Dear Ex-Bitter:
I’m a third-year at a big Chicago firm. It’s okay; I don’t think I’m on the verge of getting fired. But I really want to get into screenwriting. I’ve read about lots of lawyers becoming TV writers (on this site and elsewhere). But how do you do it? What’s the first step? Do you need to go back to school? Do you need to live in LA? Any help here would be appreciated?
Cheers!
You want to be a writer, huh? Well, the honest truth is: There’s no easy way to do it. Unlike law, there’s no roadmap for success. There’s no stable, risk-free path you can walk. You just have to do it and see what the hell happens.
Going back to school is a waste of time—unless you’re independently wealthy and can afford to screw around for a few years and covet another useless degree to talk about at cocktail parties.
The simple truth is that writers write. That’s it. That’s what they do. So if you have a desire deep in your bones and want to be a screenwriter, do it. Buy a book on screenwriting by Robert McKee
And yes, you have to live in LA. If you actually want to work, that is. Like it or not, that’s the hub of the entertainment business.
But before you head west, read this poem by Bukowski. No one has ever answered the question you just posed better than he.
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
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