In case you're unaware of it, Stephen J. Cannell is at least partly responsible for a lot of TV shows, including (just a sample) Riptide, Silk Stalkings, The A-Team, Wiseguy, Rockford Files, Columbo, Baretta, etc.
A faint memory from my writing years came back to me during my daily drive a few days ago: "It was a finished, three-act bag of shit."
This was in reference to an episode he'd started writing, and halfway through he realized his initial premise was flawed, in the sense that was going to produce a bad show. He was perhaps an act and a half through it, and decided he was going to finish it, dammit. At the end, it was "a bag of shit -- but it was a finished, three-act bag of shit."
He said from that point on he started taking more care in selecting ideas to start on, essentially pushing more design instead of immediate work.
So. This is an awful module so far. It may not be when I'm done with it -- I feel that the idea isn't terrible, just perhaps limited in application -- but it will be finished, even if I never write anything else but this one module.
I am touching nothing else until this is done, except to journal code work in progress and detail any related thoughts here. This is an experiment. I want to see if I can finish something. I want to see if my code can be like my food -- if I can reach a certain point, note that it's the best I can manage, and hand the damn thing to someone else to eat.
I have to go code now.
I was reading Cannell's screenwriting lecture recently. While he's not my favorite writer, I have to give the man props for the number of successful series he's done. However, he's no J. Michael Straczynski.
