attn: JMS - deep and searching questions

 Posted on 6/15/2000 by jmsatb5@aol.com to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated


>BS....Joe, you've got the stubbornness of a pit bull and you'll be making TV
>shows
>as long as those squirrels in your brain keep running (or until Harlan and
>Kathryn
>sign the commitment papers.)
>I'll bet you a steak dinner that you'll still be writing/producing when
>you're 60.
>
>50.... my arse.

I'll take that bet.

See, my mind -- that same, pigheaded mind -- made itself up pretty firmly on
this one.

Reason is basically this: I started working in TV round about 1984/85. That's
15 years already in this particular vineyard. And it's soul-killing work.
Always has been. Charles Beaumont said it's like climbing a mountain of ka-ka
to pluck one perfect rose...only to find by the time you've gotten to the top
that you've lost your sense of smell.

It's hard, tedious, soul-breaking work, mainly for the kind of people you have
to deal with, and I have only so much visceral material. I've worked hard all
my life (as have most people), working round the clock for *years*, rarely ever
taking a vacation, writing nonstop...I *need* to find that time when I can
relax a bit, and that ain't never gonna happen as long as I'm working in
TeeVee.

Give up writing? That, no, I'll be writing until I fall down dead. But TV?
Yeah, I could give that up pretty easily when the time comes.

jms
jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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