if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don't do it. if it's hard work just thinking about doing it, don't do it. if you're trying to write like somebody else, forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else. if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you're not ready. don't be like so many writers, don't be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don't be dull and boring and pretentious, don't be consumed with self- love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don't add to that. don't do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was. Thanks to Dan McGuire and Poets.org http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16549 |
Day: May 12, 2010
I wish it was as simple as aim high, be thoughtful, be ambitious, take some risks, and make a good movie.
I have looked at these 75 problems (yesterday’s 38 + last year’s list) because I have spent the last 20 years making 60 films. Each of those films is a big choice for me and it is not a business choice (although survival enters the equation) or ever an easy choice; I make movies because I love the project, the work, and admire the director.
I think most people would classify the majority of my films as art films. 90% of them were also made with at least partial funding from private sources. I am really proud of them on an artistic level. I am also proud of how they’ve performed for their investors (generally). And every single director I worked with will say they made the movie they wanted, and that inspires me deeply.