Screenwriting

Paul Guyot pointed me to Nikki Finke’s column in the LA Weekly. She says that it’s bleak for feature film  screenwriters these days:

“These jobs,” said the admittedly depressed literary agent, “just
disappeared.” A manager joins the pity party and describes a litany of
givebacks by his scribbling clients: free treatments, free rewrites,
free polishes and/or free script-doctoring — all done with the hollow
hope that the studio will give these schmucks with Underwoods a paying
gig sooner rather than never. As for those sparse scribes offered real
pay for projects, they’re buckling under studio demands by cutting
their usual and customary by 30 percent. “It’s the bewildering nature
of the business right now that nobody has a quote. It’s a quote-free
system,” an agent describes.

In a word, it stinks out there for
screenwriters, worse even than the fetid stench of the usual shit flung
at them in previous years. These aren’t wannabes, either. These are
some of the top names in the biz. “I am fucking terrified,” a major
scribe tells me about his year of not getting any work. “I can’t
believe my career is ending like this.”

It’s no wonder so many of them are running to television and narrowing the opportunities even further for TV scribes…

There’s a fascinating interview with my friend Paul Bernbaum about the writing and production of his spec script TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY, which has become the movie HOLLYWOODLAND.

Focus
courted a couple of stars and a couple directors before they were lucky
enough to get Allen Coulter. They also began pressing for me to shift
the story more toward Adrien’s character and away from Reeves, which I
strongly disagreed with. I did a number of drafts with Allen, who is a
terrific filmmaker, and a great guy. But apparently, Focus wanted more
of Adrien’s character than I was willing to give them, at which point
they hired another writer. Needless to say, this was heartbreaking for
me, as this movie was a deeply personal one.

Paul and I have known each other for over a decade (and worked on three series together). This script has been his passion project for years…I wish it had been shot the way he originally envisioned it. Despite the rewrites by another writer, Paul ended up with sole screenplay credit.

Tess Gerritsen writes today about her first and last experience as a screenwriter. It’s a funny and all-too-typical experience.

But I don’t plan to ever write another screenplay again, and here’s why: for me, it feels like writing by committee.

She’s right, that’s exactly what it is. And it’s why I like it. No, not the getting notes from executives part…but being in the writers room, cracking a story with a staff of clever, creative, and enthusiastic writers. And I like production, collaborating with directors, actors, editors, composers, set designers, location managers, casting directors, and everyone else who brings the story to life. Does the episode turn out exactly as I originally envisioned it? Can I claim it as all mine? No, but that’s also part of the fun…and yes, sometimes, the disappointment.  Which is why I happily work both as a screenwriter and as a novelist.

What prompted Tess’ anecdote was a terrific post by my friend Paul Guyot on discipline. He writes:

Discipline. The single greatest asset a writer can own. Better than talent, better than imagination, better than anything.

If you have discipline, you are light-years ahead of anyone trying to write without discipline. It is no coincidence that the best writers I know – both prose and screen – are also some of the most disciplined.

And it’s no coincidence that the majority of people I know who have yet to taste any real success as a writer lack discipline. And most of them don’t even know it.

Discipline. Stephen J. Cannell, of TV and multiple novels, is disciplined. Up at 4:30am EVERY day, works out for an hour, showers, eats and WRITES. Every day.

He then beats himself up for another 1000 words. I think my friend is being way too hard on himself. It’s not about getting to the computer at a set time every day and writing…it’s about getting to the computer at all.

My ass is being bitten right now. And not in a good way. My lack of discipline is not only keeping me from writing today, but its domino effect on my entire process is awful. Because my deadline doesn’t care. It continues toward me. Like a freight train. And losing one day of writing means that when I do turn in my pilot, it will not be as good as it could be. Because I lost roughly six or seven hours that could have, most likely would have, been spent making the thing better.

You can’t always force creativity, regardless of the immutable reality of a production deadline. But I have to believe that if I have a bad afternoon or a completely wasted day, that I’ll make up for it later. I’ve never missed a production deadline — there is always a finished script to prep. And I’ve only missed one book deadline in my life (by two days). So I know, in my heart of hearts, that I will get the job done. Even so, the self-doubt, anxiety and fear always comes back.

I have a tight deadline right now on a book and two big studio pitches on Tuesday to prepare for…yet here I am, writing this blog post. Is it lack of discipline? I don’t know. I’m here at the computer, my fingers on the keyboard, aren’t I?

I write this blog as a promotional tool but, between you and me, it’s real purpose is as a procrastination device. When I’m stuck on a script, book, pitch or whatever, I turn to the blog as a way to stay at the computer and keep typing…otherwise, I might just leave the room and spend the day doing something else, something that isn’t writing. In fact, it’s how Paul’s post got written:

And this isn’t the first day I have not written. Because I lack discipline, this is one of many, many days in my writing career that have been spent not writing. Not staring out the window working, those days count as writing days. I mean simply not doing anything.

I hurt myself. I hurt my family. By not being disciplined. So, I’m trying to fix it. Right now. This very second.

See, I’m writing this because, one, I love JT and would do anything for her. But also because I’m trying to jumpstart myself. Get my bitten ass in gear. Because writing something, anything, is better than not writing.

I agree. But Paul is far more disciplined than he realizes. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be at the computer and he wouldn’t be beating himself up so much.