Anything Goes : Your Personal Process by Dan McGowan

When something goes bad for me in my life, I always get motivated to work on a project.

The creative process for me is just scheduling time to get creative. Sometimes you get writers block sometimes you write for hours on end. The thing I have noticed is consistency keep at it even though you only do 20% that day keep at it because repitition is the key to mastery

I use the power of the subconscious mind to help me write my scripts and trust me it has often come to my aid

Writing a screenplay is much like creating a sculpture, I believe. You can't just start chiseling away at a block of stone and expect to create something beautiful. You first have to become inspired by an idea. Once the idea has solidified enough in your brain you can almost taste it, then you start chiseling away. I believe it is this hunger to see the thing come to life that will keep you working until it's done. Everyday. A few hours here. A few hours there. For me, it's setting aside two hours a night, 5 nights a week. Oh, and lots of coffee.

As far as story, I think about it hard, then forget about it till a solution pops up into my mind, but as far as writing, I try to be undisciplined and free write first, fix it later - otherwise I'd end up staring at a blank page for hours on end (which sometimes happens anyways)

I give a story 3 days in my mind, If it sticks, it's worth putting on paper. For actual writing its 15 minutes a day. That can easily turn into three or four hours, but I have to at least sit down and try.

my stories tend to get kicked off by an image or a notion. I have one book/movie combo that was started by the memory of a cousin who'd scraped his chin and was bleeding energetically. I wondered, looking back on that memory as an adult, would it have looked any less icky if the blood was a different color? (see BLUE BLOOD on my screenplays page) . Another story was started as I walked out of a theater after seeing Fifth Element. After watching the female character bounce around I realized here I was a fantasy writer and I'd never written a fairy story. So I did. Of course then I had to come up with the nuts and bolts of the stories and that can sound kind of mechanical. I ask myself the W questions Who is this What are they doing What do they want? Of course I personally have an overarching principal. A fairy in fairy land isn't particularly interesting. A fairy driving around Toronto in a sky blue VW beetle. THAT works for me.

seeing films. pictures.walking and thinking

i am motivated by my fear of death

Thanks to the power of the subconscious mind it guides me.