How My Week Went

Posted on October 31, 2014    Posted by John Scalzi      11 Comments

Bruce Willis stares out from a studio wall on the Fox lot.

It went very well, I thought. As I’ve noted, I went to Los Angeles in order to meet with TV and film folks and to pitch them some stuff (and also, well, me). Some of the things I pitched are even things I haven’t put into books yet! You can do that, apparently. I’m happy to say that contrary to the general opinion of LA types being smarmy and insincere, all of the folks I got to meet, at least, were smart, engaged and very much the sort of people you would want to do business with, and I’m not just saying that because I would like to do business with them.

I also met with the folks at Legendary, who I am, in fact, doing business with (they have the option on Lock In), and come away from that meeting very optimistic about the future of that book as a TV series. There’s not much I can talk about publicly there — I just told you everything I could tell you about it, actually — but I can tell you I think the Legendary people get it, with regard to the novel. And, well. That’s always a positive.

This is where I could caution any of you from reading too much into anything I’ve noted above. Most meetings in LA are just that: meetings. You go in, you have 20 minutes of someone’s time, it’s generally pleasant, and what comes out of it is usually nothing other than getting into the room with interesting people who might do business with you at some point, if the stars align correctly. That’s valuable in itself for reasons that are largely intangible in the short term. I would love to have something immediate come out of the meetings this round, of course. But my feeling about it is: Let’s see what happens next.

(It helps that I do things with my time other than making movies and TV series, mind you. I still get to eat no matter what happens in Hollywood.)

So, in all: A useful trip to the City of the Angels.

I capped the week yesterday by heading to the Cleveland doing a morning keynote for Ohio librarians, in which I talked about science fiction, my career and various other topics. Librarians are some of my favorite people — they are almost by definition deeply engaged in the lives of books and authors — and it’s always nice to spend time with them.

And now I’m home. And I have nowhere I have to be other than here for the rest of the year, which if you’ve been keeping up with my travel this year, is kind of amazing. My plans for the rest of 2014: Write. And write. And write some more! And then, when doesn’t seem possible that I could even write another word — write again. It’s my plan and I’m sticking to it.