You are in business. Time to start learning business.

It’s scary, it’s dramatic, and it puts a lot of pressure on a campaign, but it also incentivizes people in a different way because they know you’ll lose everything.

It was horrifying and beautiful and in that split second, I learned something about myself. And isn’t that why we go to the movies?

Look, you’re probably on your cellphone constantly anyway, so maybe it’s time to make more out of your time there.

First of all, let’s get clear on what ‘high-concept’ means.

I learned something that day. Genuinely. And it's a lesson I want you all to apply to your writing, too.

“How do you guys write together and stay married?” ... the only arguments we have in our marriage are about the motivations of our character.

Look, I understand that it’s called show business, not show art, but still, where is the show part in so many of these tin-eared studio exec’s equations?

OK isn’t good enough for me and shouldn’t be for you either. The idea is to send out your best work, and YOU need to be hard enough on yourself to be the ultimate judge of that.

What do you, as an author, promise your readers and customers? What are you promising a fan every time they pick up one of your books?

Every decision we had to make for our own careers became a fight, and every fight became a huge question of whether we were going in the same direction.

But the way I see it, all fiction originates as fan fic in one way or another.

Getting a fractured audience’s attention is getting harder and harder.

“Write something you care about, then find out why afterwards.”

The Pipeline staff was beyond supportive in my quest to produce a readable screenplay. They were encouraging but pushed me to produce something worth filming. It took about 50 drafts, but I got there with their help. My screenplay was born!