Herbert Jack Rotfeld sent me this…
You often write in the blog that "(a) writing is all I've ever really wanted to do, (b) there's really nothing else I'm any good at." But the second part isn't really true.
Writing might be a starting point, but you have also described hiring and directing voice actors for animation. There are probably other job titles or credits you have held over the years, but I'm not familiar enough with publishing or video production to pick them out. The point is that you must be good at those other jobs since you keep getting hired to do them. These are jobs that some other people probably make the core of their careers. And while it is not the center of your work, you keep doing them.
Do you not enjoy these other jobs? Are they just a distraction from writing? Do you consider them an extension of the writing?
To go by the blog, we read more about your non-writing work and the animals in your back yard than any significant writing project. Even on the writing, the stories here describe the non-writing problems or benefits. You are good at other things. And if you don't enjoy them, why to you take them on?
Interesting question. I have been an editor of comic books and in that capacity, also an occasional artist, inker, letterer and colorist. I always thought of the last four jobs as extensions of the first…and the first as an extension of being the writer of those comics. Actually, on some comics where I have been credited as a writer (or on Groo the Wanderer where my job title keeps changing but rarely denotes a specific function), I have sometimes gotten involved in lettering or coloring as an extension of being the writer — or whatever I am on Groo.
On live-action TV shows, I have occasionally done audience warm-ups or little bit parts. On one of the shows I worked on as a writer for Sid and Marty Krofft, I actually — may God help us — was briefly seen dancing. I am to dancing what a load of wet cement is to dancing except that I am less fluid. Someday, remind me to tell you the story of how I got roped into that. I also occasionally worked puppets when, say, the crew of puppeteers had but six hands and needed eight. I occasionally did the job of a floor director, working with the actors on their physical blocking and how they'd deliver lines I wrote.
On animated TV shows, yes, I've hired voice actors and directed them…even did a few lines myself. I story-edited cartoon shows (which to me was a writing job with a bit of hiring capacity added and a middleman eliminated) and once, I storyboarded a short Richie Rich cartoon. I did that mainly to better understand the challenges and needs of the storyboard artists who translated my scripts into pictures. I treated that like if I was working on a script about a dairy and I went out and milked cows for an afternoon in order to apply that experience to my writing. That would not make me a farmer.
In my mind, I was never a director or an artist or a puppeteer or any of these, especially a dancer. Make that especially a dancer. I was a writer doing some directing, a writer doing some drawing, etc. I don't think I could ever do any of these other jobs full-time…and I don't just mean I wouldn't want to. I don't think I could. When some politician goes on Saturday Night Live or Colbert's show and participates in a bit, that person is still a politician. They don't become a professional comedian just because they do something else once within narrow parameters.
So why did I do these things which you might think were other than writing jobs but I see as just add-ons? Usually to protect the writing and have more control over the work. When I was the writer (only) on some projects, I would hand the script in and someone else would do whatever revisions were deemed necessary after it left me. I always volunteered to come along and do them but sometimes, they don't want the original writer around or it's not practical. By becoming the editor of the comic book or the voice director and/or producer on a cartoon show, I could be involved farther down the assembly line. If I was not given the title, I often stayed involved anyway.
When I'm the voice director on a cartoon show I write, I have a lot of control over casting so we usually cast the voice that the writer (i.e., me) wants. And once the actors start reading my lines, I think, "Gee, maybe we don't need that speech" or "Boy, that line sounds lousy and needs to be rewritten." A couple of times when I hear something, I've told the actors to all go out and drink coffee while I rewrite a scene. You may think this is a directing job but it feels like a writing job to me.
By contrast, when I've written cartoon shows that I didn't voice-direct, I had little to say about casting and often wasn't welcome at the recording session. I think in some cases, someone was worried I'd want to stop the recording and have the actors all go out and drink coffee while I rewrote a scene. Or I'd get into an argument with the director about something. Whatever.
You're right in a broad sense that I have done other things professionally besides write. But I still think I was a writer who was doing a little something else on the project because it protected the material and because no one could stop me.