How did you get started writing?

I grew up with stories in the days before television. The village where I grew up was hugely interesting, historically. So I had story ideas from an early age. My eldest children lived for their first few years in Papua New Guinea, where there were no televisions. Story telling was a major bedtime tradition. It continued even after our return to Australia and my granddaughter, who was born and brought up here, still demands new stories when she stays with us.

So changing from telling stories to writing them down was not a big step. Once two of the three children had left home I had time and energy to start writing.

I've been writing since I was in junior high. I always felt like the trophy daughter - you know, the one that had to make straight A's so that I could be shown off - so writing was always a way to escape. I wrote everything back then; short stories, poems, novels, etc. It wasn't until about three and a half years ago that I realized I wanted my writing to be more than just a hobby. This was huge because I was the one expected to do well in business or to become a lawyer. My dad still harbors aspirations that I will change my mind and be President. He was hoping that I would be the first, though I think there will be a female President long before I'm old enough to even consider the option. At any rate, I did some serious soul-searching a few years ago because I wasn't happy with where I was going with my life. I didn't enjoy business, didn't want to be a lawyer, and had absolutely no interest in politics, so what was I going to do with my life? Well, I started writing a story to help with my clarity of my own problem because that what I did, and suddenly realized that I wanted to write and that was what made me happy. I also combined that thought with the fact that I LOVE movies and that was it. I was hooked. So, here I am today, looking to write the next great screenplay.

As far as ideas go, I let life be my playground. There are so many ideas out there. Sometimes I'll see a person and think they would make an interesting character and then ask myself the 'what if' question. Sometimes I'll see a news article and think it would make and interesting story. And there are times when I simply just have a random idea pop into my head. A lot of times though, my subconscious will give me ideas from dreams. I have several scripts that I've written based on a few scenes from a dream I had. Now I'm in the process of polishing and marketing!

I wanted to write, way back in ancient times: the fourth grade. I wrote a short-story called "Patricia Ann" back then, about a girl who loved horses. My mother has it packed away some where in a cabinet. I sort of took a hiatus, wrote some music in high school, won a short story contest during that time, too: "The Swamp's Secret" as I recall. Laid off for a long while, and then after my daughter was killed, only poetry offered me solice. Then I branched out into short fiction, then long fiction, but I think I'm still a poet at heart.

Jus sayin' we had a brief thread like this a little while ago. You can read it here:

Origins of a screenwriter...

I've spent most of my life (calculates... goodness gracious, it's actually half of my life) as a novelist, but funnily enough I started out writing scripts, and have just got back into them. Aged nine I was heavily into the Tweenies (obscure British juveniles' TV show featuring high-voiced people in foam costumes), but despite my devotion I was becoming disillusioned with the plots. Too much singing: not enough superheroes and junk food!

So I decided to write my own episodes, and I did, just featuring me and my friends as well as the regular Tweenies characters. Over time I actually lost contact with some of these real life friends I'd added, but that didn't make me take them out, just develop their characters apart from my actual knowledge of them.

My formatting wasn't very good either - capitalised names with semicolons and brief acting directions followed by quoted dialogue, great chunks of description - but I distinctly remember writing in a 'host' that introduced each episode, and I think I clcoked up about twenty-five in all! Not satisfied with this level of libel, I decided to turn my attention to my favourite book series instead, plagiarised their characters but gave them my own names and attributes. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Oh, and I got back into scriptwriting recently because I just really love television and have a movie mind - I see every little detail. Perhaps it's the director's chair for me.

I started when I was two years old. I spilled my Cheerios on the table and the phrase, "two brads or three" showed up (minus the quotes, of course.) Ever since then I have been full time deluding myself.

clock_work9 said:

Jus sayin' we had a brief thread like this a little while ago. You can read it here:

Origins of a screenwriter...

Click to expand...

Missed that thread back then. Good read.

Incidently, I picked up a Jaws DVD a few weeks ago, so I don't have to borrow it from a buddy anymore every year or two. It's one of those must-have movies.

While I've seen Jaws several times, and would currently list it among the top of my favorite movies, I only started to fully appreciate it when I was a bit older.

My first cinema experiences got me hooked on movies forever. After that it gets a bit muddy, but I can clearly remember the first two films I saw on the big screen.

Rambo: First Blood was the first one. I was 8 or 9, I got to pick the movie, and my dad grudgingly agreed - I think he kinda wanted to see it as well, so he didn't mind too much.
While I wouldn't currently say that First Blood is one of my favorite movies, I still fondly think back on it. At that age, it was a strong first cinema experience. I can still thoroughly enjoy movies with a strong hero main character.

The second movie I saw in the cinema, not long after the first, was a very different one, but it had an even bigger impact on me: E.T.
That was just... wow. It's still one of my favorite movies, and one of several reasons why Mr. Spielberg can do no wrong for me. (Nor Drew Barrymore, for that matter. She'll always be Gertie to me.)

Not everything Spielberg does is equally brilliant, but at least watching one of his movies is an experience. Indiana Jones, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park... Those are the type of movies you leave your house and endure the crowds for to go watch in the theater. Those are the type of movies I'd love to make. (Living in a country where they tend to make boring character-study artsy fartsy type stuff, I'm probably out of luck on that front. )

Obviously many factors contribute to the path a person takes in his life. Looking back, it seems inevitable that I'd become a screenwriter, but a wrong turn is easily taken.
(Like many of you, I'm guessing,) I was the geeky kid. On a first name basis with the local librarian (though I can't remember his name now and it's really bugging me), and a silent crush on the older checkout girl at the video rental place. Can't remember her name either - jeez, I'm getting old.
I spent my summer vacations indoors, with books, pen'n'paper, and video tapes. Thank god for growing up in the VHS-era. Please rewind tapes before returning, thank you.

In my late teens, I came *this* close to letting my life derail. Managed to turn it around just in time to convince my parents that it wouldn't be a waste of money to send me to film school. After some of the stuff I pulled, I couldn't have blamed them if they had sent me to the factory floor instead, but I'll be eternally grateful to them that they didn't.

I loved film school, and worked my ass off there, but I wasn't there with the mindset of becoming a screenwriter. In hindsight, I regret that. Then again, my years as an editor were useful and educational as well.
It's a mad busy job though, with no time or energy to spare for writing. Tried to combine it for a while, but that didn't work.

So I eventually re-evaluated my life, gave up editing, and started calling myself an unemployed writer. To the rest of the world, I was just unemployed, which is sort-of okay when you're in your early twenties, not so much when you're in your early thirties. But being single and able to keep the running costs to a minimum, I figured it was now or never.

Even having made the decision, it still took me a few years to get my act really together, to find the confidence, the technique, the determination. But the last year or so, things have started happening. I'm not there yet - still in the underpaid and undervalued stage - but at least I'm earning a few euros here and there and getting a few credits to my name.

I may not be rich - and with the path I've chosen, I'll probably never be. But at least I'm having fun.

-Johan

PS. I didn't mean to turn this into a long life-story-ish post. But at least it made me motivated for the rest of the night. (Have a 10 am deadline. )

Great stories, everyone. Keep 'em coming.

I was writing from the time I was in grade school -- about the earliest thing I can remember was tapping out a very bad sort of Jules Verne-esque pastiche on my mother's old typewriter -- and this wasn't any little old thing. It was around forty or fifty pages long.

I'm pretty sure I was in sixth grade when I churned that thing out and I remember, vaguely, that I'd written and drawn some sort of story-board, cartoon sort of thing about the Mummy vs. the Werewolf which I'm pretty sure was in fourth grade, which I actually took in and showed at Show and Tell -- so that might count as kind of a storyboard, although I had no idea what storyboards were at the time.

Of course, I was also one of those kids who was making super-8 stop motion movies which, at a certain point also involved writing scripts for them.

I was certainly already writing feature-length screenplays by the time I was fifteen or sixteen (not that any of them were any good, God knows).

So I have been at it for a long, long, time. Figure around forty years.

NMS

For me, it was quite by accident. A bunch of friends and I would sit around work and by the end of the day, one of us would end up saying "Man, we could write a fucking movie with the shit that goes on here everyday". So, one day, I just started writing them down. Funny and amusing situations. Then, I got the thought in my head to try and write it into script format. One thing led to another, and I wrote it all down. Then, I started thinking of how many things happened to me throughout my life, and that is how I completed my first screenplay "18 And Life". I am still working on it, but, the story is down. I have been working on it for over a year now, in the hopes that it will be perfect, before I let anyone read it (though I have let two friends read it, and mostly, the critique was positive). That's it. Write about what you know. Write about real life. It doesn't get any funnier than that.

True words - true words!