List of screenwriters I’ve met or head speak in the last year -
Tom Rickman John August Debra Granik
Mike Urban Paul Tamasy Andrew Kevin Walker
Steve Mazuer Eric Johnson Rick Jaffa
Dan Vining Keith Dorrington Amanda Silver
Karen Jansen Lisa Cholodenko Ben Ripley
Mike Ellis Stuart Blumberg David Seidler
Gill Dennis John Sayles Ashley Miller
Frank Pierson Nicole Holofcener Zack Stentz
Melissa Rosenberg Steve Kloves J. Michael Straczynski
Katie Wech Peter Craig Mark Protosevich
Heather Hach Paul Feig Jon Lucas
Wesley Strick David O. Russel Scott Moore
Larry Karaszewski Mark Fergus Allen Estrin
Aaron Sorkin Roberto Orci
I am marveling at the caliber of writers on this list. I feel very lucky to have been in a position to listen to them speak and ask them questions. Golden Age Hollywood writers to those just starting out all having sold multiple scrips. Some having influenced the direction of a specific genre. All bringing their own voice to movies. They all write compulsively and most are incredibly insecure.
The question that they all get asked without fail is - how do you break in? And the answer generally is I don’t have a clue. They all worked hard, got their writing in front of someone who took a chance on them. That’s about it.
I think the key component is the working hard, writing compulsively, and being willing to send out your stuff. Being willing and actively seeking someone to rip your writing apart. To get you to think in different ways.
The biggest challenge for me is the writing everyday part. I procrastinate like you wouldn’t believe. The reasons behind this procrastination is something that all writers deal with including the ones on the list. They have just developed a compulsion to write. I kind of equate the compulsion to alcoholism.
Imagine: You wake up in the morning still drunk from the night before. You get in the shower and crack open a beer. As your day progresses you start to analyze what you are doing to yourself. You think maybe I shouldn’t drink anymore. But as night time rolls back around you just can’t stop yourself. You don’t bother to count the number of drinks you’ve had because you know you’ll just forget before the night is over.
For a writer it seems to be more like this: You wake up at 7am with an imprint of the keyboard on your face still exhausted and a little hungover from a long night of writing. You think, “Jesus I only got 3 hours of sleep,” as you crack open that beer in the shower and start to feel guilty about having not written anything yet today. Just out of the shower you write for a couple of hours - not bothering to take the time to put on clothes. At lunch you start to analyze what you’ve been writing. You decide that you hate it. It all needs to be thrown away. Fuck! I really suck at this. The next few hours are spent surfing the internet. But within a couple of hours you are back at that keyboard typing away, only getting up to get another drink. You don’t even bother looking at a clock because you know that time is going to fly. It doesn’t matter anyway because you’re going to write until you pass out.
If you, like me, are having trouble developing that compulsion I suggest three things - all of which are incredibly hard to do.
1. Drink less Alcohol
2. Use the don’t break the chain calendar found here for free - http://www.writersstore.com/dont-break-the-chain-calendar
3. Use the program Freedom a well spent ten dollars - http://macfreedom.com/
It seems to be working for me so far.
