• Little Diva Rising

    The Three Faces of Writing

    You wouldn’t think that standing around giving actors instructions (when it’s needed), watching actors act, and watching the footage on the camera, would be so exhausting. But it is. It’s something about the creative process, about trying to produce something from your imagination – and whatever wells that invariably draws on. When I was younger and would have big writing sessions – and I’m talking writing eight or nine hours – I would always end the day feeling two things: uneasy, as if I’d spent so much of the day in my imagination, it was difficult transitioning back into the real world exhausted, like I’d just spent a couple of…

  • Life of the Mind

    A Little Writing Housekeeping

    Throughout my life as a writer I’ve alternated my focus between prose and screenwriting. Both share some similar precepts (structure, plotting, character arcs, etc.), but also have differences that delineate them as different beasts. Just because you have experience in one doesn’t mean you’ll be able to execute the other. I had this conversation with somebody on Twitter recently: books are a cerebral journey, while screenwriting is a visual journey. In a book, we can sit inside a character’s head and explore what they’re thinking, how they’re feeling, and things (such as circumstances, events, and memories) that shape their decision-making. In a film, you can’t sit inside somebody’s head (unless…