When is the best time to write?

First thing in the morning.  Late at night.  Lunch breaks.  Weekends.  Vacations. When is the best time to write?  Everyone has jobs.  Commitments.  Responsibilities.  A family even.  Groceries.  Laundry.  Cows to milk.  There’s always something.  The trick is finding time that works for you. 

 
One of the most esteemed writers in Hollywood, Ron Bass, was working full time as an attorney in Los Angeles when he started writing screenplays.  While he was married.  With young children.  So he got up at 4:30am everyday to type before diaper duty.  And wrote Rain Man.   Diablo Cody wrote Juno on her lunch breaks.  By hand.  At the McDonald’s.  In the Walmart.  In Minnesota. 
 
Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones — who has time to write during the day.
 
But then there’s the whole muse thing.  The angels.  The mojo.  The unknown quantity that shows up when you least expect it.  How do you plan for that?  Well, if it comes at the same time each day, by all means, lean into it.  Brew you up a cup of cocoa at 10:36p each night and let her rip.  Then work everything else out around it.  Hemingway used to wake up and type every morning because that’s when he felt it come to him.  Granted, the rest of the day he was drunk, but you get the idea.
 
If you don’t find you’re better at night or funnier in the morning, be careful of falling into the age-old trap of waiting for inspiration.  This is the worst way of procrastinating.  You could be working on your eulogy before you get to anything else.  After all, many believe the muse shows up when you do.   So pick your favorite watering hole or patio chair and get on with it.  The angels will find you. 
 
Whatever you decide, best to come up with a plan.  Work out a schedule.  Set some goals.  Be consistent.  Write 2 pages every night before bed.  Or 5 pages every other day.  Or 1 page every lunch.  Do what you got to do to make it work.  Inevitably, you’ll look back at the week happier that you wrote something rather than nothing.  And before you know it, you’ll find yourself having written those all elusive words… “Fade Out.” 

How do I protect my idea?

Everyone always wants to know how to keep their original concepts from getting stolen.  Well, I got news for you.  It’s not that easy for someone to just run off and write a great movie even if they did take your idea.  It’s certainly not easy to sell it.  Let alone get it made.  Just ask anyone who’s been trying for a year.  Or seven.  Or more.  And it’s easier to fit a small rhinoceros into a toaster than to sell just a concept on its own.  You know how many spec screenplays are registered with the WGA each year?  Around 50,000.  You know how many scripts are bought each year?  Around 50.  You do the math.  This is to say nothing of the fact that there are really only seven plots anyway.  Chances are your idea has been done.  Somewhere.  Somehow.  Someway.  It’s all about what you do with it.  How you make it your own. So do that.  As best as you can.  Then throw caution to the wind.  Get it out there to anyone and everyone who will read it.  Enter it in festivals.  Contests.  Poetry slams.  Get it to anyone in the business who can get you in the door.  Don’t insist on NDA’s.  Remember, producers and agents and executives all have mountains of scripts piled all over their desks and couches and air conditioning units and are looking for any reason not to read them.  So don’t put up any roadblocks.  If you’re going to insist on anything, insist on buying them lunch, or chocolate, or a new refrigerator if they read your work.  If, however, you do want to sleep soundly at night knowing your work is indeed protected, all you have to do is this…

Register it with the writers guild here:
http://www.wgawregistry.org/webrss
 

Trust me, trust them.  They’ve been protecting ideas just like yours since 1927.  It takes 3 minutes.  Costs $20 bucks.  And anyone can do it.  Should you copyright it, patent it, mail a certified copy to yourself?  No need.  Once you register it with the guild, it’s stored for five years.  If after five years you haven’t been able to do anything with the idea and you’re still afraid of it getting stolen, check yourself into a facility.  Or re-register it again.  Then at least you'll know it's safe and sound for another five years.  Sleep well.

To Partner or Not to Partner

That is the question… posed by many a writer since the dawn of time.  Sure, there are perks of having a collaborator to confide in, collaborate with, to count on.  But what if they don’t like you ending sentences with prepositions?  What if they don’t like asking rhetorical questions?  Where are you then?  You’re mired in conflict is where.  And that’s got its slings and arrows too:  a) mental health  b) physical health  c) emotional health  d) all of the above.  After all, it’s not easy to sleep at night when you’re at odds over characters and commas.  Especially if there’s money on the line.  

Say you sell your screenplay for $100,000.  Not a bad day at the office, right?  But once your agent, lawyer, union, taxman and partner take their cut, you’re at $25k.  If the endeavor took you 12 weeks working 8 hours a day, you’re making $50 an hour. Sure you wanna share?  Well, if it’s going to get you where you want faster, funner, better than flying solo, then hell yeah, why not?  It all really comes down to you.  It’s not for everyone.  But then again, neither is Chunky Monkey.  Ask yourself… am I invigorated by the process of working with someone else?  Inspired to do my best?  Able to check my ego at the door?  Only you can answer these questions.  If you decide to go down the partnership path, here are a few suggestions… 

Find someone compatible in style, so it won’t seem like your writing is modern and theirs medieval.  But look for a different skillset.  If you’re a story pro, but need perspective on character growth, find someone who’s a champ at that.  Select  someone who shares the same work ethic, will be candid but tactful in communication and fills in the blanks when you’re staring at the page.  Are they willing to go the distance, not only with the writing, but with the selling?  Like a marriage, it’s not going to be hunky dory all the time.  But in a good partnership the good times will far outweigh the bad ones.  And in the end, you will have a created a kick ass piece of writing that can win over the blackest of hearts… together.  

Is it done yet?

When are you finished writing your screenplay?  This is one of the most common quandaries for all writers, which often has them pacing circles around the kitchen in the wee hours of the night.  The pros usually write and rewrite and revise up until, well, the last possible second before it’s contractually due.  Often times, they scribble itsy bitsy revisions well past the deadline, much to the chagrin of the exec in charge.   Note:  Best not to give the guy paying you agita with a late draft.  It’s a bit more nebulous for the aspiring writer.  Sure, you can set yourself goals, but at the end of the day, it’s pie in the sky, right?  I’ve seen many a wannabe scribe take six weeks, six months or even six years to complete a script.  (Yes, six years.  Don’t laugh.  It could happen to you.)  And like Ford Pintos, many scripts are just abandoned.  Once you’re swirling around the dark bowels of the second act trying to figure out just how to get a stripper with a heart of gold plausibly through Yale law, you might get stuck, lost, and realize it’d be easier for you to go to law school than finish your script.  I think the best rule of thumb for knowing when you’re done is when you start rewriting what you already rewrote and then change it back to what you originally had written.   You get there, put the pen down and step away from the pad.  After all, writing is subjective.   There is no correct answer.  No X = 3.14.  Just make the script the best it can be today.  Then send it out.  And start another one. 

Writer's Block - Be Gone

Ah, ye olde writer’s block.  The oft regaled mental condition that has caused many a writer to drink, caffeinate, dust, vacuum, cut off various body parts and say sayonara to the world.  If Pfizer could come up with a pill for it, I’m sure they would.  But they haven’t.  Lest we are left to contend with this bitch on our own.  Where does it come from? How do we make it go away?  Well, ever stop to think that the drinking and caffeinating and Zolofting we do to contend with the issue might be part of the problem?  Not to mention the sugar and Splenda and dairy et al with which we self-doctor our concoctions.  First things first, clear the mind.  Eat a vegetable.  Do a cleanse.  Put down the Diet Coke.  Go for a run.  Close Facebook.  Meditate.  Next, put your ass in the chair.   Silly as it may seem, if you don’t make time for writing, it ain’t going to happen.  I don’t care how many times you circle your kitchen contemplating an inciting incident.  Sit down and face the blank page.  Third, make sure you know where you’re going.  If you don’t know what your hero wants, you’ll get lost in the middle. If you don’t know what he needs, you’ll get lost everywhere.  Get clear on the answers to those two questions and you’ll have a fair compass to guide you through most storms.  And lastly, know that not everything is within your control.  Eek!  A difficult pill to swallow, pardon the expression, for we writers who think everything we type is.  After all, it’s just us, a screen and a keypad.  Or is it?  If creativity is the spawn of God, Source, Universe, The Big Kahuna, then perhaps there’s a force greater than us wielding the pen.  And it may have its own way of doing things.  So don’t force it.  Instead, listen.  The words will come, especially if you’re not high on Chai.