A friend who’s a painter sent me this in an e-mail: When you write, are you coming from your gut/heart, or from a merchandising view? Both? It got me thinking about the old Hollywood axiom, “One for love, one for money.” This is the wisdom proffered in good faith to writers, actors and directors by their agents. It means, “Alternate the projects you work on. Do one that’s commercial, then do the next ‘for art.’” The counselor offering that advice is trying to steer her client’s career between Scylla and Charybdis. Don’t be too precious and work only on artsy-fartsy…

If you wanna get strong, go to the gym. If you wanna get fast, go to the track. If you wanna get rich, go to (I’ve never figured that one out). The point is: where the body goes, the spirit follows. Therefore, move thy butt. Put your ass where your heart wants to be. If you want to paint, don’t agonize, don’t ikonize, don’t self-hypnotize. Shut up and get into the studio. Once your physical envelope is standing before the easel, your heart and mind will follow. If you want to write, plant your backside in front of the typewriter.…

A couple of years ago I was struggling to finish a novel called The Profession. I was lost. The book was dying. It was a Bad Moment. Enter Shawn. This is when it’s great to have a friend/editor/literary Kahuna who really knows his stuff. Shawn flew out to L.A. from New York and we beat our brains out for a couple of days. I remember vividly what he finally said: “You know what this book is about? It’s about stories. We all have stories that we tell ourselves about what our lives are—and those stories are always wrong.” That was…

We were talking last week about Villain Speeches. But there are some great Good Guy speeches too. I’m not even sure what to call these. Here’s one from Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham. In the story, Nuke Laloosh (Tim Robbins), the clueless but athletically gifted pitcher, has just been called up to the major leagues, “the Show.” Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), who has been mentoring Nuke in the minors, has just heard the news. Crash knows that he himself is never going to get that life-changing phone call, even though he’s ten times smarter than Nuke and has worked ten times…

I’m a huge fan of Villain Speeches. There’s nothing better in a movie or a book than the moment when the stage is cleared and Satan gets to say his piece. The villain in Gunga Din, played by the great Italian actor Eduardo Ciannelli, is called simply “the Guru.” He’s like Gandhi, if Gandhi had traded non-violence for mega-violence. This speech is kicked off by Cary Grant, as British sergeant Archibald Cutter, confronting the Guru in outrage over his extremely clever plan to lure Cutter’s regiment into a trap and massacre it to the last man. CARY GRANT You’re mad! THE…

Being a writer is not a natural life. Of course it’s not natural working in a coal mine or a cubicle either. What is a “natural life” anyway? Is it living in alignment with evolution? Is it the nomadic life, the hunter’s life, the farmer’s life? If we live in the city, have we cut ourselves off from the organic voyages, migrations, and rhythms of the human soul? The life of the artist is artificial. Art by definition is artificial. What exactly is the artist’s life? What shape does it take, day-to-day? What you and I do as artists and…

Giving notes is the phrase used in the movie business to mean reviewing or critiquing a screenplay or treatment or even a short pitch. Getting notes is when you’re the one on the receiving end. Both positions are really hard. I’ve lost friends. People have stopped talking to me. For a while I simply refused to give notes. I would not read anything. It was too dangerous. Here are the rules I follow now: 1. I NEVER read anything from someone I don’t know. Beyond the agony flowing in both directions there’s the problem of plagiarism. Suppose I’m working on…

This is an edgy subject and maybe I should stay away from it, but I feel like I want to squeeze it a little more, so here goes. To review quickly, we were saying a couple of weeks ago that sometimes a public figure or personality (the “principal”) will be stalked or cyber-stalked or just plain bugged by a fan/frenemy/hater (the “profile.”) And that each of us probably has both tendencies-in-potential in our psyches. The reason I’m exploring this is to see if we can learn something that will help us. A couple of observations: You don’t have to be…

Did you see that docu on TV the other night about the history of the Eagles? I was watching it (enjoying it tremendously) when one moment leapt out at me. I’m paraphrasing from memory now, so forgive me if I get some of this wrong: Glenn Frey was telling the story. He was talking about the early 70s in L.A., before the Eagles were even a band, or maybe just after they had gotten started. He and Don Henley were playing gigs (they had backed up Linda Ronstadt for a while) but they were not writing their own material. They…

My friend Jane worked for years for a legendary personality of the 20th century. I’m respecting her wishes by not using the gentleman’s name. Let’s call him Michael. Michael was a target for the tabloids and the paparazzi. He was besieged relentlessly by fans and admirers, cranks, crazies, and outright stalkers. He lived on an estate. The place became a fortress. It got so bad that Michael had to employ bodyguards and a professional “threat assessor.” The threat assessor wound up teaching everyone on Michael’s staff how to respond to a certain type of persistent assailant. The dynamic was so…