Oh, Yeah — We Write These Things To Be Produced

For the past six weeks I’ve struggled with the rewrite of the Wedding Comedy, trying to integrate the various notes of the producers, the star and the Director.  It’s the first time I’ve ever rewritten with an actual production (theoretically) looming, and I’ve suddenly been confronted by the fact that the words I put on [...]

121 Pages of… Something

Finished the first draft of the Bigfoot Comedy this morning.  Took me about five weeks to grind out — two weeks longer than I expected, though I can attribute that to three factors:
1) The Peanut got sick, then I got sick, then the Peanut’s teething kicked into overdrive.  That trifecta of unpleasantness cost me a [...]

Interview with a Screenwriting Jedi Master

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, writer/producer Tim Albaugh has been possibly the most significant figure in the history of my would-be professional writing career.  He is Obi-Wan to my Luke, if you will — a comparison that will no doubt make the Missus’ eyes roll so emphatically, she’ll look possessed. 
I first met Tim [...]

Matt’s Column – “How Do I Write a Script that Attracts an Agent?”

Here’s something that will hopefully happen fairly regularly in the future — a guest column from reader Matt. Unlike my previous guest, he didn’t even have to sleep with me to land this gig. He only had to achieve what I and many of you reading this blog dream of: breaking through and making a [...]

Replacing the Turd (or, A Story Breakthrough)

Tonight I had one of those moments that makes me so happy to be a writer.  As you might have read in yesterday’s post, I’ve been having trouble getting into the rewrite of the Domestic Comedy.  The script reads like I jammed it out in eleven days — which is only fair, since I DID jam [...]

In Praise of Procrastination

This is a guaranteed way to make my wife absolutely crazy: I announce, “I’m going upstairs to write.” The Missus says, “Okay. Happy writing.” And up I go to the man cave, fire up the PC, look over my outline to see what the quota of pages that day will entail, stare at the cork [...]

An Obligatory Post About the Craft

Let me take a brief break from yammering on about the details of my oh-so-fascinating personal life to talk a little bit about the craft of screenwriting. Not that I actually know anything about the subject — if I did, I’d be typing this on my $20,000 Ego Bentley laptop on the deck of my [...]