[amazon_link id="0547055323" target="_blank" ][/amazon_link] What writer doesn’t want to have their work end up in a “best” collection? Yes, even the ones who scoff at commercialism and popular opinion do. The Best American Short Stories series has been running for a good long time but the collections are kept fresh with yearly guest editors. My favorite feature of these books are the writer’s notes — insightful comments from the writers themselves about their stories. Though the notes were more essential in the days before the Internet provided instantaneous transmission of a writer’s every 140-character-long thought, they still provide a worthwhile virtual mini-panel on the state of the art in short fiction. If your writer leans more toward genre fiction, check out other collections such as the venerable[amazon_link id="0312608977" target="_blank" ] Year’s Best Science Fiction[/amazon_link].

[amazon_link id="B002FQJT3Q" target="_blank" ][/amazon_link]Digital publishing is an unstoppable freight train charging towards us. Get on board or get squashed to jelly beneath the steel wheels of progress. The Kindle is probably the cheapest and most hassle-free way to hop on board and see what all the fuss is about. The screen is a pleasure to read in bright light, and the smaller size Kindle adds nothing to the weight or bulk of your messenger bag. There are a few quirks. You can’t read in bad light (just like a book) — the screen does not produce any light on it’s own. The smaller Kindle is really too small to effectively display PDFs. If your writer spends a majority of their time squinting at screenplay PDFs on their laptop, then go for the [amazon_link id="B002GYWHSQ" target="_blank" ]Kindle DX[/amazon_link].

[amazon_link id="B00138CX30" target="_blank" ][/amazon_link] Music to write by. Normally, writing music should be instrumental only — can’t have too many words competing for brainspace. But there is something very atmospheric about the tracks on Bob Dylan’s [amazon_link id="B00138CX30" target="_blank" ]Time Out of Mind[/amazon_link] and the vocals are subdued if plaintive. The track “Not Dark Yet” was featured in the ultimate writer movie, [amazon_link id="B001ZS5CD6" target="_blank" ]Wonder Boys[/amazon_link] If your writer’s work is filled with angst and wounded characters, this is the record to spin. For a more cinematic, epic, sweeping soundtrack, try [amazon_link id="B003DUA56S" target="_blank" ]Clash of the Titans[/amazon_link]. Terrible movie, good generic action-movie score.

[amazon_link id="8883701127" target="_blank" ][/amazon_link]Unassuming and built to last — we may live in the digital age, but when paper is called for the Moleskine notebook provides hundreds of durably bound, creamy off-white pages just asking to be filled with Great Ideas. The spine can be bent clear back on itself without breaking the binding or loosening a single page. The covers are stiff but flexible cardboard and covered with water-resistant oilcloth. Not flashy, but definitely classy. There’s a reason these things are almost a writer’s cliche.

[amazon_link id="B000GTR2F6" target="_blank" ][/amazon_link]Most writers juggle multiple hats. Writing often has to wait to the very end of the day. That, or it has to come first thing in the morning, long before any reasonable person would think of getting out of bed. It’s no wonder many writers, especially those first starting out, require a constant energy boost. I keep the [amazon_link id="B000GTR2F6" target="_blank" ]Keurig Platinum [/amazon_link]on my desk. It’s an essential piece of equipment, right alongside my printer and external hard drive. Making a fresh cup of coffee takes about one minute. Thanks to the self-contained filter cups, there is no mess to clean up. At all. Also good for tea, iced coffee, and provides instant hot water for hot cocoa or soup mix. Addendum: After eleven months of solid performance in light use, my Keurig Platinum Brewing System has suddenly stopped working. The pump no longer pumps water from the reservoir, and though the status readout says it’s “brewing” nothing happens. No brewing. No coffee. No nothing. I’ve done all the recommended cleaning, descaling and maintenance and it’s still not working. There are reports of widespread issues with this machine. I have emailed customer support and they have not responded within the two business day time frame they promised. Therefore, I’m withdrawing this recommendation until I hear from Keurig and this gets resolved to my satisfaction.

[amazon_link id="B001TIJWKQ" target="_blank" ][/amazon_link]And where is your writer supposed to put all the new awesome stuff you buy them? A briefcase is far too corporate and a backpack is far too Kindergarten. A writer has one foot in both these worlds and so does Crumpler. Witness the honestly named [amazon_link id="B001TIJWKQ" target="_blank" ]Considerable Embarrassment Laptop Bag[/amazon_link]. This bag holds a 15″ laptop with room left over for books, magazines, moleskins and other writerly essentials. Or step up to the even roomier [amazon_link id="B001TN6S8K" target="_blank" ]Dreadful Embarrassment[/amazon_link], meant for 17″ laptops (always buy one size larger bag than you think you need). I’ve had a Crumpler camera bag for a couple of years and it’s proven to be tough, well-built and rock-solid.

Of course, if you really love your writer you might consider gifting them with a Crumpler bag stuffed with all the items mentioned here. Your writer may be confused by this strange new emotion called joy, but it would only be a matter of time before the Great American Novel/Screenplay/Haiku is produced.

Also, please give Jeffrey Thomas‘s web site a visit. It is his art that graces the virtual cover of Miss Spyder. He was gracious enough to grant me permission to use it. Jeffrey’s surreal art was the original illustration that ran alongside my story when it was first published seven years ago in Flesh & Blood. Sentimental me, I wrote and asked if he would be kind enough to let me have his original art. He sent it to me right away. I’ve hung on to it all these years, though I never suspected I’d have the chance to reunite illustration and story in a new digital format.

The Future is awesome.

Go to the “Miss Spyder” free download page now »

But there’s really no real trick to writing a screenplay fast. Not any that are worth a $50 cover price, anyway. Honest. I’ve written piles of screenplays, most of them in under ten weeks when I was a grad student at UCLA. Trust me on this, just having a first draft is only the beginning of the process and it’s no great feat.^[1]

I’m contemplating a series of posts that will be accessible here for free which will take everyone through a ten week screenplay writing process.^[2] Or maybe twelve weeks or sixteen. In any event, it won’t cost a thing and if you want to get a screenplay written, you will. Happens all the time, so I know you can do it.

In the meantime, as promised, here’s a few tools to help you get through that first draft, just in case you’re hung up and need a little help now. I like to think not in terms of writing fast, but in terms of keeping momentum. The idea is just to keep moving forward. That’s what these tools are designed to do — get you over the rough spots so you can keep going.

Timed Writing

I didn’t say any of these “tools” were new.

This one goes by many names, but I like to refer to it as THE EGG TIMER OF DOOM!

Got three hours to write? You’re screwed. That’s a long stretch. Too long to stay focused. You need to break that down into shorter sessions. Get a kitchen timer, one that goes tick-tick-tick is good. You know, like a bomb. You want to feel like something’s at stake. Like, when the bell rings, you are gonna die. Okay, maybe not to that extreme, but the idea here is to put just enough pressure on yourself that you shut down the inner critic and just fly.

You only have to follow one rule — as long as the timer ticks, you keep writing. No stopping until the alarm sounds. No matter what.

Only you can tell what amount of time works best for you. I would start with shorter amounts and increase the time in successive back-to-back sessions. Write for five minutes, take a breather, then set the timer for ten and go again. I would say twenty minutes is the probably the most you could get away with and still feel the pressure to write.

You can’t, or at least shouldn’t, write like this all time. But if you find yourself avoiding a difficult scene, or you have trouble just getting started, or you find yourself distracted and not getting any work done, consider a timed writing session to help you snap back into focus.

List of 20

I used to call this the list of five, but I modified it after I heard Bill Marsili talk about basically the same idea at a screenwriting con.

This tool is best for those times when you arrive at one of those “I’ll figure it out later” moments in the outline — only later is now. An outline can’t contain all the details of your script, after all, and sometimes you just have to gloss. But sooner or later, you come to a chasm that must be crossed and you still have no idea how to get to the other side.

Right there on your writing pad or your laptop screen, brainstorm twenty ideas. Don’t judge, just list. How can my protag escape a prison cell with no doors or windows? Or survive a fire that kills everyone else in the warehouse? Or convince his girlfriend that he really changed this time, honest? List twenty ideas, no matter how implausible or goofy they are.

You know why this works. Once you get your brain a-problem solvin, it won’t be long before a good solution shows up. After all, it’s hard to come up with twenty bad ideas all in a row. You’re bound to hit on something workable, even if it’s by accident. You probably won’t even get to twenty.

Write the Bad Version

What if you really can’t think of a workable idea, even after you tried writing with a timer and brainstorming twenty ideas? What if you totally suck and all you have right now are bad ideas?

Go ahead and write the bad version. On purpose.

Why do that? Because you are taking control instead of being the victim. Instead of another day of getting beaten down and having nothing to show, you will have taken a stand and demonstrated your commitment to yourself and to the craft.

And because it’s really hard to be consistently bad on purpose for any significant length of time. Like brainstorming, once you get the juices flowing, you’re bound to hit your stride — even if you stumbled around a bit out of the starting blocks.

And finally, because it’s only a draft, no one else will ever see it, and once you have something down on paper, you can start making decisions about it. It’s impossible to edit, rewrite and improve a scene that’s still in your head. So don’t wait for it to be perfect. Get it down on paper. Even if you have to be the worst writer in the world in that moment.

Write it anyway.

1. In fact, I much prefer to skip the first draft altogether and start with the second draft, but that’s a different post.
2. Depends on if there is any interest at all, and if I have the time.

Long, long ago, back in the day, I touched off a bit of a meme when I placed a screenplay progress meter in my sidebar. Everyone had to have one, and the Internet beat a path to my blog looking for the code. Back then, it was all HTML and CSS. The source code had to be edited everytime I wrote a few pages and wanted to update my progress. That was especially a pain when I was on Blogger.

Blogging software has come a long way since then, and WordPress in particular has become both incredibly robust and much more user-friendly. Thanks to WordPress’s Widget API, I’ve now been able to do what there was little hope of me doing a few years ago — I’ve transformed my screenplay progress meter into a plug-in widget for WordPress users.

Introducing Dave’s Whizmatic Widgulating Calibrational Scribometer^TM (it’s pronounced scri-BOM-eter). All you have to do is install and activate the plug-in (whizmatic!), drop the widget into your sidebar (widgulate!), fill in a few simple options at the widget control panel (calibrate!), and abrakadoodle: your very own Scribometer^TM screenplay progress meter is now yours to display and you didn’t have to touch a single line of code.

That is, when I get around to releasing it. If you can’t wait, you can email me for the alpha release. Otherwise, wait a bit until I get something I can reasonably call “documentation” done. Then it’s all yours for the taking.^[1]

1. Um, donations accepted, of course.

There are many dangers inherent in leading this double life. It’s easy to lose focus and let writing take a back seat. This is because the day job is more immediate, though not necessarily more important. Plus, in a job you often have other people depending on you, whereas in the early stages of a writing career, the only person you’re likely to disappoint is yourself. And unlike the seemingly endless process of writing and rewriting, a day job often brings the immediate rewards of cash and a sense of accomplishment, of actually having done something.

Not all jobs are satisfying in and of themselves. But even bad jobs become an excuse to not write. Because we’re tired, drained, or don’t have any time left over for ourselves.

That’s why we have make a concentrated effort to make writing a priority in our lives. Writing is not the default behavior for the human animal. It’s way down the list on the hierarchy of needs, for one thing. If we want it to happen, we have to make it happen. On purpose.

So I offer here a few humble suggestions for putting your writing at the center of your life.

Know what you want and how to get it

When you manage to scrape together a few minutes of writing time, you can’t afford to be lost in a fog. You have to know what you want to accomplish and the steps you need to take to get there. So you might spend some time planning your career before you get to the actual writing. That’s okay. You won’t be able to successfully sustain your writing effort until you do.

So, what’s it to be? Are you a feature film writer? Are you gong to direct low-budget independent films from your own screenplays, or are you going to write specs that will probably never be made but land you a writing assignment? Or is TV more your game? How are you going to turn your script into a career? Do you have a contact in mind? Contests? Where is this script going?

Whatever you choose, know what result you desire and be as specific as possible. The more concrete your goal, the more force it will have to pull you through the day to that magic moment when you can sit down and write. If all you have is some vague notion of “someday” writing a screenplay, then that’s probably when you’ll get to it — someday.

Take daily action toward your goal

You have to build and maintain moment toward your writing goal in order to keep the day job from robbing you of your writing career. It’s far too easy to let one day slip buy, and another, and soon a year is gone and you are no further along on your screenplay. I’ve seen it happen to many dear friends. Don’t spin your wheels, take daily action toward your goal.

And that means moving forward, not rewriting the same pages over and over.

Begin and end your day with writing

One of the ways you can make writing seem like a bigger part of your life is to make the day job seem smaller. Do this by bookending it with writing. That way, your day is really about your writing which happens to be interrupted by your employer, rather than the other way around.

I’m not a morning person myself. I hate almost everything about the morning. But getting up early and writing was a revelation to me. I discovered, for one, that what I hated most about getting out of bed in the morning was that I was going to work. Getting out of bed to write felt very different — in a good way. It was time just for me, not for anyone else, least of all my employer. Second, the words flowed much faster in my still-half-asleep state. For one, the day had yet to take a crap on me, so my consciousness wasn’t full of distractions and petty emotions.

Remember what you want and who you are

Stay above the fray and just get your job done with minimal drama.

I’m a preschool teacher, which is traditionally a job held by women. I am the only male on a staff of over a dozen, just at my center. Maybe it wouldn’t be any different with men, I don’t know, but I can tell you this — I am surrounded by drama and petty squabbles and territory fights and mood swings that would give you whiplash. It would be very, very easy to get down into this mud pit and start slinging, but I have a mantra.

I’m not a teacher, I’m an unemployed screenwriter.

During the day I’m there to do a job, and I do it well. I get the kids happily engaged in activities. I lead group time. I read books aloud. I sing. I plan curriculum. I observe children’s development and write assessments. I care for the classroom pets. But I’m not getting sucked into the bullshit. I don’t do drama. I don’t take sides or gossip. I don’t have the time or energy for that because I’m a screenwriter. I’m just here at the day job until my next writing gig. You ladies can fight amongst yourselves, I’m going to save my energy for the page.

Set a writing goal to accomplish by the time you get home

Again, this is about having something to pull you through the day. You need a target to aim your arrow at — the arrow that’s tied to your ankle with an unbreakable golden thread.

If you write in the morning as you should, then you probably have a sense of what you need to do next. Keep this in mind throughout the day and make it your aim to tackle it when you get home. This can be a story problem (How are the guys going to bust Zeke out of the asylum?) or a task relating to your growth as a writer (Need to write that query letter). Whatever it is, you should be mulling it over during the day so that when you arrive home, you are ready to hit the deck running.

Wash the day away

One of the biggest obstacles I faced was in making the transition from worker-bee to self-employed writer at the end of my work day.

Most of the time, I’d go home completely spent, shovel dinner down my gullet and flop down in the recliner and watch TV until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, with a solemn promise to myself that I’d write tomorrow…or on the weekend…or on my vacation…or someday.

What I needed was a way to make a clean break from the work day and reset for my writing time. Being a sedentary slob, it never occurred to me to work out, and it seemed counter intuitive that exercise would give one an energy boost. Think about it. How can you have more energy after spending energy? That seems to defy the laws of thermodynamics.

But not only does a short workout — and a brisk shower! — renew your energy at the end of the day, it has a cleansing effect on your tortured mind. It improves your mood substantially and distances you mentally from all the crap you’ve had to put up with and couldn’t do anything about. Suddenly, you are destressified and ready to focus on something else…like writing.

And even if you can’t, or won’t, work-out, a little physical movement — walking to the corner store, doing some gardening or cooking a gourmet meal — can help create that transition, separating work and home. In the least, take a shower and change your clothes. You’ll feel like a new you.

Look forward to periodic group events

Nothing kept me afloat after film school more than regular writer’s group meetings. I had something to look forward to every other Friday night. It was a chance to get out of my work-day mindset and be among those who shared the same struggle, the same sorts of goals. It’s very, very reassuring to throw off that sense of isolation and find yourself among friends.

Also — and this is critical — the group meetings imposed a structure on me, rather than me having to rely on self-motivation. Relying on your own self-discipline is certainly important, but you want to mix it up a bit and cover your bases. If you have an off-week, it’s not as easy to shirk off pages when you know your group is expecting them.

So do what you can to find that for yourself — be part of a group on a regular basis. Start your own group if you have to. Heck, even if you don’t know enough people who write in your area, you probably could round up enough people for a regular movie-appreciation night. And, lucky you, you live in the information age. The online community has made this a very small world, indeed. Opportunities abound to be part of the screenwriting community on the Internet. You could even, I don’t know, start a blog.

If you are lucky enough to live in Southern California, you can take a screenwriting extension course at one of several universities or join one of several amateur screenwriter associations. You can enroll in private film schools, or sign up for UCLA’s year long Professional Program, which is based on the format of their renowned MFA program.

Structure your day, week, month and year around your writing

The rhythm of your life is either governed by the seasons of the writing world, or by the whims of your customers and the agenda of your boss. Which sounds better to you?

Take back your life. We’ve already seen how to minimize the footprint of your job on your daily schedule by beginning and ending the day with writing. We’ve set up weekly or bi-weekly group events to bring some external motivations to bear and to give us something more to look forward to. Now we can continue this approach through the months and for the entire year.

Make yourself a writing calendar. Can be paper, in Outlook or even online. I keep two writing calendars, actually. My project calendar is about six-weeks long, and I record my daily writing quota and milestones for the project overall. This keeps me on track, and also shows the consequences of going off-track. If I skip a couple of writing days, it might not feel like much at the time, but when I check in with my project calendar I can see that I’ve lost twelve pages already. Damn. It adds up. Of course this calendar is constantly under revision, but merely interacting with it keeps my writing goals alive in my mind and on the front burner. That’s half the battle.

My other calendar^[2] holds dates for personal writing retreats, deadlines for major screenwriting contests, and dates for various screenwriting-related events such as the Austin Film Festival. I’m lucky enough to have a job with good benefits. I get ample vacation time, so I try to take at least one three-day weekend a month and a two-week vacation every year. Not everyone gets that luxury, and for a long time I didn’t either. But now that I’ve got it, I want to use my vacation time to subsidize my writing career.

I call my monthly three-day weekends my “writing retreats” — they are a way of keeping myself focused for the long haul, and allow time to check in and make any necessary course corrections, or act as a chance to find inspiration, or just to catch up on any missed writing time.

For my first retreat I went all-out and rented a cozy beach cottage in Crystal Cove. Not every retreat has to be fancy (if only I could afford a beach cottage every month!). The point is to schedule yourself some extended time on a regular basis to really immerse yourself in your writing. If you can get away, great. Even if that means hoofing it to a local cafe or library. Be creative and do what inspires you. Imagine how you would feel after a year of extended weekends spent renewing your commitment to your writing career in a way that inspires and invigorates you.

Finally, think Big Picture and bring structure to your year with your writing calendar. Plan to have a final draft done and ready to submit by a contest deadline. Plan to attend a major conference or film festival and practice your schmoozing. Sign up for a pitch fest, just so you have a reason to finish that script and practice your pitching skills. Use deadlines and events to motivate and keep those commitments.

It’s a wonderful writing life

So that’s it, that’s my prescription for keeping the day job from killing your writing career before it even starts. Have a definite end-game in mind and know how to get there. Maintain your momentum by taking daily action toward your goal. Use a mantra or other device to keep in mind what you want most and who you are, even in the middle of all the work-day crap. Make a clean break from the working world at the end of the day and reinvigorate yourself by working out, showering and changing into your writing clothes. Have something to look forward to on a regular basis like a writer’s group meeting. And finally, structure the days, weeks, months and years of your life around your writing. Doing all these things will protect your nascent writing career by keeping the day job in its place and putting your writing at the center of your life.

Read this post in Hungarian.

1. Except for the few years that I was in grad school, which was one of the chief reasons I went to grad school.
2. A version of this is now available online.