johnpserra@hotmail.com                                                                            About John Serra

Just Chatting

11/10/06: I've chosen to learn screenwriting.  It's not as easy as it seems.  A scene from Get Shorty, one of the characters says, "Screenwriting is easy.  You just put some shit down an that's it.  Nothing to it."  I'd like to kick his fictitious butt.  Not that I was relying on this scene as motivation for my efforts.  I chose to do this well before I saw Get Shorty.  But I am a novelist, and screenwriting is a visual talent.  I'm struggling to develop this skill, this craft.  To what end?  Hell, I don't know.  I write books.  JPS

11/2/06:  As I listen to the news, I sometimes have a MYST moment, and wish I could curl up and slip into the world inside one of my books.  (Ok that sounds a bit creepy.)  Then again, sometimes I'd just like to torch all the books and walk away.  I'm seeing a really frightening trend in my post today.  Ok, forget it.  Have a nice day.

10/28/06:    I was online at one of my favorite sites, The Absolute Write Watercooler, and someone had mentioned word counts and reaching for a million words.  I took down my manuscripts and began counting...not really.  I tallied the word count for each script and discovered my count was over a million. 

It was strange to think that I'd written over a million words in my lifetime.  But this was just the count for finished works, not even the effort put into edits and revisions.  I wondered why I had such a time getting published.  How strange. 

JPS