Good or bad, last week is gone, and the drudgery that is life marches on. More conversations, more outreach, more getting the name out there — and suddenly there’s barely time for writing. Funny how that works.

Now trust me when I say this: the day-to-day grind of outreach is not writing. Writing is sitting down and actually doing the thing. Screenplay. Prose. Poem. Blog. That’s the creative muscle. And if you don’t exercise it every day — every single day — it will poop on the carpet.

And then where are you? You’ve got guilt, a rusty imagination… and a smelly carpet. Nobody wants that.
Hey, I get it. Life throws a lot at you. Then you add chores for agents and managers on top of that. When I had a full-time job, I got up at 5:30 every morning just to write until 7:30 and make it to work at 8. When I was paid to write Axe to Grind and had a seven-day deadline, the schedule got uglier — up at 4 to 7:30, then again at 6 p.m. until I passed out (usually around 8 p.m.). And I’ll be honest: I loved it.

I still crawled through the day job, but the day went faster because the real work had already happened. Another gig followed — this time I had a whole month — and suddenly the schedule felt luxurious.
Here’s the point: be ready. You never know when the call comes. There are very few guarantees in this business. But one thing is guaranteed — the more you write, the better you get. Period.

So what are you waiting for? Get to work.

One day, when you least expect it, someone will reach out about your work and say, “Let’s talk.” After you clean up from the unexpected excitement, there are a few things to remember.
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After a few decades of these calls — some great, some strange, and some very educational — I’ve learned there’s always a pattern. I know how easy it is to get overexcited at the prospect of someone taking the time to discuss your work. Take a moment, change your pants, and celebrate how great you are. Just remember: after that is when the real work begins.
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In any creative discussion where someone contacts you about your project, the ratio should be 70/30 — and the 70 percent is not you. As much as you’d love to explain the inspiration, the struggle, and the blood, sweat, and tears that birthed it, you’re there to listen. Let them talk. What do they want? Why this project? Why you?
The “prettiest girl at the dance” analogy works, but Groucho Marx’s line — “I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member” — might be the healthier mindset. Stay curious. Let them lead the conversation.
Never agree to anything on the call. Answer questions clearly and concisely — ideally in under a minute — and don’t be afraid of silence. Silence isn’t your problem. You have decisions to make, and you won’t make good ones by filling every awkward pause.

Most important: make no decisions during the conversation. Whether you have a team (manager, agent, lawyer, or faithful canine companion), tell them you need to speak with them first. It gives you breathing room — and breathing room is where good decisions live.

​I once had lunch with a celebrated director/writer/DP from the 1970s and ’80s, and the conversation turned to what we listen to while sitting at our keyboards, trying to coax screenplays into existence. Not surprisingly, his answer lined up perfectly with mine: original motion picture soundtracks.
We didn’t get into the merits of over-ear headphones versus AirPods, but the larger takeaway was clear — nothing immerses you in your fictional world quite like a well-crafted film score. Of course, what you listen to inevitably depends on the genre you’re writing in. A noir demands a different emotional palette than a western, a romance, or a thriller.
In 1997, I had the pleasure of meeting the great Elmer Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, To Kill a Mockingbird). I wish I could have told him then how deeply his music shaped so many of my spec western screenplays. Nothing put me in the mood for a dusty, high-noon showdown like Sons of Katie Elder, The Shootist, or The Comancheros.
As my writing evolved, so did my musical tastes. Before long, I found myself immersed in the work of John Williams, John Barry, Jerry Goldsmith, Maurice Jarre, Miklós Rózsa, Bernard Herrmann, and Lalo Schifrin. And today, with composers like Danny Elfman, Blake Neely, Hans Zimmer, and Alan Silvestri still going strong, I figure I’ve got inspiration for a very long writing life ahead of me.
Naturally, this list barely scratches the surface — I’ve left out at least twenty other favorites (Mark Knopfler, Alfred Newman, Randy Newman, and many more).
So, as a little window into my current mindset — and maybe my personality — here’s a recent playlist. See if you can guess what genres I might be wrestling with at the moment:
Miklós Rózsa

• The Killers (Main Title)
• Double Indemnity (Main Title)

Roy Webb

• Out of the Past

Franz Waxman

• Sunset Boulevard

Thomas Newman

• Saving Mr. Banks (End Title)
• Road to Perdition (Main Title)

Alan Silvestri

• Forrest Gump Suite

Maurice Jarre

• The Paris Waltz

At the very least, a playlist like this reminds me why I fell in love with movies — and with writing — in the first place. Great film music doesn’t just accompany a story; it creates atmosphere, stirs memory, and quietly nudges you toward emotion you didn’t even know you were chasing. So if you ever catch yourself staring at a blank page, maybe don’t stare harder — turn the music up. Chances are, the story is already hiding in the score.

​This week I received a perfect email from a producer about regarding a screenplay. It was not a bouquet of roses. It was not even a fruit basket. And it definitely was not “clear your calendar, we’re shooting in June.”
What it was was something far rarer in this business than a three-picture deal with Netflix: a thoughtful, encouraging, human response.

I’m not going to get into the particulars of the project or quote the email line by line. If I did, I’d sound like one of those fishermen who swears the trout was “this big.” Let’s just say: the door was not slammed, bolted, or welded shut. It was — pleasantly — left ajar. In Hollywood, that’s basically a parade.

If you’ve spent any time in this business, you know the emotional rhythm: you send something out, you wait, you check your inbox 437 times a day, you convince yourself everyone hates you, then you decide maybe you should just sell shoes at Macy’s.

Then — ping — a note arrives. Not a miracle, not a disaster, but something in between. Something sane. Something respectful. Something that says, “We’re not done with you yet.” That’s not nothing! It’s also not the war. This email didn’t greenlight a movie, change my bank balance, or cause Tom Hanks to suddenly call and ask if I wanted to hang out. But it was a battle — and more importantly, it was a battle that was won. Someone engaged. Someone reconsidered. Someone is willing to look again. That’s forward motion, and in this town, forward motion is like finding a clean bathroom on the 405 at rush hour — shocking, appreciated, and worth celebrating.

Here’s what I’ve learned after too many years in rooms with bad coffee, colder water, and warmer egos: you almost never win big all at once. You win in drips, inches, and occasionally in the form of a kind email. Persistence is not glamorous. It’s less “hero charging the castle” and more “guy stubbornly pushing a stalled car uphill while muttering to himself.” But careers are built on that hill, not on the summit.
So, if you’re out there sending your work into the ether, refreshing your email, and wondering if anyone is actually reading — this is your reminder:

Never give up.
Never surrender!