Write, write, write

Honestly now - ever felt guilty for slouching on the couch, for watching one movie after the other? Sure you have! Pretty much every one of those guilt trips is brought to you by the world we live in - relationships and responsibilities. But we're screenwriters! We must resist the guilt! Keep on watching, I tell you!

Life, unfortunately, ever so often means compromise. We don't live in perfect screenwriting cocoons (I wonder what it would be like in there ...), we live in a very real world that puts demands on us - pesky little things like, "Let's do something together!", "Pay the rent!" and "Shouldn't you be fixing the fence?". There's blessings and curses and they all keep us from watching movies, reading screenplays and actually writing them.

This right here and now is my call to action for you: Be the crafty rebel! Rebel against all that keeps you from watching the good movies and the bad movies, the colors and the b/w's, the sounds and the silents. Strive to watch and study Lawrence of Arabia as much as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes ... but be crafty about it. You don't have to become an anti-social prick in order to do it. Pick early mornings when the family's still asleep and watch The Asphalt Jungle. Steal an hour and a half when everyone's busy doing something else and catch Breathless. And, heck, get up in the middle of the night to shiver through Dracula has Risen from the Grave! Then there's books - you know, them darn things with more than 110 pages. Next time before you start in on one, think to yourself - how many movies could I watch instead of reading this whale? Talk about whale - watch Moby Dick instead of reading it!

You're a screenwriter. With everything tearing at you every single day of your life, you need to fight to spend quality time in your screenwriting world - and that quality time is more than writing. WRITE, READ, WATCH - as much as you can. The more movies you watch, the better you become at spotting structure, layers, arcs - and the stumbles and falls. With every single minute you spend INSIDE films, you do give yourself the chance to become a better writer. So - again - be the crafty rebel - watch movies!