Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Writing is cutting...

I dropped 5 of 10 pages of Adam and Casey in a limo and dealing with paparazzi while trying to get coffee because it went on and on. It had some pertinent information, but I can slip that in elsewhere. What's important is, the relationship between Adam and Casey is established in those 5 pages, and it has the better jokes. Now we cut to the red carpet and the games Casey and Lando like to play with each other.

I also dropped a Russian bit that was making things too damn complicated. I don't want this script to be more than 105 pages. Period. I think I can make that work as a comedy and romance...and a sort of coming of age story. Not sure about how...but never hurts to see what happens.

I'm finding Adam loves books. His father had an antiquarian book shop in London and Adam was the only one of his brothers and sisters who liked going to it. But being a book dealer in the age of Kindle and Nook is hard as hell. One thing I've heard about the trade is, there are very few young collectors coming in. The ones I know about, who were under the age of 30 when they started collecting, went for children's books and fine bindings rather than books by Jane Austen, Edgar Allen Poe, or Mark Twain. And the older collectors are beginning to die off.

I did know of some who were building libraries of first editions of all the books they'd read, their goal being to donate the collection to a library or college. But I'm hearing that's not happening so much, anymore. A really nice collection of books on fishing and hunting that I packed and shipped to an auction house a couple years ago didn't sell as a whole and no one's interested in it being given away.

The world of books is changing...but I wonder if that's permanent or just a phase. We won't know for some time, yet.

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