lesson #1 of save as draft:

me in italy

“Things that just occur to you aren’t ideas. I’ve read thousands of screenplay pages that are lousy with things that have occurred to people—but don’t have a single idea. And curiously, not even ideas are enough for a film, or a book, or whatever it is that doesn’t yet exist. That script you’re talking about—for now—is in the “occurrences” zone. I stopped just in time, before convincing myself there was something to it. Sometimes the timing of contests, grants, workshops pushes you to look at occurrences in another way. You’ve got to be really patient, avoid the vanity of being productive. The process of questioning the world is not so simple. Variety and difference are important. These are not things you lay hands on by goofing around. I take care not to pollute the planet with my stuff. Each time I hear a production house is looking for content, it makes me shudder. Because of the brazen honesty of it. They want content because there are containers. All this smacks of garbage. I think we’re in an age of producing for no good reason. And soon the age of editing for no good reason will come.”

makes you think