So I’m working on my last paper of the semester, which means after a hiatus I’m back to watching ONCE AND AGAIN. …As in, I settled in yesterday after a long day of reading journal articles and practicing calculus* to watch one episode… and six episodes later, sun rising, birds chirping, said, Fuuuuuuuuuuck.
This compressed quarter-season of viewing began with the particularly MY SO-CALLED LIFE-echoing “Outside Hearts,” written by one Alexa Junge. My first thought? To wonder if Alexa Young, author of FRENEMIES (which I haven’t read), could possibly be a pen name for Alexa Junge. Because I could totally believe that someone who wrote this episode wound up as a young adult novelist.
Today’s Googling and IMDBing seems to make this unlikely (though not impossible), but now I’m wondering: anyone know of TV writers who also write YA? I’ve already read, and enjoyed, RATS SAW GOD by Rob Thomas (the creator of VERONICA MARS, whose first season I deeply, desperately love**, and the new 90210, which I’ve yet to see). It seems like these should be overlapping skill sets. Is the money so good in TV that once people are in it, there’s no point to writing novels? (Thomas, I believe, wrote novels before breaking into TV.) Anyone got recommendations?
* Yes, the weirdest way in which my summer plans altered this week is that I signed up for two math classes. This impulsive decision resulted from a professor, after reading another paper I wrote, pointing out that “I’m really pretty certain that this is true!” is less than convincing as a rationale for complicated claims about what happens when many things change at the same time. (He politely declined to note that my authority is particularly unpersuasive on such matters.) We’re going to see if this is as big a disaster as it clearly has the potential to be.
** Bonus: my viewing marathon ended with “Sneaky Feelings,” where a very young Jason Dohring (a.k.a. VERONICA MARS’s Logan Echolls) makes an appearance. Logan is the quintessential example of a character I know I shouldn’t love — because he’s a terrible person — but I do, I do. How do they do that?
-->Feed me text
May 24, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Cherry Cheva (aka Cherry Chevapravatdumrong), author of She’s So Money, writes for Family Guy.
May 24, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Thanks, I hadn’t heard of her (love the name) or her book, but writing for Family Guy sounds promising.
May 24, 2009 at 9:30 pm
You should watch Season 2 of VM if you haven’t seen it. It’s a great show.
May 24, 2009 at 11:19 pm
I totally own, and have watched, all three seasons of Veronica Mars. And am hopeful about finding friends who haven’t seen it but would like to so I can re-watch it with them. I have to say, though, that I like each season less than the one before it. By season three, I think if I didn’t have residual love from the prior seasons, I don’t know if I would have even liked it much. …But residual love I did have, so.
May 25, 2009 at 8:19 pm
It’s not TV, but Kirsten Smith wrote a YA novel in verse called the Geography of Girlhood and also works as a screenwriter. She’s written for a several teen movies like 10 Things I Hate About You and Ella Enchanted (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0809006/).
May 25, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Thanks! I have an irrational love of 10 Things I Hate About You, so that sounds promising. [Some of said love surely stems from the hours I spend watching The Secret World of Alex Mack as a child. I do love Larisa Oleynick.]
May 27, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Logan is NOT a terrible person. Oh I just adore him!!!
May 28, 2009 at 12:16 am
Dude, remember when he burned down the pool where all the poor, non-white kids hung out?!
May 29, 2009 at 10:29 pm
(…I should add that as horrified as I was by Logan in that instance, I still don’t understand how exactly one goes about burning down a pool.)