The Breakdown - Week of 6/8/20
Hey, hey, hey.
Wow, what a week, huh? But before we get into all of that, I wanted to just bring a few things to your attention.
I realized, the other day, that if you get “The Breakdown” by email, you may not know that you can always read posts from the archive, at any time.
You can also always reply to your email newsletter if you have a question, want to respond to a question, or would like to chat with me. Sometimes it takes me a few days (up to a week) to respond, but unless I’ve missed your message, I ALWAYS respond.
Okay, we’ve got a lot to cover in this issue of “The Breakdown,” but first, five scene-specific creative writing prompts, drawn from my book “What Would Your Character Do? - Writing Prompts to Help You Destroy Writer’s Block, Write Faster, and Write More” (up on Amazon and free in Kindle Unlimited!)
Photo by Seven Shooter on Unsplash
Prompts
As mentioned before, these prompts are designed to give you some momentum if you ever find yourself stuck in a scene. If these five prompts don’t work for you, hang tight! You’ll get another five in a week, or you could just buy, or check out, the book to pick from over 500 more.
Okay, so let’s get started.
If you're stuck in a scene, try to have your character:
1. Pressure someone for answers
2. Reassure someone and quell their fears
3. Write someone a note
4. Bring someone something expensive
5. Explain something esoteric
Give those prompts some time to marinate, and if they’re not doing it for you, you’ll get five more next week!
Author’s Note - Please keep in mind, that I’m including many of these links, not to be political, but because there’s a sea change happening in the U.S., and to some degree, across the globe. This tsunami may eventually recess back into the ocean without carving a new course for the sands, without moving mountains, without changing the landscape in any fundamental way. With all my heart, I hope that’s not the case. Nonetheless, there’s no denying that there are many, many difficult conversations happening right now, and while these conversations may not affect you personally (although, I seriously doubt that), they will most definitely affect you professionally. So, no matter your personal politics, it’s important to understand the issues being raised and discussed within the industry. On some level, they affect us all.
News
(Click title links for the articles)
Authors Push for Transparency with #PublishingPaidMe
Well, tell me something I don’t know (insert deep sigh here.) Yes, I’ve experienced this personally in the corporate world, being paid less than my white, male, less educated (I have a Masters from Stanford, I believe he had a Bachelors from UCLA), and less experienced colleague. But what I find so interesting is that folks are finally ready to move beyond anecdotes (which are routinely discounted) and attempt to bring transparency, and as we’ll see in the spreadsheet referenced below, some data and accountability to these systemic inequities.
Fighting for Writers’ Equity - The Spreadsheet to End All Spreadsheets
This is the spreadsheet referenced in the Publisher’s Weekly article above. Writers are collecting this data around advances to, hopefully, provide a full study of writer pay. What will come out of this and will create a new benchmark? Uncertain, but 1) definitely work watching and 2) educational in its own right. Check out the spreadsheet here.
Again, no matter your politics, it’s important for all authors to understand the dynamics of comps, and then I ask you to take that extra step and think about the issue of the comp system itself and how it pigeon-holes writers, not just writers of color, but especially writers of color.
Nic Stone & Jodi Picoult Talk About Race
If you want to view one of the most insightful, nuanced, and impactful discussions about race I’ve seen in quite a while, I encourage you to check out this video.
There was also a lot of controversy and fallout involving literary agencies this week as well. Too many to dive into, but it’s worth checking out what has become of Red Sofa Literary Agency, Corvisiero Literary Agency, and Glasstown Entertainment.
A TV Reckoning…Of Sorts
All the action seemed to be happening in publishing this week. I think with productions shut down, there’s less to report on, especially when it comes to the publishing & entertainment connection.
To say there weren’t impacts to TV & Film from all the upheaval wouldn’t be accurate, but most of them were too deep to tackle here today. I will say that, thank goodness, at least Cops and Live P.D. have been cancelled, The Bachelor gets its first black lead, and Marta Kauffman, the Co-Creator of Friends admits it’s the whitest show ever, and then promptly apologizes for playing a hand in that.
Final Thoughts
So, I’m going to keep this short because it’s late, and we’ve touched on so many issues that we just have to see how they all play out. I want to be optimistic, but after decades of disappointment, it’s difficult.
I’m not sure where we go from here if things don’t change after all this…really I don’t. But, we’ll keep fighting and we’ll keep working to make change happen. We have to.
Until next time.
~ Paula G.
An important piece. I, too, share your pessimism about long-term lasting change. I live in Spain, now, and went to a English barber last week. He is in his mid-40´s, not much older than me. First question he asked was, what I thought of the protests back in England. I could tell he was mildly disappointed with my answer. He brought up the `vandalism´ of the statues, namely the slave-trader in Bristol. "But he did a lot of good for the city," was his response. I said the Nazi´s did a lot of good for Volkswagen, but you don´t see busts of Himmler outside their factories. He gave me that one. He also seemed genuinely surprised when I quoted him figures about the amount of incarcerated African-Americans. He didn´t know, or didn´t want to know. My point is, he(and I) is from a generation where you couldn´t say `shit´on prime-time TV, but you could toss about racial slurs with abandon. His attitude has been ingrained in him, and I doubt anything will change this. However, the one hope I have is the amount of young people from all backgrounds marching for change. They are the future, and while it is impossible to alter the past, the future is yet to be written. Perhaps, with our upcoming generation we may see a sea change in attitude, which may result in positive progression. I hope...