A writer is always writing
“A writer is always writing.”
That was a really good piece of advice I got a few years ago. Interestingly enough it didn’t come from another writer. Nor was it offered to me as a writer. It was advice given to me as a producer starting my own production company.
I was over at WME, the talent agency, for what is known in the parlance of our business as “a general meeting” and I found myself sitting in Rick Rosen’s office. For those of you who don’t know, Rick Rosen is one of the original founders of Endeavor, the talent agency started in March 1995 by Ari Emmanuel, Rick Rosen, Tom Strickler, and David Greenblatt.
Fourteen years later in April 2009 WME merged (some say acquired) the venerable William Morris Agency, started in 1898 by William Morris, a German Jewish immigrant, to become the juggernaut that is today known as WME, run by Co-CEOs Ari Emmanuel and Patrick Whitsell. Rick is the Head of Television at WME.
The number of careers he has had a hand in shaping are too many to count. For a little more on Rick, check out this session from NATPE 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2peGpH7I_pM
So there I was sitting in Rick Rosen’s office, this would have been back in 2012, and I asked him for any advice as Mr. Rosen is a successful entrepreneur in his own right. He was generous with his time and indeed gave me very good advice about the business. Among the things he told me that day, there was one thing he said with such certainty that it left little doubt in my mind as to its importance. “A writer is always writing. That’s the key to the whole thing. A writer who is writing is never unemployed.”
He went on to tell me that if I could keep things on track as a producer so that the writer was left alone to write, then I would be doing my job.
He explained the writer would be happy to be writing which is what they do. The network and studio executives eager to see the latest draft would be happy to know that things were moving along. And the agents and managers and reps are happy because their clients are employed and happily earning a living doing what they do, which is writing.
When I decided to return to writing, and pen my own stories scripts and books, the advice Mr. Rosen had given me that day echoed in my head. “A writer is always writing.”
I have since heard this repeated by just about every single writer I know or have read about, but in the context of everyday life and the business of Hollywood — what does that mean?
I had been writing for years but for a long time rarely saw anything through to completion and/or satisfaction (I’ve since learned that completion is the far more meaningful of the two, as completion can be measured, whereas satisfaction is subjective — and in my case often unattainable). Frustration with the story I was writing, constant worry over who would want to make this type of movie or tv show, or becoming convinced that it was that new idea, the one that just that minute popped into my head, that was the brilliant idea certain to become a blockbuster or bestseller — that’s the thing I should be working on! Those were just a few of the (classic) self-defeating, bad habit I had when I first started writing.
What those, and all the other excuses ultimately boiled down to was that they prevented me from writing. Because to be a writer you have to finish things. That, I thought, was at least part of what Rick meant. The idea was just get to work.
In “On Writing” Stephen King talks about how the muse shows up only hours, maybe days or weeks after you’ve put in the work without him. One of the potential pitfalls of a writer’s life I knew is the possibility of, and tendency to be, lazy. Unproductive. Under the guise of “creative brainstorming,” “preparing” or simply “waiting for inspiration,” the ways in which a writer can waste time doing any number of thing, except writing are endless.
Case in point, this small scene I love from the Robert DeNiro movie, THE LAST TYCOON, from a script by Harold Pinter based on the unfinished manuscript by F. Scott Fitzgerald inspired by the life of legendary Hollywood producer, “boy genius” Irving Thalberg. In the scene, Robert Mitchum plays “Pat Brady” the head of a Hollywood studio He is having a meeting with a studio lawyer out from New York played by Ray Milland when this little exchange takes place:
The point is that being a writer for a living is hard for many people to understand. It’s easy to wonder what these folks who never seem to make it out of their pajamas are doing all day during a work week?
It is what makes the process of creating so magical.
So what does it all boil down to? What does it mean that a writer is always writing?
Thinking about always writing and how to be focused in that pursuit let me to think about The Process. One question that every creative person from any walk of life is repeatedly asked throughout their careers is, “what’s your process?” I admit to being fascinated with process too.
Not only in writing but in life.
The questions about process are asked by people seeking to find some pattern, some sequencing of events and action that worked for another successful person, which, if followed precisely, can lead them to the same kind of success. That makes sense. I get the logic. I have endeavored to understand the same thing about successful people.
The other reason people ask about writing process is because frankly: writing is damn hard work — And they want to know the secret to getting it done.
How does one do that without simply spinning one’s own wheels?
The process of television writing typically involves a writers room in which a group of writers sits together and breaks the season story, then breaks every episode down beat by beat before the writer assigned to the episode goes off and writes the script. For screenwriters of movies and novels the process is somewhat different.
Tony Gilroy has a process where after thinking about a story idea, or a character, for a while he will start chasing down different versions in outline drafts before he commits to a version which he then writes as in screenplay form. Check out his lecture for BAFTA at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv3DcXIUaRw to hear more about what writing is to Tony.
Aaron Sorkin Creator of THE WEST WING and Oscar winning writer for THE SOCIAL NETWORK drives around trying to start an argument with himself, between characters he is envisioning. He waits until he can hear and see the scene in his head before he starts writing. He also recommends frequent showers as a way to break story ideas.
Someone like Brian Koppelman, the writer of movies like ROUNDERS, OCEANS THIRTEEN, producer of THE ILLUSIONIST and upcoming tv show, BILLIONS, on Showtime talks on his podcast about how he spends time every morning journaling. As a way to keep himself in a creative space. Check out his podcast @ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/moment-brian-koppelman/id814550071?mt=2
Rian Johnson of LOOPER (and soon STAR WARS) fame keeps journals with him that he writes in when an idea that might inspire the story later on: a line of dialogue, character description, movie references, a piece of music, an image, whatever, goes in the journal. He takes a long time evolving the idea for his movies in his notebooks until the story takes shape. And then he begins writing the actual script.
Stephen King, adheres to a strict policy of writing everyday (including holidays and his birthday) shooting for an output of at least 2000 words. He works without an outline, choosing to just write his way in and out of the story. He is as my #NaNoWriMo friends would say is a “pantser”.
George R.R. Martin writer of the “Game of Thrones” has a great way of describing the different types of writers. He believes there are “Architects” and “Gardeners”:
“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.” — George R.R. Martin.
George Lucas worked on STAR WARS for thirteen months at which point he had written only a few sentences. Yet everyday he climbed the stairs to this office and worked for 8 hours straight adhering to a strict Puritanical work ethic, even if he sat there all day and wrote nothing. He would not allow himself to leave.
“I work with a hard pencil and regular lined paper. I put a big calendar on my wall. Tuesday I have to be on page 25. Wednesday, on page 30, and so on. And every day I “X” it off. I did those five pages. And if I do my five pages early I get to quit. Never happens.” — George Lucas
Jerry Seinfeld tells a story in the documentary COMEDIAN about when he was starting out in the business. In the beginning he explains that he used to wait around for inspiration to strike him to actually sit down and do any real work. Then one day in Manhattan he noticed a group of construction workers who were sitting around having lunch. As he tells it:
“One day I was watching these construction workers go back to work. I was watching them kind of trudging down the street. It was like a revelation to me. I realized these guys don’t want to go back to work after lunch. But they’re going. That’s their job. If they can exhibit that level of dedication for that job I should be able to do the same. Trudge your ass in.”
That for me was the ticket. Even if I wasn’t writing a script or an original piece of fiction everyday, I knew that to hone my skill, I needed to write everyday. Another reason for the blog. It is the equivalent for me of journaling about the work-process. Hopefully, by making it public I force myself to be accountable.
So, if I ever have one of those days where I don’t want to do the work, or the story is coming in painful drips and drabs, and I am thinking about quitting before I get my pages in for the day, in the back of my mind I hear Rick Rosen’s words of advice: “Writers are always writing.”
And so I get up. I go to the office. Make the coffee. Turn on the computer, open the notebook. And get to work.