[B5JMS] Attn: JMS!!! On Other Projects...The Dirty Dozen Starring J. Michael Straczynski

Mon Mar 21 04:34:42 EST 2005

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From: "Jonathan Del Arroz" <smileoftheshadow at aol.com>
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 06:11:41 +0000 (UTC)
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I know we're all bummed that TMoS isn't getting made, but I recall that
there were a couple of other projects mentioned awhile back that
weren't talked about, and I wonder if you could give info on those?  I
won't press about B5 novels because I'm sure that B5's a sore subject
in your mind at the moment...but in JMS unplugged, one of the pages had
mention that you were working on a novel that would come out early 2005
I believe?  I haven't heard any word of this since then.   I also
recall you saying that you were going to do a Silver Surfer
miniseries...I could be wrong on that one though.  Or has Fantastic
Four taken over that idea?  Thanks!

Jon

P.S.  Thanks for Rising Stars, the ending was very uplifting and the
whole series was a wonderful story!

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 01:56:09 +0000 (UTC)
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"in JMS unplugged, one of the pages had mention that you were working
on a novel that would come out early 2005 I believe?  I haven't heard
any word of this since then.   I also recall you saying that you were
going to do a Silver Surfer miniseries...I could be wrong on that one
though.  Or has Fantastic Four taken over that idea?  Thanks!"

The novel is taking its own bloody time, as is the play.  I've always
been a very careful novelist, and only tend to work on the books when I
have time to dedicate to that book and nothing else (which is why there
have been so few of them over the years).  And a lot of the last year
was taken up by TMOS and related stuff...so before things get crazy I
want to get back into them again.

I'm also about one-third of the way through an original screenplay
based on a true story, a mainstream story set during WW2.   I don't
figure it'll be done for a while, yet, though...I'm having to do a
great deal of research in order to get this right.

In terms of other projects...one thing that I may need to clarify,
especially in light of a number of querying emails I've gotten of late
in the wake of TMoS.

Writers -- the working ones, especially in TV and film -- get
approached by literally dozens of people a year on a variety of
projects.  Most of the time, the average audience member never knows
about this because you only hear about the ones that get made.  I have
always tried to make everyone familiar with the process of being a
writer, good and bad, so from me you hear about almost everything that
comes along.  With other writers, you hear about the one thing that
does go ahead, not the twelve that didn't go, for one reason or
another.

What makes for a successful writing career, especially in this town, is
first and foremost that you are *hired,* that people pay you to write.
There are people in town who've written dozens of screenplays, all of
whom are considered very successful, despite the fact that not one of
them has ever gotten produced.

With maybe two gaps of less than six months each, I've been working as
a writer in TV and film non-stop for twenty-two years.  Only 2% of the
WGA earns six figures and above; I haven't fallen below that in 19
years.

If you go over the jmsnews.com archives, you won't ever find me saying,
"Well, I'm going on vacation for the next month because it's quiet and
I may as well."  There's a reason I haven't taken a vacation since
1986...because I've been too freaking busy.

The second criteria is that what you write should get made, both in
terms of pilots and scripts.  I've written well over 200 produced
scripts, and of the five pilots I've written -- B5, Crusade, Rangers,
Jeremiah, Polaris -- four were produced and aired, and three went to
series.  The usual batting average is one out of ten just to get the
thing *made* let alone aired.  Which is why I don't write many of
them...I write the pilot, it goes into production, and if it goes to
series, I vanish up my own ass for years at a time.

(That, incidentally, is probably the only real downside to my
career...I launch a show and dedicate myself to it full time, not
developing other shows or projects at the same time, which many other
writers do.  It's important to me to invest all my attention, not split
it by developing at the same time I'm producing.  So while I'm working
on a project, I pretty much just disappear from the rest of the world.
Emblematic of this, I had a meeting not long ago with some CBS
executives, and one of them said, "You know, around here you're a lot
like Bigfoot...everybody's heard of you but nobody's ever actually SEEN
you."

So after Jeremiah, I had a few months off to catch my breath, then TMoS
came up (as well as a number of other offers that I passed on because
they weren't things I felt I could do well), and kept me busy until
just a few weeks ago, and now I've taken an offer on another series
that should, if all goes according to plan, start prep in July.

I say all this just to give you a sense of the landscape from here, and
to say to those who've written in and worried...don't.  Believe me, I
haven't been *out* of my ass in alligators in years, and if current
trends are any indication, won't be for some time to come.

We now return to our regularly scheduled Q&A....

To the FF question...my first issue comes out in May, issue 527, and
I'd particularly recommend it for B5 folks because this is more of an
SF title for me...I get to explore the Big Questions, and get into
interstellar and cosmic issues...it's a very big playground, and at
three issues in, it's just a fun book to write.  So you may want to get
your store to pre-order it for you, because I'm very very happy with
this one.

The Silver Surfer mini is proceeding apace...art is coming in, I'm
three isses into that one as well, but I don't know when it's going to
be coming out because they want to get a bunch of the art under their
belt before they pull the trigger.  (It's all *painted pages* not just
drawn and inked/colored...and it's spectacular, gorgeous stuff.)

And one note on the prose area...I don't get a chance to write fiction
very often, but I recently turned my hand to a short story.  It's
SF/horror, entitled "The Darkness Between the Stars."  By coincidence,
not long after finishing it, I got an inquire from the editor of the
Book of Dark Wisdom, a very spiffy little magazine with an SF/horror
point of view, asking if I had anything.  So that story will be
appearing in, I think, either issue 6 or 7.  (Their website is at
http://www.darkwisdom.com )

Dream Police, meanwhile, will debut in June, and The Book of Lost Souls
is targeted for September, both under Marel's Icon line.  I'm VERY
happy with how Dream Police has come out...Mike Deodato did the art,
and it's spectacular.  Beautifully noir.

Finally, I should have some additional convention info in the next few
weeks for folks who've been asking.

More later...gotta get back to work (yes, on Sunday).

jms

message copyright (c) 2005
by Synthetic Worlds Ltd.
Reprint rights expressly 
forbidden to SFX Magazine

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From: "Dan Dassow" <dan_dassow at yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 19:00:09 +0000 (UTC)
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ign.com just published an interview with JMS
in which he answers twelve questions such as
"What is your favorite piece of music?"

http://comics.ign.com/articles/597/597333p1.html

The Dirty Dozen Starring J. Michael Straczynski
The man behind B5 and Rising Stars stares down the Dozen.
by Ken P.
March 18, 2005 -

Before J. Michael Straczynski (known as JMS in online circles) created
the science-fiction TV series Babylon 5, he paid his dues in writing
for series ranging from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe to Jake
and the Fatman. Since the end of B5 and cancellation of its spin-off,
Crusade, JMS has kept quite busy, creating the recently resolved Rising
Stars, running the Showtime series Jeremiah, penning a lengthy (and
controversial) run on Spider-Man, and preparing to take on the "World's
Greatest Comic Magazine."

And now JMS lobs some answers back at the Dirty Dozen...
[questions]

...

Dan Dassow

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From: Wendy of NJ <voxwoman at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 21:49:39 +0000 (UTC)
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On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 19:00:09 +0000 (UTC), "Dan Dassow"
<dan_dassow at yahoo.com> wrote:

>ign.com just published an interview with JMS
>in which he answers twelve questions such as
>"What is your favorite piece of music?"
>
>http://comics.ign.com/articles/597/597333p1.html
>
>The Dirty Dozen Starring J. Michael Straczynski
>The man behind B5 and Rising Stars stares down the Dozen.
>by Ken P.
>March 18, 2005 -
>
>
>Before J. Michael Straczynski (known as JMS in online circles) created
>the science-fiction TV series Babylon 5, he paid his dues in writing
>for series ranging from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe to Jake
>and the Fatman. Since the end of B5 and cancellation of its spin-off,
>Crusade, JMS has kept quite busy, creating the recently resolved Rising
>Stars, running the Showtime series Jeremiah, penning a lengthy (and
>controversial) run on Spider-Man, and preparing to take on the "World's
>Greatest Comic Magazine."
>
>And now JMS lobs some answers back at the Dirty Dozen...
>[questions]
>
>...
>
>Dan Dassow
>

"6. Which project do you feel didn't live up to what you envisioned?

Rising Stars"

*Jaw drops to floor*

OK... what did you envision, then??????

-Wendy

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 05:15:15 +0000 (UTC)
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"6. Which project do you feel didn't live up to what you envisioned?
Rising Stars"
*Jaw drops to floor*
OK... what did you envision, then??????

Me as a better writer.  I think the series starts off really well, but
right around the middle act I made a hideous error: I was afraid that
the book was getting kind of slow, that there wasn't enough happening,
so I diverged from what I'd set out as my outline to do a prolonged
action thread with Critial Maas...and I totally lost control of the
story, in my opinion.  It just got away from me and, where the first
part had been very unconventional, the action aspect of it suddenly
made it far more ordinary, and there was no way to get out of that
story once I'd started it for maybe another four issues...so the book
starts where it was meant to start, ends where it was meant to end, but
the middle section isn't what it could have been.

Nobody to blame here but myself.  I'd never written more than a couple
of stand-alone comics before jumping into the Rising Stars arc -- 24
issues covering 60 years and 113 people -- and it just got away from
me.

And while the story in the beginning was what I wanted, the art was
not, and I think that hurt the book going in.

But the largest part of my dissatisfaction with the book rests with
myself.  It actually spooked me away from doing more Really Big Stories
in comics until...well, until just recently, when I started a huge
action arc in Spidey (which won't be showing up for a bit yet).  I
didn't want to do it again until I was sure I could do it right.

There's a lot of positive reaction to the Rising Stars mini, and
there's parts of it I like quite a bit, but I also know what it was
supposed to be in the middle, what it *should* have been if I'd had
more experience and a broader skill-set and more tools in my tool
box...but I didn't, and there we are.

jms