Successful screenwriter Sylvester Stallone

Dear aspiring screenwriters, here’s a thought for you – Sylvester Stallone is a more successful screenwriter than you.

When you think of screenwriters – if you do – your mind may drift to names like John Logan, John August, Brian Helgeland, or Tony Gilroy. Would you be surprised to learn that Sylvester Stallone has over 18 movie writing credits, including all the Rambo movies, all the Rocky movies, and – surprisingly – Staying Alive, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever. He’s even directed 8 of those himself. Strip away all the acting and he’s still had a great career as a writer/director. Hell, Rocky even earned him an Academy Award nomination. “Yo, Adrian!”

You should be so lucky as to have a writing career anywhere as good as Stallone.

Maybe you’re thinking he’s a rich famous actor. He has an unfair advantage getting scripts to people. Not in 1975. Not only was he a complete unknown with merely $100 in the bank, but when the producers offered him $350,000 for the script for Rocky he turned them down, demanding that he star in it. Now that’s balls.

Next time you’re complaining about how you can’t find enough time to write, think of this: during Rocky IV (1985), Dolph Lundgren hit Sly so hard he had swelling around the heart and had to stay in intensive care for four days.

Sylvester Stallone. He’s that much better than you.

Deal with it.

Screenwriting and depression

Hey, Fus.  Where ya been?  It’s a fair question.  I haven’t been on here in almost a month.  Truth is I fell into a bit of a well and it took awhile to climb out.  I was depressed.  And that caused me to stop writing.  Which depressed me more.

At first I was just taking some time off because I was hunting for an agent/manager.  I’ve been writing like a madman but it’s all for naught if I don’t get it into people’s hands to read.  I was lucky enough to get some feedback from a manager and a working screenwriter.  But that’s all I got.  And then, when I should have gotten back to work, I didn’t.  I can’t explain it.  I kept waiting for the inspiration, the passion to return.  But it never did.

I wasn’t a zombie.  I went to work, made jokes, lived life; but I wasn’t myself.  This, my friends, was my depression.  Perhaps mild when compared with others, but depression all the same.

So how did I occupy my time?  I obsessed over a new email address for a month – finally changing it, twice.  I watched a lot of 60 Minutes and House.  I started painting, took a boxing class, learned to make bread, started drinking scotch, played a lot of Madden.  I did a lot of stuff; none of which was helpful to my career.  I wanted to get back to work but it seemed like such a distant thing.

I suppose I’ve had seasonal depression before – when I lived on the east coast.  But this was summer in southern California.

And then the epiphany came.

My entire life I’ve been plotting, working, writing, scheming.  Passionate.  Motivated.  And suddenly I wasn’t reading any books, or writing any blogs or screenplays.  I wasn’t pushing myself to work harder and be better.  I didn’t want to make myself better.  I wanted to be told I’m okay.  Which is a primal thing.  Everybody needs a little pat on the back now and again.  But being okay would mean nothing needs to change.  And there is no stasis in life.  Things are always changing.  Stasis is death.

When depression hits you’ve got to find a way to power through and keep working.  There’s only so much life to go around.

So it’s back to the factory for me.  I’m writing this blog.  I’m reading a book on playwriting.  And I’m rewriting my script again.

And if that doesn’t work, I’m taking some drugs.

Where do ideas come from?

I will not tell you how to come up with story ideas. A lot of books will. I think it’s crap.

Every writer I know has a bottle neck of ideas. Like many others, I keep a little book that I fill with things that spring to mind on a random basis: story ideas, titles, scenes, random dialogue. It’s called inspiration. If you don’t have it, you’re not a writer.

Working backwards. Victim’s Song started by the sheer need to shoot something in one location. I knew I was actually going to direct it. So my question was, “Why would someone only be in one location.” The answer was simple. They can’t leave. “Why can’t they leave?” Someone tied them to a chair. “Why did they do that?” And so on until I found I had a story coming together.

From a title. My most recent screenplay came completely from the title. I had come up with what I thought was a bad-ass title. I wrote it in my little book and forgot about it. Eight months later, while I was on a plane about to land, I suddenly remembered the title. I pondered it’s meaning. What would that movie be about? By the time we touched down I had the entire story structured, characters mapped out, and even bits of dialogue. I had to take a pen to a napkin and jot things down.

Without inspiration there can be no passion. Without passion there can be no art.