Industry Scoop: "Hey, I Never Knew You Could Write!"

When we last left our Industry Scoop heroes (a.k.a. last week's post), I was on my way to a meeting.  It went fabulously well, and we are indeed moving forward on a spectacular project that I hope gets to the point where I can share it with you.

That, however, is not today's story.  Today's story is what the exec at the meeting — a very good friend of mine — said.  She had just finished reading Populazzi, and had an excited glow on her face as she gushed, "I never knew you could write!"

I laughed out loud… because I've been writing for her for approximately ten years.

I knew what she meant though (and in case you're reading this, I swear I'm not giving you a hard time — it was funny!).  A novel is a very different animal from a TV script, and it doesn't necessarily follow that if you write one well, you can do the other just as well.  Many do: Suzanne Collins used to write for .  Adriana Trigiani .  Living in L.A., I know many writers who bounce between books and scripts; but I know other novelists who have no interest in that at all.

Personally, I've always enjoyed bouncing between disciplines, genres, target audiences… if I can tell a story, I'm happy.  I'll tell that story as a TV show, a feature, a book… heck, I've even written the lyrics for a couple of songs (this one's called On My Way — the amazing Megan Cavallari wrote the music).  That's fun to me, and it keeps the process constantly interesting and challenging.

Writers out there, do you like bouncing between disciplines, or do you prefer specializing in one and sticking to it?  If you do try different writing formats, do you prefer one over the others, or do you enjoy them all for different reasons?