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HOW TO START YOUR WRITING CAREER TODAY
My Fellow Writers,
I was once a writer trapped in a development executive's body. But I escaped that life a couple of years ago and I'm now busy building a writing career. In fact, 2000 was the first year that I fully paid my way with writing. I didn't say that I paid for a mansion and round-the-world trips like some of my writer friends, but I'm getting by -- collecting credits (or just checks on uncredited rewrites), and making fans of executives and producers.
No matter where they are in their career, writers have to bite, claw, kick, scratch, beg, threaten, and stalk people to create a writing career and keep it going. The system won't change, but we writers can learn how to get through it FAR better. By relating my experiences as a television executive and young writer in the trenches, I hope to arm writers with a few tools, tips, and tricks that will help them fight the battle. Some of the topics will be geared toward new writers, but I also hope to shed light on more advanced topics such as getting projects out of Development Hell, negotiating true-life rights, maximizing pitch meetings, building a marketing plan, getting back great coverage, and other subjects I saw from the executive side of the table.
I'll try not to presume to tell anyone how to write - at least not until one of my current little option deals happens to get made into a movie, at which point I'll become a complete and insufferable egomaniac. In the meantime, though, I'll try to relate things from the ex-executive's perspective - telling you things like the concepts and script mistakes that will get your script passed on every time, or the proper and professional way to critique scripts for friends. I'll share the secret to pitching, which I learned straight from the television producer who was once the boss of Barry Diller and Michael Eisner. I could mention a hundred more topics, but what it comes down to is that I'll do everything I can to help dedicated and talented writers better prepare themselves for the business side of writing.
All right, that's enough of an introduction. Let's get to the meat of this column.
Is anyone out there letting life get in the way of their writing? I did - for five years, as I moved up the ladder at Warner Bros. and became a development executive for a producer. I'd like to tell you about what changed everything - and how I finally started my career in earnest.
I've wanted to write for a living since the day I graduated from college. But, not knowing anything about the industry, I started out in a non-writing job at Warner Bros. I eventually worked my way into development and was finding increasing success as an executive - with a couple of projects set up by age 25, and a promotion to go with it. As the senior development executive for producer Douglas Cramer, I had a decent salary, an expense account, and responsibility over an increasingly exciting development slate. Yet I was drifting away from writing, and it was annoying me. I was writing when I could, during weekends and at night, and doing pitch meetings every few months or so. In short, my writing was on the back burner, at best.
One day, I called Patrick Duncan, writer of MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS, COURAGE UNDER FIRE, NICK OF TIME, and a number of other strong films. A great writer, and a straight-talking, incredibly sharp guy. I wanted to get him to write a true-life rights story that I had landed the rights to. He agreed to meet for lunch with Doug Cramer and myself. I arrived at the restaurant early and found him waiting. We started talking. I didn't really know what to talk about, so I just asked him about his day. He told me that he had a few pitch meetings on huge projects, nonchalantly dropped a few A-list names (not out of vanity, but just because that's who he was working with), and talked about some meetings later in the afternoon. So I jokingly said: "And you'll probably write somewhere in there, too, right?"
Pat turned to me and, with intensity, said this: "You know, there's this myth that when you become a successful writer, that all of a sudden your time opens up completely and you have eight hours a day to write and do whatever you want. It just isn't true. I'm lucky - LUCKY - if I can write three hours in a day."
Now, this is obvious to me now, but at the time, it was as if he hit me upside the head with his bag. I had been making excuses to myself about why I wasn't writing all the time - projects, girlfriends, family, whatever - thinking that it would someday change. But I knew that he was right - that it would never be any different. There would always be something. Then and there, I resolved to write every day, at least an hour a day, no matter what. In sickness, I wrote. During a backpacking trip through Southeast Asia, I wrote. Break-ups, ski trips, holidays, weekends, whitewater rafting trips, relatives in from out of town - I wrote every damn day.
At first, it was about the keeping the streak going - 7 days, 100 days, 365 days. Soon, though, it became about finishing the projects. And for the first time ever, I had my own projects in development. I couldn't help but think about them at least once a day. Now, the streak's over -- I missed a day in December of 1999 on purpose - but I continue to write every day, no matter what. And it's an absolute joy to me. Not only that, a few months after it started, I optioned my first project. It was then that I began calling myself a "writer" without hesitation - but I knew that I had really started my career when the Streak started.
I urge those of you who aren't writing to start this habit. Make this Day One. Work honestly - on the project that is most important to you - not just letters to boyfriends or preachy internet columns, but that script or concept that REALLY counts. Write for at least an hour (Duncan writes a set page count instead, which I also do about half the time). I guarantee that this habit alone will create change in your life. Let's start there.
Write. Every damn day. It sounds basic. It is. But it moves mountains.
Hope this helps. Next week, I'm going to talk about the three biggest mistakes novice writers make in submitting their scripts. Hell, we all make them sometimes.
Stop reading. Go write.
Reformed executive,
Grady
P.S. The people at HollywoodLitSales.com tell me they're going to start the Q&A Forum again soon. In the meantime, if you have a question that's not covered in their database (please check carefully first), or you just have comments, you can reach me at EmailGrady@aol.com. However, I must warn you - I'll likely be off writing somewhere!
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