David Milch: “The Writer’s Voice” (Part 4)

Videos and transcripts from Milch’s legendary 2001 and 2007 WGA series.

In September 2010, I ran a week-long series featuring key excerpts from a memorable series of presentations in December 2001 by David Milch at the WGA Theater in Beverly Hills. Then I stumbled upon this: An entire series available on YouTube called The Idea of the Writer by Milch from a second WGA presentation, this one from December 2007. Since Milch is both an amazing writer and thinker about writing, each day this week I will reprise my posts featuring transcript excerpts from Milch’s 2001 presentation and embed videos from his 2007 series.

Television credits (as creator)

• Beverly Hills Buntz (1987–1988) — co-creator, writer, producer of this Hill Street Blues spin-off
• Capital News (1990) — co-creator, writer, producer
• NYPD Blue (1993–2005) — co-creator, writer, executive producer
• Brooklyn South (1997–1998) — co-creator, executive producer
• Total Security (1997) — co-creator, writer
• Big Apple (2001) — creator, writer, executive producer
• Deadwood (2004–2006) — creator, writer, executive producer
• John from Cincinnati (2007) — co-creator, writer, executive producer
• Last of the Ninth (2009) — creator, writer, executive producer
• Luck (2010) — creator, writer, executive producer
• The Money (2014) — writer, executive producer

Awards and recognition

• 1993 Emmy Award, Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series (Hill Street Blues)
• 1994 Edgar Award, Best Episode in a Television Series Teleplay (NYPD Blue, “4B or Not 4B”)
• 1995 Emmy Award, Best Drama Series (NYPD Blue)
• 1995 Edgar Award, Best Episode in a Television Series Teleplay (NYPD Blue, “Simone Says”) (shared with Steven Bochco and Walon Green)
• 2006 Austin Film Festival, Outstanding Television Writer Award recipient

Not to mention the 259 episodes of “N.Y.P.D. Blue” he’s credited with writing.

I did this post back in July that featured some great video of Milch sharing his thoughts about writing. At the time, I noted this:

What leaped to mind when I read the news about the new HBO series was a series of presentations Milch gave at the WGA Theater several years ago. They were covered and excerpted in the fine WGA journal “Written By” over the course of several months. I remember reading them, both fascinated and inspired by Milch’s ideas.

I contacted “Written By” and they have kindly offered to create electronic versions of the original hard copies, so I can excerpt them on GITS. Look forward to that sometime soon.

Here are some of Milch’s comments from those presentations at the WGA Theater from back in 2001, excerpted from the “Written By” journal. Part 4:

I’m sure that a lot of you want to know what gets you “in” [the entertainment industry]. And the answer is this: If you generate a passionate, humble connection with your work, you’re in. And the paradox is that you don’t need whatever you thought you needed, and when you don’t need it, that’s when they want you. But them wanting you is, by that time, an utter irrelevancy. When I said, “The price sometimes is terrible,” of trusting in the world, of turning over our manuscripts, of offering up our child — a sustained commitment to the enterprise that you’ve begun sometimes has a terrible, terrible price. There are all sorts of distractions and accommodations made available to us in our journey, to take a lesser path rather than absolute loyalty and devotion to the separate life of our work.

The extraordinary thing for me as a parent was that every day my child taught me more. When we had another child, it was geometrically more. You think that your heart will burst if there’s any more love. And it just keeps growing, and that’s what will happen with your engagement with material, to the extent you are able to sustain a selfless connection with it.

The process will be variable, and there will be days when it’s not so good, and there’s deep instruction in that as well. If you keep coming back in humility — without wanting to belabor the analogy — as a parent, then you can’t ever say, “Okay, that’s it.” Even if you say it, it doesn’t stop. Even if you blow town, it doesn’t stop. If you say it’s over, that’s okay, but the child still lives.

As much as one aspires to selflessness in connection with the work — and selflessness does not mean the denial of the self — whatever our heads are telling us is ultimately irrelevant to the living thing, the living breathing thing with which you have entered into a kind of parental responsibility for a little while. And then, at a certain point, it [the thing] gets up and runs away from you.

I remember the first time that happened to me. At first I was terrified, and then I thought I could fly. You’ve entered into a connection with something else, which is not limited by your selfhood.

There is a good lesson here about humility. Be passionate about your work, but also humble. Creativity, like children — as Milch alludes to above — can be both enrapturing and soul-testing. The keys are to be there, put in the time, bring passion to the table… and embrace humility.

Day 4: David Milch on The Idea of the Writer.

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Tomorrow Part 5 of “The Idea of the Writer” with David Milch.

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