How I Write (plus a Plea)

[oakenguy]

18 months ago: Get an idea. Scribble it down. Like it.

17 months ago: Write four good pages over lunch, one on the back of a napkin. Realize I know very little about the script format for this (comic book, for the record). Decide Doing Research Is Important, start getting books from library.

16 months - 3 months ago: Get distracted, occasionally Do More Research.

3 months ago: Read a publisher's profile, get excited. Revise original idea to fit their format. Begin hunting for those good pages I wrote a year ago.

3 months - 1 month ago: Storyboard the comic in very rough, stick figure fashion. Tear the apartment apart three times trying to find those good pages.

1 month ago - 1 day ago: Finally give up the search, start writing. Do pretty well.

1 day ago: Realize there's a lot about the profession of my main characters (tabloid journalists) I don't know about. Start feeling impulse to Do Research; remember what happened 17 months ago.

So, my erudite readers, at least three of whom I know have experience with journalism...anyone know anything about the shady side of the business?

Comments

in the ballpark, maybe?

[modpixie.livejournal.com]

there was a big article on the paparazzi that ran a few months ago in vanity fair. it contrasted the work of the guy who founded and runs the photography syndicate wire image with a shady character in hollywood who (if memory serves) sold topless pictures of jackie-o to hustler. it was in the past year, so if this helps, it should be readily available at the library.