and if those cliches worked or not.  And, as I draw closer to the final episodes, I can see what, if any, mistakes were made that crushed the series and sent it to its demise.  (Some TV series, it's obvious.  "Moonlighting" was horrible the minute Maddie and Dave slept together.  The infamous "jump the shark" concept of TV shows going into that murky water of cheesy writing was spawned by the "Happy Days" episode where Fonzie and the whole gang went on vacation and Fonzie had to "jump the shark" on his motorcycle.)

Now, I'm not saying we should all go and spend endless hours on the couch watching a rerun marathon of our favorite shows.  It might sound like I'm saying that, but I'm not.  What I'm saying is that if you find yourself spending quality time away from the computer, and sitting in front of the TV, use that time to study your craft.  TV, especially sitcom TV, is writing.  Not the sets, which generally don't change in a sitcom.  Probably not the acting, though some people are funnier and better at sitcom acting than others.  Many sitcom actors, however, do well in one part written for them, and then cannot move to another part.  As much as I love Matthew Perry...and I do love him....his Chandler Bing years will never be matched. How many shows has he been given that have flopped since "Friends" ended?  No, TV is generally about the writing. 

So it's okay if you take some time to watch TV.  But it's like with anything, don't say you're working on your writing career if all you're doing is snoozing in front of the tube.  Stay awake and take notes.  Not the hardest homework you've ever been given.

Now, go forth and WRITE!

The death of Original Fiction?

Good morning!



I'm taking a sick day today. Most of you out there know that a grown woman with children doesn't actually get sick days the way most people think of them. Still, I don't have to answer to anyone for about three hours today...so that constitutes a sick day.
More on that at my humor blog: http://itcanonlyhappentosarah.blogspot.com

I was watching TV last night. It's premier week for most of the networks, so there's a lot of great new TV to watch. Something struck me last night: I am not wrapped up in TV shows like I used to be.

When I was a kid, I watched three shows religiously. Don't laugh.



Emergency, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons



Now, mostly I watched those because that's what my parents allowed me to watch. In the days of three channel TV programming, there wasn't much out there to watch. These days, you can spent hours and hours on the couch watching...well, reruns of those shows, I guess. The magic about those shows was that, while they are sequential (You can tell where you are in the "Emergency" series by the length of Randy Mantooth's hair.) they can really be watched in any order. Maybe Little House not so much, because toward the end of the series there were more two part story lines. But those shows, you can sit down right now, watch an episode and not be lost at all


When I got older, I watched the following shows

Dallas, Falcon Crest

The attraction for me for these shows was the endless cliff hangers. Story lines didn't end after the last commercial break. you HAD to tune in the next week. Remember the summer of "Who Shot JR?" I do.



When I got into college, my heart turned to thoughts of romance...and sex. So of course, I never, ever missed "MOONLIGHTING. Different from the shows of my childhood, "Moonlighting" was episodic...you could miss a week. But the "Will they/won't they" storyline, the undercurrent of the episodes, was something I could not miss. Of course, they ruined the show completely when Bruce Willis crashed through Cybil Shepherd's glass coffee table in a passionate embrace for the ages. And they brought in Mark Harmon to try and save the show, which didn't happen. But I digress.



I think most scripted shows today follow the basic template of Moonlighting. Attractive guy/attractive girl. One of them is all business. One of them is a scamp. They work together in some high stress high drama job. Sound familiar? Like half the scripted shows on TV?



Quite possibly the most perfect example of this formula was "JAG." That show was interesting the first season on NBC. My husband loved it. Then it got canceled and CBS picked it up. And set the beautiful Catherine Bell next to David James Elliott. And magic happened. For nine more seasons, their three most popular seasons AFTER they declared their love for each other (but didn't do the dead, take note TV writers...) people tuned in for the drama, for the action, and to see if this was the week these two wonderful characters would finally...ya know. For the record there was never an onscreen love scene between these two. The writers kept these characters beautiful and heroic to the very end, and we love, love, loved it.


The other kind of scripted show out there is the ensemble show. Big dramas that don't really focus on one character. These are the shows that are dying by the scores, and are therefore the focus of this fairly unfocused blog.

I used to watch "Desperate Housewives" and "Grey's Anatomy" religiously. Every Sunday I hunkered down for a long night of ABC viewing. Then they moved "Grey's" to Thursday night opposite "CSI" another favorite. I have not watched one second of "GReys'" since. And I can't get into it now because this is one of those dramas that if you miss a couple episodes, you may as well give up. And, the minute "Housewives" drove off the rails with more bodies turning up on Wisteria Lane (I've lived in the 'burbs most of my life...I have yet to find a body anywhere in my neighborhood.) I gave up on that show, too. What do I watch on Sundays now?


Mad Men


Mad Men is the anomaly in my TV viewing week. It is the one scripted drama I make sure I'm watching every single week. I've left parties early to see Mad Men. I've lied about illness to get out of family gatherings to see Mad Men. Why is this the one TV drama I watch, when all others have faded away?

Because it's WELL WRITTEN. It doesn't pander to special interests, to revisionist historians, to today's adjusted social mores. I never feel like I've been preached to after I've watched Mad Men.


Don't get me wrong. I completely support scripted TV. HBO and Showtime have some of the best stuff out there. The big networks, however, have forgotten how to cultivate an audience. Moving CSI: New York to Friday nights isn't going to make anyone happy. And I'd be more excited about new shows if any of them was really new. But if one more rogue lawyer show pops up, I'm going to howl.

And that's the point, isn't it? The death of originality. TV producers don't want to give an original concept for a show more than 8 weeks ("Scoundrels") to make a splash. Only 10 million people watched it? Cancel it! Put on some lawyer show! Better yet, can we get some skanky semi ethnic twenty somethings to be skanky? Because that seems to be working really well for cable. Oh wait...how about a foul mouthed old person? that's it! A lawyer show with skanky twenty somethings and a foul mouthed old person. GOLD!
As writers, it's also the death of original fiction. If it doesn't fit a pigeon hole, it doesn't get published. Book publishers, like TV producers, aren't going to take a risk. They can sell a name. Like TV can sell a Law and Order or a CSI, book publishers can sell a Steele, a Roberts, a Grisham or a Sparks. They don't have to work at it. it just sells. Basic rules of grammar? Original plot? Interesting voice? Forget it. Name on the book. If you don't have that name on the book, it isn't going to get a look.


Is this the death of original fiction? Is it true that the reader today only wants a cookie cutter book that is the same as the last book they read?

Or is today's reader just biding their time until the book equivalent of "Mad Men" shows up?

Summer TIME

Good morning!


I'm so sorry, my friends! It's been far too long since I checked in. I'd like to say I've been writing, or editing, or at least thinking about my story, but we all know what I've really been doing!


Hopefully those of you in the US that read this had a great Memorial Day weekend. Let summer officially begin! I have one child out of school and one child with a week to go. Now that they're older, I don't have to pay as much attention to them in the summer as I used to. I miss that a little bit. I miss going to the beach, the zoo, the museums, the library. Every day was a field trip. Now, I'll be lucky if I see them for ten minutes a day. I guess it's part of life, but this time of the year I get a little sentimental about days gone by.


Where does time go? My mother used to sigh this at the end of long summer days when she hadn't gotten everything done. Where does the time go? I sometimes envy her her life, though I'll never admit it. Sure, she was dirt poor, but everyone was. Everyone wore bad clothes, had no money, drove crummy cars, and had huge gardens that they worked endlessly in heat and humidity.

Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of the days we'd freeze veggies. My brother was in charge of stripping the corn or topping the beans. I would flash boil the veggies. Mom sliced the corn off the cobs or cut the beans and then dump them into pre cut half gallon milk cartons. She'd tape them with yellow masking tape and write the veggie and year on the tape in black wax pencil.

I hated those days because we didn't have air conditioning in any room other than the living room, and the floor would get sticky from the veggie water dripping when I moved my hot basket of veggies from the boiling pot to the sink filled with ice. Boil and blanch, boil and blanch. Freezing days would go on for a couple of days every year.

But where did all that time go since those days? I feel like I blinked and suddenly thirty years were gone. I can't tell anyone to slow down. We just don't live in that style of life. My kids will never freeze veggies because I don't have time or energy for a garden. Besides, with frozen veggies at $1.30 a pound or less, it's just simpler to teach them how to shop.

Somewhere between boiling and blanching corn and being a mom of teens, I three decades of life. I kept a journal until I got married. Wish I still did it. Those young years with my kids were very entertaining.

Of course, if I clocked how much time I spend watching useless television, I'd be shocked and appalled. So I won't do that.

I have a weight loss goal for the next year. I'm going to lose 70 pounds by the time Rick Springfield comes back to Milwaukee (Generally the first week in May.) So now I'm very aware of time because I have a goal that will move against time.

Ah, if only there were a time store where we could go and buy a few hours or a year or two.
Maybe that's something Apple can work on!