I’m one of those people who gets obsessed with technology. I see those magazines at the newsstand that tease me with ways to “personalize my website” and “add amazing search engines” that will “drive traffic to my site”.
I realized there’s no reason there should be a search engine box at the bottom of my blog page. Do you want to know why?
Because it’s really, damn stupid.
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I just finished what I believe to be an amazingly great read of a book — it’s Joe Eszterhas’ book Hollywood Animal. Basically, if you’re not familiar with who Joe is — he’s the hugely successful screenwriter responsible for movies like Flashdance, Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge, Sliver, Jade and Burn Hollywood Burn. Over the course of his Hollywood screenwriting career, he pulled in checks that exceeded 3 and 4 million dollars for screenplays, had fights with some of the most powerful people in Hollywood (read: Mike Ovitz), and became one of the first screenwriters to emerge from behind a curtain of anonymity and become a star.
The book itself is his bridge burning creative masterpiece — having felt that he was pretty much done writing screenplays for Hollywood, he’s set out to tell every behind the scenes stories and tell the honest to god truth. The behind-the-scenes stuff is so much fun to read, and for a writer like myself — it really just spells out just how things in this town work. Really. It’s stunning to learn the reasons for why Directors were fired, why writers are treated like crap and all you’d ever wanted to know about Sharon Stone (she’s crazy).
If you’re into Hollywood stuff — you should definitely check this out.
Next on my list to read, is Carter Beats the Devil, which people have been telling me (for some time) is good. After that, The DaVinci Code. I’m trying, each night, to at least read for 30 minutes or something — it’s really important as a writer, to read.
And not magazines.
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