How a script doctor found his own voice
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
This quote from Frank resonated with me as very similar to software dev. It’s so much psychologically easier to work a day job than even small side projects. And that’s for a variety of reasons but I normally focus more on the “mechanical” obstacles like context-switching and the difficulty of shapelessness. But with enough reputation your job can also give rise to something of a “risk-free” external-affirmation loop that your brain doubtlessly pushes you to keep spinning.
https://johnaugust.com/scriptnotes
It's hosted by John August (Big Fish, Corpse Bride) and Craig Mazin (Chernobyl, The Last of Us).
One thing that leapt out at me, is the use of the deeply archaic spelling "coöperating" (with the 'ö') which I love — is that a thing the NYT is generally doing these days?
(Although I wonder if it's a way they can track people ripping off their content).
""" Basically, we have three options for these kinds of words: “cooperate,” “co-operate,” and “coöperate.” Back when the magazine was just getting started, someone decided that the first misread and the second was ridiculous, and adopted the diaeresis as the most elegant solution with the broadest application. The diaeresis is the single thing that readers of the letter-writing variety complain about most. """
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-...
(1) Putting a semicolon before a closing quotation mark:
... did not hide their sympathy for Eichmann or their regret that he had not “finished the job;” a broadcast from Cairo ...
But Clyde is not the urban sharpster of “The Public Enemy;” he is the hick as bank robber ...
(2) Including commas for nonrestrictive apposition, even when there is no possibility of a restrictive interpretation:
When he died, in 2004, his books and exhibitions were too numerous to count, and his magazine work had been published all over the world in the best publications.
The copyeditors seem to think that writing “When he died in 2004” would imply that he had died not only in 2004 but also in another year.
In general, the New Yorker uses a lot more commas than most other publications.
(3) Adopting American spelling overall but using the double-ell “travelling,” “unravelling,” etc., which are more common in British spelling.
"Decades" (plural) suggests this must have been at least 20 years. So let's see, what that would have made in the best case:
$300,000 * 52 * 20 = $312,000,000
A couple of fun New Yorker stories about that: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/02/09/checkpoints and https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/daniel-radclif...
I'd be really interested to hear what their fact-checkers came up with for this $300,000/week note!
I can assure you the first years doing this were hard work and low pay.
What point are you trying to make, that he was just doing it for the money?
For such assignments, which are generally uncredited, he commands a fee that he acknowledges is “insane”: three hundred thousand dollars a week. Most jobs last a few weeks.