Apathy Sketchpad

This November, most of America’s screen writers were on strike, because the companies who employed them refused to pay them when their work was distributed online. Which is fair enough, and if you watch their Daily Show-style video it’s hard not to agree with them.

This November, National Novel Writing Month had more entrants than ever and churned out a full billion words for the first time. Coincidence? I think not!

Actually, it’s just because NaNoWriMo has only been going a few years, so it always does better than it did the previous year. But hey, at least the US film and TV studios might have something to film now. Okay, so I expect most NaNoWriMo novels are badly-written rubbish with ill-thought out, one-dimensional, inconsistent characters, with a plat that’s quite clearly not been planned. In fact, I reckon they’re mostly just made-up as the author goes along with no forethought, just desperately to hit 50,000 words.

But anyone who thinks that’s a problem hasn’t been watching 24 lately.