So why television? It seems with novel writing you're in your own world with complete control ...
Well, let me show you my pay stubs from the two careers ...
[We both laugh.] Well, OK, yeah, dumb question.
No, it's really not a dumb question and there's more to it than that. Even on a low rated show on UPN, I have three million viewers. My best selling teen novel has now sold 200,000 copies. I love having that big audience. I mean, you're a writer, you want to be read, or in this case, viewed, you know.
Then there's the thrill, when I write down "Chicago, Irish bar, Taggerty's," and a crew of people builds it and I fly to Chicago and there it is, in the flesh. And then to have really remarkably talented people performing your dialogue? I adore it. I love doing what I do.
Television really plays to my strengths as a writer and as a person in that I need the immediate gratification. Being a highly paid feature writer seems like it would be great and it would be about a fifth of the work of running a television show, and certainly there's quite a bit of cache. Except in television, the writers are the boss, and I love that.
I love that you have to shoot things tomorrow. You don't get to tinker around. You have to produce 22 episodes, and a script has to be ready every eight days. I love the process and the immediacy.
You can't fail in features. You can fail in television and be OK. You can try something different that maybe doesn't work and you have one off episode. In features, that's your shot.
And I like television as a viewer. I like living with characters for long periods of time.
I'm fast and I like to be in charge and I'm impatient and these are all good things in TV. In the feature business as a writer they pat you on the head for the script and escort you out the door and it's a director's medium. In television, it's a writers medium. I get final say on the cast and the script and the cut. I dig it.
It's certainly more collaborative than writing a novel, and yet being a showrunner is as much power as you can get being a writer in Hollywood.
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Article comments
1 - Elizabeth
Rob Thomas is God to me for creating VM. Seriously, Rob, please don't shoot for Lost. That show is all ratings and the substance was gone long ago. 1,000 years from now, when this civilization is long-gone, people will dig up old VM dvds and think, "What the hell was wrong with CBS for canceling this awesome show?!?!"
2 - jenny
i wish veronica mars was still on. i would have loved for it to continue..it was aunique show and it deserves to keep on playin!
3 - Abby
I've have been waiting forever to see if veronica mars would have a 4th season. I had finally got the 2nd and 3rd season, to complete my collection, for christmas this year, and I had hopes that there was for sure going to be a 4th season. I wish that the plot wasn't her being in the FBI yet, but no matter what i was happy there was going to be a 4th season. Today I was curious as to of when that season was going to start, and now there's not going to be one. That truely disappoints me. There was more to that show than any other show I had ever watched. I was into ever single aspect of that show. It was funny, the people seemed so real, the plots were so out there, I just felt like everything about that show as perfect and made a person want to keep watching it. It was kind of like a good book you don't want to put down, except more. I had never heard of the t.v. network UPN until one day there was nothing to watch and i was flipping through every channel and i was thankful to come across a great show that hooked me from the first episode. There are so many curcumstances of as of why VM didn't get as many viewers as it should've. At the time there were other shows people had already become into when VM was aired, nobody really watched upn, and when it started airing on the cw well it was the 3rd season already (but i'm sure those who had started watching it then wanted to see the first and second seasons also). I think if Rob Thomas fought to have it air from the beginning to the end, on a more popular channel, and gave it advertisement, it could become the big hit it should be. There are still so many things a fourth season could go on, of vm being in college still. It could go on whatever happened to Kendall Casablancas, who won sheriff, what will become of the Fitzpatricks, will Duncan ever return, will the Castle ever be publicized, and what will become of the best love hate relationship i've ever seen between Logan and Veronica. I would hope my words are read thoroughly and passed on the the big guys. I'd email them to if i knew how to communicate with them.
4 - Abby
I'd also have to say i'm not one to actually email someone for how much i love a show, but veronica mars is the best show i had ever seen and i dont want it to end. 3 seasons is too short, i speak for many about this show when i say it must go on.
5 - Diane Kristine
Sorry Abby, this article is half a year old - the series is as dead as dead can be and everyone involved has moved on. You might see it in a comic book, though, when the strike's over.
6 - Megan
I definetly agree i have never bought complete seasons of any show but i had to of veronica mars. i finished the entire 3rd season in a matter of 4 days. the show is addicting and i cat believe they are cutting it off. im very disappointed. No one cares about these dumb reality tv shows like the pussycat dolls. i for one would rather watch veronica mars any day of the week. i just wish there was a chance that they would reconsider a season 4.
7 - greatz
DUDE PLIZ GET VERONICA MARS BACK = ITS LIEK THE BEST TV SHOW EVR!!!
8 - Kate
I LOVE VERONICA MARS IT IS THE BEST SHOW EVER ive got season 1 and 2 and waiting to get season 3, PLZ MAKE SEASON 4 AND AIR IT ON AUSTRALIAN TV BECAUSE I THINK IT WILL BE A HUDGE HIT, I THINK THAT IT WILL BE THE BEST THINK THAT CAME ON TV PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEPLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
9 - WantVeronaicaMars
I love Veronica Mars and I think that they should never stop shooting it, because it is the best TV show ever!!!! so if there is any possibiliti to make another season or at least film I would realy like to see it, so I would know how it ends. And the question that I am realy interested in is If Veronica and Logan ends together, because I think they are made for each other. Well I guess what I realy want to say is that there are lots and lots of people, who would "kill" to see another season, so please, please, make one or even more!!!!!!!!!!!!!
10 - Nicki
Regardless as to how old this article is I still hope & pray for a Veronica Mars movie....so yeah btwn season three sucking badly and it getting cancelled I almost gave up but hey....
I find myself watching the reruns & the YouTube clips......
Like many I'm dying to know what happens next & I'm willing to email fundraise whatever we need to make it an independent film or mainstream.....I have yet to find a show that can top it...say what you want but this show is timeless!