People ask me questions…
…most of them about screenwriting, which I handle through the bi-weekly Open Forum posts. But I also get emails from folks wondering about why I do what I do with this site and even how I do what I do. So in the interest of clearing the air, here are some answers.
Why do I do Go Into The Story?
It started out as a place for my former students to stay connected — with themselves and with me — so we could continue a dialogue about screenwriting. But also from the very beginning, I envisioned this to be a place to honor screenwriters and screenwriting.
Why? On a personal level, I never felt like I had found a creative home until I stumbled my way into screenwriting. As soon as I discovered it, I knew that screenwriting was the perfect creative outlet for me, particularly given my lifelong love of movies. In other words, I love screenwriting.
In addition, having worked in LA as a screenwriter for 15 years, I got to see in my own way how Hwood and the press in general treats screenwriters. And I think it’s fair to say that screenwriters deserve much more credit than they receive — because no one else in the entire filmmaking process starts off with a blank piece of paper and conjures up an entire story universe.
Those two reasons were the impetus behind shaping the ‘editorial philosophy,’ if you will, and the content to acknowledge and laud publicly the work of screenwriters.
Another dynamic emerged early on, arising from the fact that I’ve been teaching screenwriting (in my spare time) since 2002 — make GITS a site for aspiring screenwriters to go to in order to learn about the craft. And while I’m happy to offer my two cents on the subject, I think it’s more important to provide the collective wisdom of the professional screenwriting community. Hence, using GITS to aggregate as many written and video interviews as possible; the How They Write A Script series; and hopefully more exclusive Q&A’s with working screenwriters in the future.
A big reason why I do this site is you — the community of people who visit here. I’ve been shocked by your response on two levels: First, the sheer number of visitors continues to grow and grow — the site had its best week of traffic ever last week — and if the trend continues, we’ll end the year with over 300,000 unique visitors and I project at least double that many in 2010. Evidently GITS is filling a need. Second, the incredible feedback I receive from you, not only with your great comments on posts, but links to interesting articles you send me, your suggestions for the blog, your reflections on current trends, and so on. In sum, we’ve managed to grow into a vibrant, interesting, and interested community — and I can’t help but be jazzed about that.
Finally there’s this: Before I co-wrote and sold the spec script K-9, I had virtually no awareness of how Hwood operated and certainly zero understanding of what it meant to be a screenwriter. I had a steep learning curve when I first broke into the business in 1987 and, as a result, I made some mistakes. If anything I say on this site can help aspiring writers have more of an understanding of what they might be in for once you get your lucky break and hopefully avoid making similar mistakes, I’ll be a happy camper.
And for all of you who worry about me not monetizing the site — which is true, I don’t make a nickel from GITS — stop fretting. I make a good living at my real job as well as teaching, script consults, and various writing projects. I do GITS because I feel like it’s a benefit for aspiring writers — and that is inherently satisfying to me.
How do I do Go Into The Story?
Because I post so frequently, most people seem to have the impression that I spend all day hovering over the blog site. That’s not true. I use Blogger which allows me to schedule posts in advance. I do almost all my writing for the blog at night. When I do find stories in the course of my work day, I’ll create a post, save it as a draft, then work on it later. Only occasionally do I compose and post items during the work day and then only during the lunch hour.
The thing is I find many of the stories for GITS posts as a result of the research I do for my job with Distillery Pictures. I’m also by nature a curious person, so I do my share of following links down the Web rabbit hole, and find some of the more obscure items that way.
Also I’m a really fast typist. And having taught screenwriting online since 2002, I found that I’m quite good at knocking out some ideas / answers on the fly. So yes, what I do does take time, but I handle it primarily in condensed sessions at night.
Finally let me address the question of why I post as frequently as I do. There are plenty of other screenwriting blogs, some that post something every week or every few days, a handful that post an item per day. But when I started GITS, I wanted to aim at those people who write everyday. If you’re anything like me, you like to warm your way into the writing session. So that’s why each day starts off with a Daily Dialogue (at 6AM EST), hopefully to inspire you as you write dialogue. And something else to inspire you at 10AM EST: Monday it’s On Writing, Tuesday Hollywood Tales, Wednesday Screenwriting 101, Thursday it rotates, but I’m thinking about doing a Scene Description Spotlight in that slot, and Friday Great Scenes.
I figure that’s a nice way to start off a writing session. But then if you’re also anything like me, you enjoy taking a break every few hours. And that’s why I post items during the day, a variety of items dealing with everything from the business of Hollywood to features on screenwriters to box office news.
In other words, I’m trying to make GITS a place to support your writing efforts and your creativity, and a friendly place to boot.
So there you are: More than you ever wanted to know about this blog.
And now may I ask you a few questions:
* Why do you visit GITS?
* What features are your favorites?
* Is there something you think I can do to improve the site?
I’ll be happy to hear from regular readers, but I’d also like to give a special shout-out to all you ‘lurkers’ out there. Love to hear from you, too, so please let me know your thoughts in comments as well.
Let me close with a poem by Howard Nemerov called “Writing”:
Writing
The cursive crawl, the squared-off characters
these by themselves delight, even without
a meaning, in a foreign language, in
Chinese, for instance, or when skaters curve
all day across the lake, scoring their white
records in ice. Being intelligible,
these winding ways with their audacities
and delicate hesitations, they become
miraculous, so intimately, out there
at the pen’s point or brush’s tip, do world
and spirit wed. The small bones of the wrist
balance against great skeletons of stars
exactly; the blind bat surveys his way
by echo alone. Still, the point of style
is character. The universe induces
a different tremor in every hand, from the
check-forger’s to that of the Emperor
Hui Tsung, who called his own calligraphy
the ‘Slender Gold.’ A nervous man
writers nervously of a nervous world, and so on.
Miraculous. It is as though the world
were a great writing. Having said so much,
let us allow there is more to the world
than writing: continental faults are not
bare convoluted fissures in the brain.
Not only must the skaters soon go home;
also the hard inscription of their skates
is scored across the open water, which long
remembers nothing, neither wind nor wake.
I look forward to our continued conversation about screenwriting, movies, and the creative life.
And remember: Trust the process.