Meet Kimberly Morris, our June Guest Author of the Month. Today we'll begin a series of five postings, one each day, that will answer a specific question posed to her. I hope you'll find these interesting and will take advantage of the comment section to make a comment, ask a question of Ms. Morris, or simply let us know what you think of the dialogue and the guest author idea. Now, on to the questions. . . .
1. Your writing background is quite varied, and I noticed that you spent some time in New York working for Lorimar-Telepictures. Could you tell us a little bit about how that came about and how it impacted your writing career?
I lived in New York for 11 years. For the first 5 of those 11 years I worked for a sports agent and television producer and had the opportunity to work on 7 animated television specials. While working in that job, I attended the musical theater writers workshops offered by BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) and ASCAP (American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers). The BMI workshop was a 3-year program. It was my graduate school for writing. It was 3 very demanding years in which I received rigorous training in craft, technique, and self-discipline. My aspiration was to write for contemporary music theater and opera. I quit my day job as soon as the 3 years were over. But I couldn’t figure out how to make any money in theater – so I started writing animated television scripts in order to pay my rent. 25 episodes, 6 series, and 4 years later (while I was still waiting for my writing career to start), I suddenly realized I had very long list of writing credits in children’s entertainment. I also realized that writing animation had given me a whole OTHER education in craft and technique. When you write for animation, you must think like a director. You learn to conceptualize the scene not just in terms of narrative and dialogue, but also in terms of blocking, camera angles, sound, point-of-view, and reaction shots. Being alive to those elements has made me a better writer than I would otherwise be.
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