The Writer's Life 10/3 - Elements

I viewed two new network prime time shows last night. Gracepoint debuted at nine on Fox. I’m not sure I’ll stick with it, as it’s about the murder of a child in a small California town outside San Francisco. The creators have chosen a straightforward, gritty approach. One scene was outstanding, powerful and painful, as the four surviving members of the victimized family, huddled on a couch, fell apart. An ad I saw said it would be a twelve-part series. I hope the producers stick to that. If they want to continue, they should move on to a new crime and not drag out this one. It remains to be seen whether the secondary storylines will be interesting or pat, but I'm not optimistic about them. I did not recognize anyone in the cast except for someone playing an old salt I’d swear was Nick Nolte. I checked at IMDb and, if it’s him, it’s uncredited. I didn't spot a picture of the character at all.
At ten I watched episode two of How to Get Away with Murder on ABC. The producers are pushing the envelope on this one. Attitude is a must. All modern forms of behavior seem to be in play. Political correctness rules. The production is glossy and artsy-fartsy. I hated it and bailed with ten minutes remaining.

Given that Yom Kippur was only hours away, I'm surprised the floating book shop did as well as it did today. My thanks to those who made purchases, especially the young beauty who bought Strunk & White's The Elements of Style, which has been around since 1919 when it was published in-house at Cornell University. Several of my instructors and many editors and publishers recommended it through the years. Although it's less than 75 pages, I've never motivated myself to read it, perhaps in fear of discovering I'm a hopeless hack. Unbelievably, its sales rank at Amazon is 123rd out of twelve million or so books. Here's an excerpt, culled from its Wiki page: "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell."

Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh

Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3

Vic's Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
Vic's Short Story Collection: http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tiny.cc/0iHLb Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kx3d3uf
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/rP7o9

Vic's Rom-Com Screenplay: http://tinyurl.com/kny5llp

Vic's Horror Screenplay: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3f

Vic's Blog: http://vicfortezza.blogspot.com/

Vic's Web Site: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/