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SCRIPTS Message Board - ARCHIVE 4
Here's what you need to do to make it and if you igonre me you never will!
Posted by Terry on Tuesday, 29 August 2000, at 1:45 p.m., in response to Planned Parenthood (of your screenwriting career), posted by Matthew Allen on Tuesday, 29 August 2000, at 5:57 a.m.
Matt,
...I think you're making a big mistake in your entire approach to the business... I think you've fallen into a trap of quicksand, and you need to get out fast, or die.
The trap is that you've fallen in love with the struggle, the process, with the idea of 'making it'; with all the bullshit techniques and platitudes and well-meaning advice; with all the strategies and the idea of hard work and ... keeping hope alive and blah blah blah.
Fuck that shit. That's all crap.
What you need to fall in love with is *story.*
I have a writer friend who all he ever thinks about is story... All he thinks about is story, scenes from stories, music that would be good for stories... He could care less about strategies.
I'll say it again: all he thinks about is story. He's already made sales as a screenwriter.
That's how you should be.
First rule of Hollywood: know what it is you plan to offer, and be able to deliver the goods. If you're going to present yourself as a writer, you should be someone who thinks about story... You should be an expert at story. Concepts, ideas, techniques. That's where your head should be, full time.
Right now, you seem to be an expert at trying to struggle with breaking in and with 'reaching a dream' and all that...
Don't stick yourself in that crowd of the people who are struggling. Become the expert, lie low while you're doing it, then when you're ready, present yourself to the industry as an expert, nothing less...
This is a business about product -- great product. Write it or film it or produce it with the computer, draw it, or work on it with a team -- but MAKE GREAT PRODUCT.
Don't make yourself an expert on the process of making product, while leaving out the product itself.
Don't ask or worry about strategies or plans -- get into the game, in whatever fashion, don't analyze it from the sidelines..
