Approach the Craft Like a Professional Screenwriter

A 4-minute video excerpt featuring… me.

It’s funny how social media works. Fellow screenwriter and colleague Brad Riddell, an associate professor at the DePaul University School of Cinematic Arts, lobbed a tweet at Karen Worden and David Branin, the proprietors of the video writing resource Film Courage

That led to an email exchange between David, Karen, and myself. As it happened, I was going to be in Los Angeles the week of August 5th to help lead a week-long Black List Feature Writers Lab, so we scheduled a time at the Film Courage L.A.-area studio. Karen, who conducted the interview, and David, who ran camera and sound, couldn’t have been nicer, and I’d say it was a pretty solid 80–90 minute conversation.

Here is a 4-minute excerpt in which I answer the question: How does someone who wants to become a professional screenwriter structure their time and go about learning the craft? Among the numerous tips I provide, I talk about a simple formula I came up with over a decade ago: 1, 2, 7, 14. Watch the video to put into place a way of structuring your writing life to maximize your productivity and wrangle your creativity.

To watch the first excerpt from the interview, go here.

Second excerpt, here.

There’s more of the interview to come over the next few weeks, so check out the video clips at Film Courage. Let me know if you agree, disagree, or if you learned anything from the conversation.

Thanks to Brad Riddell for kick-starting this, and to David and Karen at Film Courage for their hospitality and professionalism in conducting the interview.

Twitter: @filmcourage