Once, a famous writer gave a talk to a lot of aspiring writers. This kind of thing happens all the time — and not just at colleges and universities, but at weekend scriptwriting workshop seminars and writers conferences, that sort of thing.
It’s a small industry. In airport Hiltons and community colleges around the country, on any given weekend, some intermittently successful author or screenwriter holds forth before a rapt cluster of people who aspire to be intermittently successful authors or screenwriters. They come for career advice; he comes to act lordly and superior.
What the famous writer wanted to talk about to the hundreds of wishful acolytes he had in the audience was “artsy writer stuff” — finding your voice, staying true to your vision, creating vivid characters.
What the aspiring writers wanted to talk about was “working writer stuff” — how much do you get paid, how do you find an agent, how do you lease a BMW? What time of day do you prefer to write? What kind of pen do you use for corrections? Do you outline every step? Do you keep a notebook?
The famous writer rolled his eyes pompously and then told everyone his private writer’s method. “I don’t write outlines,” he said. “I don’t write anything at all, really, until it’s all vivid and written in my head.”
“In fact,” he went on, “I forbid myself from writing. I consciously avoid the computer for days, weeks, as I work it all out in my head. And then, when I can stand it no longer, when my head is full, I race to the computer and begin typing.”
“What happens,” was the next the question, “if you don’t get to the computer in time?”
Which is a fair question, I guess, if you believe the writer in the first place. If you believe that as he went about his day, getting the dry cleaning, picking up scotch tape, and remembering to buy batteries, he was actually thinking. That he was actually working things out in his head.
I’ve been a professional writer for 30 years, and I’d love to rationalize confidently that my daily list of errands, all mixed up in the most inefficient order possible to maximize the time spent away from the computer, somehow counts as time on the clock.
Last year, when I was supposed to be working on a script, I was invited to deliver a talk to a bunch of young writers just starting out. The topic of the talk: “Maintaining Focus and Enthusiasm Throughout the Writing Process.”
I immediately accepted the invitation.
Writers, in general, love giving these talks, love giving advice, because it’s as close to writer-ish activity as you can get without actually having to write, which is something that all writers, or at least all honest writers, hate.
The script was eventually over a month late. But the talk I gave on “Maintaining Focus” was pretty well received.
The truth is, I’ve probably come about as far as a person with my kind of epic, biblical-scale laziness can come and still be able to afford to eat out once in a while. And luckily for me, the entertainment business, up till now, was designed to sustain exactly this kind of slovenly personality type.
I’m not sure that’s going to last, though. There are ominous signs that show business is toughening up. Viewers are starting to reduce the number of subscriptions they’ll pay for. Costs are going up. Margins are getting squeezed. Belts are tightening all over town.
Writers, too, are starting to get more industrious and entrepreneurial, which are all code words for: Writers are starting to write. And that’s going to make the rest of us look bad.
What happens if you don’t get to the computer in time? Someone else gets there first.
Rob Long is a television writer and producer and the co-founder of Ricochet.com.
