Too Much Nick

Why can’t I find a screenwriting blog by someone who’s written a film I really liked?

John August wrote Big Fish and the retread of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as both Charlie’s Angels.

Craig Mazin wrote Superhero Movie! and Scary Movie 3 and 4. (And his site is called “Artful Writer.”)

Josh Friedman: War of the Worlds.

Alex Epstein wrote two books on screenwriting as well as his blog. But he didn’t write a single script I recognize. (Rotten Tomatoes has only heard of half of his work.)

Joel Haber says he hasn’t even sold a script.

John Rogers wrote Catwoman.

But

Terry Rossio wrote Aladdin, Men In Black, and Pirates of the Caribbean; he knows Godzilla was garbage because the script doctors threw away his original version. (He also wrote National Treasure. Whatevs.) I’ve read all his columns twice; they’re helpful, unless I get my first meeting and find out it was all lies.

Jane Espenson writes for “Battlestar Galactica.” She also did 23 episodes of “Buffy.” Maybe not all of her advice translates to film work, but she’ll give what I want: examples that I already remember fondly.

So

What about the writers I like? Maybe this is the problem: All the writers I like are directors.

Not just the Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Paul Thomas Anderson, David Lynch, and Woody Allen, but even Alexander Payne directed his own adaptations of the novels Sideways, About Schmidt, and Election. Rian Johnson directed his own screenplay for Brick. David Mamet and Charlie Kaufman now direct their own work. So does Miranda July. And Christopher Nolan. And Shortbus’s John Cameron Mitchell. Kung Fu Hustle creator Stephen Chow even stars in his films.

None of these people have blogs, or they hired really bad SEO guys.

Well, Rian Johnson has a Tumblr about his movie The Brothers Bloom, but it’s a production and publicity blog. David Mamet draws political cartoons at HuffPo. Miranda July blogs about how the world is beautiful and yes in its way that is her blogging about screenwriting.

At Least

Oh thank god, Ricky Gervais.

But

Even if one of the above writer-directors starts writing, will they talk about screenwriting or will they focus on production?

Why can’t I find a currently working, non-directing screenwriter I intensely admire? (Until this year, Charlie Kaufman was my one such hero. Now he directs and forget blogging; he’ll barely even talk to the press.)

Does this mean that if I try to write without directing, and if I keep blogging, I’ll probably end up like all these terrible screenwriting bloggers?

What keeps all the good writers from blogging, and what turns them all into directors?

Where is the William Goldman of the Internet age? Where’s the blog version of Adventures In The Screen Trade?

If I said something like “Maybe it’s me,” I’d be a prick. I can’t even run a web show.

I can’t even write a blog post that sticks to one topic.