January 31, 2014
Stephen Follows has crunched the numbers and come up with some excellent charts on what movies are getting made now and over the last 20 years. His discoveries are fascinating, and his charts make my inner-geek glow.
Follows writes:
This week I have been looking at the 100 highest grossing films for each of the last 20 years. This gave me a dataset of 2,000 films with which to answer a question from Tom Worth… “Can you crunch the data on the number of films that are original screenplays and those that are based on some other source?”
Here is what Follows found:
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January 31, 2014
Writing the last page of the first draft is the most enjoyable moment in writing. It’s one of the most enjoyable moments in life, period.
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January 30, 2014
Jen Yamato of Deadline has written a great article highlighting ten of the screenwriters nominated for WGA Awards this year. I highly recommend reading the entire article at Deadline, but here are a few excerpts to pique your interest:
Like [David O. Russell's] last two unofficial companion films The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle examines themes of passion, love, and survival that are personal to Russell, he said. Getting to write for actors close to him like Jennifer Lawrence‘s shrill Long Island housewife further affected the process of creating her character, a character that had been darker and different in earlier drafts. “This is far more interesting to have someone who’s bedeviling and enchanting and a genius of some kind in her way. Many times personally I’ve had my ass handed to me by a woman like that and been lucky just to get up. Jesus Christ, help me. I have a great respect for those women.” …
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January 30, 2014
Writing is total grunt work. A lot of people think it’s all about sitting and waiting for the muse. I don’t buy that. It’s a job. There are days when I really want to write, days when I don’t. Every day I sit down and write.
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January 29, 2014
There seems to be this misconception that all the best writers wake up very early and do their work first thing in the morning.
Thankfully for those of us who enjoy our sleep, BrainPickings has dispelled the myth that you need to rise early to be a good writer with the below infographic. It lays out several of the best writers of the last two hundred years along with when they woke up, how many books they wrote, and whether or not their life ended in suicide. (Cheerful.) The chart shows that there really isn’t much connection between when you wake up and how prolific or successful a writer you are.
This TED Talk on the science of sleep also serves to dispel the myth. About half way through, Russell Foster notes that the only difference between people who are early risers and people who are night owls is that early risers are very smug.
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January 29, 2014
It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.
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January 27, 2014
Tim John of Think Hollywood recently shared ten tips that he’s learned over his years of pitching to Hollywood execs. His list begins:
1. BE CONFIDENT BUT NEVER COCKY.
Never be “Too smart for the room”. But don’t be self-effacing
either. Many “El Laysians” just don’t get irony.
I once went to a meeting at Disney with a writing partner and
when we got there the main executive said “Great to meet
you. We’re looking for some funny writers” to which I replied,
self-effacingly, “Then you should meet the guys I play tennis
with, Dick Clement and Ian Lafrenais. They’re really funny.”
Not only could the man not see that I was joking, but as I left the
meeting, his assistant took me aside, handed me a business
card and whispered “If you keep having self-esteem problems,
call this number. She’s my shrink and she’s really good”!
2. NEVER GET COMPLACENT.
“Writer” is only one letter away from “Waiter.”
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January 27, 2014
The writer is by nature a dreamer- a conscious dreamer.
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January 23, 2014
Scott Myers of the excellent Go Into the Story blog today shared his thoughts on success and failure as a writer, and how the two aren’t as far apart as you might think. He writes:
When legendary football coach Vince Lombardi would speak in public, he rarely strayed far from two closely related subjects: success and failure. One quote I’ve always remembered is this one:
“In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail.”
It seems to me this embodies a mindset writers would do well to embrace for it re-frames the prospect of failure: Instead of fearing it, why not look at it as a necessary possibility whenever we strive to create something great?
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January 23, 2014
Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult.
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