Now that they've conquered the market for snarky/bemused strike commentary, hungry screenwriters are finding new ways to pass the time and earn small amounts of money: novel-writing, as the LAT reports! What do we learn? Well, writing a book is different from writing a screenplay, for one. Also, we have projects like this to look forward to: the Rune Warriors, a "Viking saga that's a mix of Harry Potter and 'The Princess Bride' with a little Python thrown in."

The Writers Guild is gonna kill me for saying this, but a script is nothing more than a blueprint for a film," he said. "It's a road map and can't stand on its own; it needs others to make it a movie. Books are more holistic. They're less about plot and more about character, emotions, nuance. It's refreshing to just write about people for a change.

Scripts are all about economy and forward momentum, whereas novels can be big, baggy receptacles for a story. When I go back to screenwriting, I feel like I've been put back in my cage.

The [screenwriting] process is less than satisfying. You get tired and burned out, and I always wanted to write novels anyway. Authorial ownership of the words just doesn't happen with screenwriters. Everyone treats it [the script] as a suggestion.