Author sees watching television as potential road to writing success

Published: 2004-02-20

CHICAGO (CNS) -- When Walter Podrazik stepped in front of the junior high students at St. Barbara School in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood, he had a novel message for them: TV is good. At least, it can be. Podrazik, a 1966 graduate of the school, shared his history as a TV watcher and historian. Clad in leather pants, vest, string tie and Western hat in homage to one of his favorite television characters of the '50s, Bret Maverick, he got the youngsters talking about their favorite shows and characters and why they like them. Then he told them to take those thoughts and write them down. Then, maybe, when they are his age, they will have seven books to their credit, along with thriving careers. Or maybe not. Writing is a discipline, Podrazik said, and television -- whether seen as the national hearth or a vast wasteland or some combination of the two -- provides ample subject matter. He learned that as a student at St. Barbara when he decided for the first time to write a story based on a TV show, he told the students. It was a superhero story, a takeoff on Batman. "I couldn't do a Batman story," he said. "But I could do Joe Borden the Milkman, and use the ideas of the fight between good and evil. ... That's how you start writing. You start by imitating something you know, but you change it."

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