Diablo Cody’s script Juno earned her an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. In some interviews and her own writing before the Oscar win, she talked about keeping her work real.
“One of my teachers told me that I was lazy,” Cody explained. “He said, ‘I think you’re the best writer I’ve ever taught. But I’ll never hear from you again because you have no ambition.’
“I never intended to get my writing out there. I always thought of published writers as honor roll students — the real overachiever types. I never intended my work as a springboard to anything else. I write because I’m addicted to it. It’s my confessional.”
A newsletter from The Writers Store exclaims, “It’s over! The 100-Day Writers Strike has officially ended, with 92.5% of WGA members voting to return to work.
“The business of show business will once again run full steam ahead! The spec script market is anticipating another mid 90’s-style boom, as agents and producers gear up to start taking meetings and television shows scurry to re-staff.
“So what can all this mean for you? Whether you’re a guild member or you’re just starting out as a writer, this is a sizzling new era to take control of your career, and capitalize on the renewed creative energy coursing through Hollywood.”
Depression hit Rowling when her first marriage to a television journalist broke down after just two years.
She had moved to Portugal to teach English and gave birth to her first daughter Jessica.
She said: “I’d had a short and quite catastrophic marriage. I had to get my baby back to Britain and re-build us a life and adrenaline kept me going.
“It was only when I came to rest it hit me what a complete mess I had made of my life. That hit me quite hard. We were as skint as you can be without being homeless and at that point I was definitely clinically depressed.
“That was characterized by a numbness, a coldness and an inability to believe you will feel happy again. All the color drained out of life.”
Director, Producer, Writer Eva Saks [evasaksmovies.com] notes in this clip, “You want to be acknowledged, you want to participate in the reward. It’s kind of unprecedented to even question whether a writer should have the right to participate.”
At the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, “Lars and the Real Girl” received a standing ovation. Screenwriter Nancy Oliver was recently interviewed for the Los Angeles Times by Jeff Goldsmith, and expressed her perspectives on a number of challenges facing writers and other artists. Here is an excerpt:
When Alan Ball offered you a staff writing job on HBO’s “Six Feet Under,” you were literally getting ready to leave town and give up on your writing career. Why is that?
When I moved out here I decided that I would give it five years because I’m not a kid anymore. When Alan called, I was moving because my five years were up. It was very difficult because I was doing it at a later time in life than most people.
The movie based on his story The Golden Compass is about to open.
On his site, Philip Pullman addresses a number of questions about his life and work as a writer:
Were you encouraged to be creative?
No, I was ignored. When anyone took any notice it was to point out what a twit I was, and laugh at me.
This was the best possible preparation for the life of a novelist. If you have grown-ups fussing over you and encouraging you and taking an interest, you begin to think you’re important, and furthermore that you need and deserve their attention.
After a while you become incapable of working without someone else motivating you. You’re much better off supplying your own energy, and writing in spite of the fact that no-one’s interested, and even learning to put up with other people’s contempt and ridicule. What do they know, anyway?
Diablo Cody’s script Juno earned her an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. In some interviews and her own writing before the Oscar win, she talked about keeping her work real.
A newsletter from The Writers Store exclaims, “It’s over! The 100-Day Writers Strike has officially ended, with 92.5% of WGA members voting to return to work.
Depression hit Rowling when her first marriage to a television journalist broke down after just two years.
At the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, “
The movie based on his story The Golden Compass is about to open.
