Pushing Daisies and stuff

I'm having fun with Pushing Daisies. I think the hardest part so far is trying to fit in the narrator. I'm a big fan of subtle, but Pushing Daisies is kind of the opposite of subtle, given that you have a narrator telling you what everybody's feeling every thirty seconds. At first I was having trouble figuring out where to put him, but I started the second act this morning and I'm starting to get into the flow so my narrator's voice is improving.

I've been watching episodes on ABC.com and learning a few things. For one thing, the show is in six acts. Not a teaser and five acts, but six official acts. It says so in the pilot. I haven't yet seen official scripts for other episodes but I'm on the lookout, if anybody has one.

Anyway, every episode begins with Young Ned learning some lesson that applies to the episode at large. Then we learn about today's victim, then we solve it. And at the core of everything is Ned and Chuck and their inability to touch, so every episode must be in some way about people who distance themselves from each other.

That's kind of right up my alley so this is turning fun. Plus I'm writing about something I've researched a great deal in the past, which makes the plot flow easily. I forgot how much fun writing a spec TV episode was.

In unrelated news, today's topic sucks because I couldn't think of anything more exciting to write about. Anybody got any suggestions? I'm not a pro writer or anything, but I am good at Taboo. And drinking people under the table. And straight kicks. And cooking chicken parmesian, which Firefox says is spelled wrong but won't give me an alternative spelling and I am too lazy to go to my dictionary and look up.

You're reading this for some reason, so what do you want me to talk about? Also, say hi or something because most of you never say anything and I'd like to know who you are.

Back to TV again

I'm bouncing back to TV again.

I used to think I wanted to write movies, then TV, then movies again, then TV again. I like both, but this cruel world makes you choose.

I only have the one really reliable film script so I was determined to write a second before I went back to TV again. I've written a couple of posts on the subject. But the feature is bothering me.

Something just doesn't feel right and since I'm not on any actual deadlines I'd rather sit with the script until I figure out the solutions than force it and end up with another mediocre script. Hell, Not Dead Yet took longer to write than anything I've ever done and it was the best thing I've ever written. Coincidence? Maybe.

I was driven to think about this when I read Unk's advice to sit with your script and get really comfortable with it - for a year if you have to - before trying to write something that's not ready.

And while I have a vague idea of what I want to do with the feature I have a really solid idea of what I want to do with Pushing Daisies. The storyline is clear and I can definitely pull off the voices, so I'm going back to TV for the next project. After all, Disney is coming up soon. I might as well write this now rather than rush to get it done.

And when I land an agent I'll let him or her deal with telling me what to write next. For now I might as well write what I'm ready to write.

In the meantime I have a final logline for Not Dead Yet, in case anybody wants to know some more details about the script:

Twenty years after the zombie apocalypse wipes out life as they know it, a married couple learns that they are not alone, and must learn to repair their damaged relationship as they take their children on a dangerous thousand-mile journey to save the life of a woman they’ve never met.

So there you go. I continue my obsession with dead people coming back to life, apparently.