The Daily Grind

The writers Blog and misc. info

12/02/2023

I called my blog the daily grind for a reason. As a writer, that what it is. Now don’t take the word ‘grind’ to be a negative. In fact, it’s my driving force. What keeps me going. See, as a writer, this is how it works. Everyone in the industry is hungry for what I’ll just call ‘content’ to keep things simple. But here’s the thing. Producers and companies, i.e., the people with the money, are hungry for very specific things. We’ll call that the market. Now, those in the market are hungry for hamburger. Problem is, all I have is pizza.. So as a writer, I spend most of my time trying to sell my pizza to people who want hamburger.

There in lies the rub. Because now that I know they want hamburger, I tailor make a gourmet burger for them. But now the market has changed and now they want Chinese food. So it’s back to my script writing program to try and come with some really good Chinese food. This process is NEVER ending. Keeping yourself from getting discouraged is no easy feat. This is my only advise…

Find your voice. Tell your story. Keep writing.

12/28/2023

As a writer, anything you write becomes your intellectual property. People in the industry will call this an I.P. so get used to that. Anyway, you’ll hear terms asked of you like, “is this an existing I.P.?” What they are asking you is, is this your original idea or an idea you borrowed from somewhere else. Perfect example, you want to write a super hero movie about Batman. Well Batman is an existing I.P. Now say you want to write your own super hero movie with a character YOU create. Now THAT, is your I.P.

I bring this up because it is CRUCIAL that you always protect your work. People are always out to scam new writers who they think don’t know any better. Don’t take that personal, because you really don’t. But that’s okay. Some people like myself are really out there to help you. Your next question should be, well then, how the heck do I tell the difference. That one is actually really hard but I will tell you this, money is always my rule of thumb if you will.

Meaning, as a writer, money should never flow from your pocket to anyone else’s pocket unless you can verify the service they are claiming to provide. And most important, pay to copywrite your stuff. Seriously. The WGA West will copywrite your stuff and the best part is you don’t have to be a member. It’s about 25 bucks and the copywrite lasts a whopping 5 years!

Now that’s some serious bang for your buck.