Write or Die...

[Dúnedain]

I wanted to share this with those of you who have a passion for writing as I do. This is an article that spells it all out and gives you a good kick in the butt to do what you love. It was written by the guy who just had his creation premiere as a series on HBO this past year, Carnivale. The article was written a few years ago, but it is a testament to doing what you love...

Write or die.
by: Daniel Knauf -- credits: BLIND JUSTICE (HBO)
Why screenwriting? I didn't exactly set out to be a screenwriter. Although I always loved movies, my early interests ran toward fine art. I drew and painted my way through high-school and early college.

In my second year at Pasadena Community College (ahh, yes. PCC. The 13th grade), I took my first creative writing class with Jerene Hewitt and discovered that I had some talent. There, I had an epiphany (whether it was due the class or the vast quantities of illegal drugs I was ingesting, I'll never know), namely, that the human mind is the biggest canvas of all, and words were the medium of choice.

So I changed my major.

It was also in Hewitt's class that I met my first fringe-Hollywood shark--this odd, older guy who approached me during a break and told me how "terrific" and "visual" my writing was and what a "great ear" for dialogue I had. He then offered me money to remove my shoes and allow him to sit on my bare feet for the duration of class.

No. Just kidding. Although, in a way, the truth is even seedier.

After complimenting my work, he asked me if I'd be willing to write a screenplay based on one of his "ideas." I told him I'd think about it. That evening, I called him and asked how much he'd be willing to pay me for the assignment. He went totally ballistic, shouting that he was offering me "the opportunity of a lifetime."

This is interesting, I thought. I wondered if he'd ever tried that line on a plumber or an auto-mechanic. "Five-hundred bucks for a rebuilt transmission? You asshole! I'm offering you the opportunity of a lifetime here!"

I decided to give him the same answer the mechanic would likely give him: "Thanks for the opportunity, but, uhm, **** off, okay?"

The truly absurd thing about my first little adventure is that it was repeated (and is still repeated) regularly by various players and non-players alike. From parking-lot attendants to seasoned producers, everybody's got this "great" idea for a movie. All they just need is somebody to "connect the dots."

Right.

Since I'm a native Angeleno--that is, I grew up in L.A.--I knew what every native knew: The movie-business is for saps and misfits. So I focused on writing poetry and prose, steering well clear of anything that smacked of "screenwriting." Consequently, I steered well clear of anything that smacked of "income."

That changed when I decided at a ludicrously young age to get married. I set aside my dreams of being the next Bukowski and worked a series of real jobs until I was twenty-seven or so. At that point, I was fairly successful, wearing expensive suits and making scads of dough as an insurance broker. I had a lovely wife, a house and a wonderful son.

I also had fallen into the habit of waking at two in the morning every night, slipping into the guest bedroom and sucking on the muzzle of a loaded shotgun for five to fifteen minutes.

Now, the obsessive desire to paint your final masterpiece on the ceiling with your brains is definitely a sign that something is amiss. Either that or a radical piece of performance art.

I decided to seek help for what turned out to be a pretty clear case of major clinical depression. Talk-therapy helped, but only to a point. I tried anti-depressants, but they were about as effective as bullets on Superman. But, finally, I did find some Kryptonite: I started writing again.

I've heard it said that one does not "choose" to write any more than one "chooses" to breathe. For some of us, it's a necessary function. It certainly was in my case. Write or Die, that's my motto.

So I churned out short stories, still steadfastly avoiding anything that involved shots and sluglines. I'd finish one, send it off to to a few magazines, then start another. When the rejection slips came, I pinned them up on a corkboard over my computer. I didn't care. My primary motivation was strictly to exercise the craft. Publication was really only an afterthought in those days.

Write or Die.

Finally, I did get published. The title was "Bess." It was a dark story about a young man whose apartment is haunted by his landlord's daughter. A few months passed and I received a check for $13.50 US from 2AM Magazine.

Thirteen dollars and fifty cents. I was a pro. Yikes.

As I mentioned, I'm a depressive. But I'm a pragmatic depressive. And I realized that as long as I'd been doomed to roll this particular rock up this particular hill, I might as well get paid a living wage for it.

I decided to try writing a screenplay.

Ironically, that sleazeball in Mrs. Hewitt's class was right. The form played to all my strengths--visuals and dialogue. As I wrote, I began attending classes and seminars, reading books. I finished it in three months.

Fortuitously, at an AFI workshop, the speaker that week was a development person for a company that produced cheapie movies. Someone asked what they were looking for, and she blithely described exactly what my script happened to be: low budget, high concept, horror.

I approached her afterwards and said (with brazen confidence borne of utter cluelessness), "I've got something you're going to want to read." I was right. They bought it. Four-thousand dollars. Then they hired me to rewrite another one.

None of those movies got made, thank God. I had no idea what I was doing. Just raw talent, really. No finesse or real craft. But I learned. And the cool thing was that I got paid to learn.

continued...