The film Pan’s Labyrinth was acclaimed for its powerful story and richly beautiful as well as terrifying images.

Writer and director Guillermo del Toro once commented, “When you have the intuition that there is something which is there, but out of the reach of your physical world, art and religion are the only means to get to it.”

In an interview, del Toro spoke about humans having two levels of thought: “One is conscious and the other unconscious or subconscious…

“Our problem is that we divide things that may be instinctive and collective and we have compartmentalized our perception so strongly that we only get them in glimpses and I think this is where the idea of the Jungian archetype comes to work…

“I believe that there is a whole dimension that I wouldn’t call supernatural but ‘supranatural,’ that I believe in.” [From San Francisco Bay Guardian interview.]

Steve Martin on writing vs editing

Another film writer, as well as actor, Steve Martin thinks “The conscious mind is the editor, and the subconscious mind is the writer. And the joy of writing, when you’re writing from your subconscious, is beautiful — it’s thrilling. When you’re editing, which is your conscious mind, it’s like torture. And I’ve just kind of decided that anytime it’s torture, I want to stop. I’ll just put it down and wait until it becomes not torture.” [NY Times, 8.8.99]

Writing takes place in the subconscious

In her book Archetypes for Writers, Jennifer Van Bergen affirms that “Writing takes place in the subconscious. Some people view the subconscious as merely a dumping ground for stuff the conscious mind cannot or does not want to handle.

“Others consider that the subconscious only exists for people who have ‘problems.’ They think that if you are healthy, your subconscious will just fall into line with your conscious mind. Neither of these ideas is true.”

She adds, “The subconscious actually operates – in everyone – as an independent mind. It perceives, processes, and retains things that never enter the conscious mind at all.”

“We all have material in the subconscious. In fact,it is where nearly all our material is found, but that material cannot gather itself together, emerge, and become part of a work of art (or our life) unless the conscious mind allows it.”

Her book provides concrete information and exercises for, as she puts it, “doing archetypes” – not the “usual writing skills, but rather distinct, separate non-writing skills that, together, enable one to do ‘one’s own writing,’ and to access and develop one’s existing characters, and, ultimately, to write them in the context of their real lives (stories).”

Also see her article Archetypes for Writers, and my post Dancing with our unconscious.

Intuition integrates conscious and unconscious

Being creative and realizing our talents as an artist or any identity we want to be involves self-awareness and respecting who we really are, including our unconscious depths.

Brain/mind researcher Dr Jill Ammon-Wexler notes in her article Your Intuitive Intelligence that intuition is a “whole brain” function, and “draws upon both our higher mind, and our entire lifetime of experience stored in the subconscious mind. It’s probably our most powerful method of integrating our conscious and subconscious thought processes.”

Many writers and other artists attribute creative thinking and inspiration to the subconscious.

The book Sparks of Genius, among many other sources, talks about “those pre-logical glimmerings sensed amid the noise of formal thinking that intuitively synthesize an insight before it is translated into words, dance, music, math, pictures, whatever.” [Kirkus Reviews]

In his article Writers Thrive On Anxiety, hypno-psychotherapist Dr. Bryan Knight declares that hypnosis can help writers in a number of ways – including “releasing the creative power of the subconscious.” [From my article Can Hypnosis Enhance Creativity?]

Going to the cave

Author Steve Pavlina writes about “going to his cave” and becoming immersed in creative writing projects:

“For some reason these periods of intense concentration tend to reduce my need for sleep, much like doing an extended meditation. … I’ve never been into drugs, but I have to imagine there are drugs that could induce something similar to this state of being.

“In many ways it feels like my conscious mind goes on a trip. I lose awareness of my physical senses and become lodged in a reality somewhere beyond the physical universe, a world of pure thought and ideas.”

From his article My Experience of Creativity.

~~

archetypes for writers, writing from your subconscious, writers inner life, writing book

Initially, when you start writing, or at least when I started writing, you think the reward is, wow! It’ll be so great to see my words on screen, to see my name on screen…

I think what happens over time when, because you’re a writer – especially once I became a screenwriter – you’re very powerless as a screenwriter.

And what happens – and it’s a subtle change, but I think it’s the one that most mature writers go through – is the gratification becomes personal… the process of writing becomes its own reward… you tell the story the way you want to tell the story, and then hope for the best…

The frustration, I think, boils down to the fact that I believe screenwriters are the most crucial aspect of a movie, and they’re the ones with the least power and the least control.

Continued in article Therapist to the Hollywood Stars.
~~

writers inner life, dennis palumbo, screenwriters challenges, psychology of writers

From Diablo Cody’s Tips for Blogging Your Way to Hollywood Success, By John Scott Lewinski, Wired magazine site:

“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.”

“There are so many talented people that exist in the marketplace,” Cody said. “So, don’t look for a plan. Put your blog out into the world and hope that your talent will speak for itself.”

~ ~ ~

From The Oprah Winfrey Show:

Diablo says Juno is based somewhat on herself, like the hamburger phone in Juno’s room. When [her mother] Pam first saw the phone, she says it made her cry. “[Diablo] had a hamburger phone at home, and I used to see her on it all the time, and she used to shake it because it wouldn’t work properly,” Pam says.

Oprah says she thinks Juno is the movie to see this year. “How did you get it to be so fresh?” she asks. “I don’t know,” Diablo says. “I guess, you know, when you’re coming from the middle of the country and you’re not part of the industry and you’re just telling your own story, I think it’s easy to be more original.”

~ ~ ~

From Diablo Cody’s MySpace blog, January 31, 2008

I get asked a lot why I’ve chosen to be so confessional as a writer. I’ve publicly documented aspects of my life that most people wouldn’t reveal to their shrink, spouse, girlfriend, or partially deaf Dachshund.

The stuff that polite folks confine to the pages of padlocked journals, I’ve treated as a matter of open discussion. … When you possess the courage — or blunt, gourd-smacking stupidity — to be totally candid, you silently amass thousands of allies.

It’s the “me too” effect. As Steven Morrissey (Esq., Demigod) says, there is no such thing in life as normal. And if you walk around pretending to be normal, hiding your scars and incisions and putrescing wounds, you only further the Conspiracy of Normal, which exists to make us all feel like shit.

I ain’t having that. I refuse to act like I have it together, because I don’t.

~~~~~

Also, see short video of conversation between Cody and ‘Juno’ star on The Inner Actor site: Compromising yourself – Ellen Page: I’d rather be shot in the foot.
~~

screenplays by women, diablo cody, writing ambition, writing honestly

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.

I didn’t have the years to screw around. I was going to go back to Florida, find a place on the beach and figure out another way to make a living… But after the first day [of thinking about it], I was like, “What? Are you crazy? Yeah, I’ll do this!” Then I was clearly onboard.

How do you battle writer’s block, if you get it?

There’s plenty of struggle, no question about that. I had had a block . . . for five years and I wasn’t sure that I would ever be able to write a big piece again. I’ve been working since I was 21, trying to put it all together, and hit just one dead end after the next. You question sometimes, “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing? I’m following my dream and it’s leading me into the gutter!”

How did your writing habits change as you went from writing by yourself to being part of a writing team?

“Six Feet Under” changed me a great deal, and it was a wonderful training ground that really toughened me up. I’d been sensitive for quite some time and when you have to put your stuff on the table and let everybody go at it, it either makes you stronger or kills you. I really enjoyed it because I got so much out of getting other people’s opinions. I think I’m a braver writer now. Less wimpy.

[From The real woman behind 'Lars', by Jeff Goldsmith, Los Angeles Times, Dec 12, 2007; photo by Robert Durell.]

In another interview, Oliver explained part of her inspiration for the story: “It was a ‘what if?’ thing. Like, ‘What if we didn’t treat our mentally ill people like animals? What if we brought kindness and compassion to the table?’” [From Guy and Doll, and the Woman Behind Them, by Margy Rochlin, The New York Times, October 7, 2007.]

The photo (by George Kraychyk, NYTimes) shows Ryan Gosling as Lars, far right, cutting food for his doll companion Bianca, at a meal with Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer.
~ ~ ~

Sensitivity and identity questions are relevant for many writers and other artists, and a number of mental health issues addressed on the site may be of interest in terms of self-exploration, and story material.

Here are some related Talent Development Resources pages:
Mental Health
Intensity – sensitivity
Highly Sensitive
Being Creative and Self-critical
Identity
~~

Nancy Oliver, writer’s block, screenplays by women, Six Feet Under

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?

What inspires you?

Three things. (1) Money. I do this for a living. If I don’t write well, I won’t earn enough money to pay the bills. (2) The desire to make some sort of mark on the world – to make my name known. To leave something behind that will last a little longer than I do.

(3) The sheer pleasure of craftsmanship: the endlessly absorbing delight of making things – in my case, stories – and of gradually learning more about how they work, and how to make them better.

Who do you write for – children or adults?

Myself. No-one else. If the story I write turns out to be the sort of thing that children enjoy reading, then well and good. But I don’t write for children: I write books that children read. Some clever adults read them too.

How long does it take me to write a book?

It depends on how long the book is. THE FIREWORK-MAKER’S DAUGHTER took me six weeks, THE AMBER SPYGLASS three years.

What advice would I give to anyone who wants to write?

Don’t listen to any advice, that’s what I’d say. Write only what you want to write. Please yourself. YOU are the genius, they’re not. Especially don’t listen to people (such as publishers) who think that you need to write what readers say they want.

Readers don’t always know what they want. I don’t know what I want to read until I go into a bookshop and look around at the books other people have written, and the books I enjoy reading most are books I would never in a million years have thought of myself.

So the only thing you need to do is forget about pleasing other people, and aim to please yourself alone. That way, you’ll have a chance of writing something that other people WILL want to read, because it’ll take them by surprise.

It’s also much more fun writing to please yourself.

Quotes from philip-pullman.com

Book cover image: The Golden Compass
~~

Philip Pullman, challenges for writers, writers inner life, creative passion

“The people who love their craft and see themselves as artists, and carry that identity through and study each day… are the people who thrive. … Successful people are able to sustain their identity as separate from their profession and what’s happening to them. That’s particularly important in the arts, where what happens to you bears only faint correlation to your talent.” Robert Maurer, PhD [From one of the pages on identity.]

That perspective seems appropriate at any time, but perhaps especially with a Writers Guild strike on, and writers suffering a lack of respect for their talents.

The business of making a living

In his recent LA Times The Big Picture column Come on, writers, script your futures, Patrick Goldstein writes, “As the writers strike enters its third week, I think the future belongs to a tantalizing new hyphenate: the writer-entrepreneur.”

He notes that Tony Gilroy, the writer-director of “Michael Clayton,” had a script “that was dead in the water until a total outsider…said if Gilroy could get a star and stick to a budget, he’d bankroll the film.

Gilroy didn’t see himself as an entrepreneur. He just had a script that was burning a hole in his pocket. ‘I’d say the experience was more about my wising up than becoming a visionary,’ he explained the other day. ‘But the moment I started chasing private-equity money, it didn’t take me long before I’d realized that I’d short-circuited the formula for getting a greenlight. I didn’t need studio approval. All I needed was one guy who believed in the movie.’”

[Photo: Tony Gilroy (left) with George Clooney]

Also see the site The Inner Entrepreneur.
~~

entrepreneur writer, business of writing, entertainment psychology, screenwriters challenges

Actor David Thewlis‘ films include Naked (1993), the Harry Potter series, and many more. His first novel, The Late Hector Kipling, has just been published, and screenwriter William Monahan interviewed Thewlis for a BlackBook magazine article [Fiction (With a Twist of Lennon)].

William Monahan: I find that when you’re writing a character, you are that character. It’s probably no joke that Shakespeare was an actor. Dickens, famously, was a brilliant performer of his invented people, not only when he was reading in public but also when he was creating them on the page. Do you see any connection yourself between the ability to act and the ability to write?

David Thewlis: I think there is a very strong connection. One of the most pointless questions I seem to get asked over and over is, “Do you think you may now give up acting?” as though I am condemned to choose one or the other.

Character development on screen and page

As an actor you spend your life creating characters, understanding motives, paying great attention to the details, the mannerisms, the speech inflections.

It does not seem much of a jump then to shift this ability to the page. I work with dialogue all the time and endlessly persevere to make speech sound natural.

Actors read a lot—scripts, source novels, research; they live with words, so it seems a natural progression to try and write a few yourself, since over the years you have learned what works.

Also, in my own case, I was actually writing a long time before I even thought of acting. It has just taken me rather a long time to find my own style and also to build up the confidence to put something out there.

The Late Hector Kipling

William Monahan calls The Late Hector Kipling “a hyper-literate, shockingly funny, and just plain shocking look at vanity, revenge, sex, suicide, death, madness, and murder in the London art world.”

David Thewlis describes some of the themes that can relate to many artists, “There are parallels to the film world here, of course. The money is similar at that level of success, the bitterness, the rivalry, the celebrity, and, of course, the twisted fans.

“The money and the fame can drive wedges into relationships, with the ones who get left behind wondering if their rival is merely lucky or if it is in some way a reflection of their own lack of talent. Many friendships cannot bear the weight of this ambiguity, and they begin to suffer a loss of spontaneity and generosity of spirit.

“I also found the art world full of amorality. The players are fantastically eccentric. They seem to crawl around in some shady hinterland between home decorating and pornography, and one always imagines that they must smell a bit funny.”

Writing in angst

Another interview article (UK Vogue, Sept 2007), described his writing process. Thewlis said, “I rented a flat in Soho and cut the plug off the television.” By day, he walked the streets and sat in cafes, watching and plotting. By night, he wrote. Within nine months, he had written his first draft. His publishers loved it, but said it needed some work. By then, Thewlis was in love with Friel and his life in general.

“I used to write out of angst,” he explains. “When I met Anna, I lost that urge to vent spleen.” [His partner, actor Anna Friel, stars in the new TV series "Pushing Daisies."]
~ ~ ~
Also see a related post on “angst”: Keeping the turmoil in your art – not your spirit, and The Inner Actor post: Actors Privacy – The Dark Side of Fame.
~~

David Thewlis, multiple talents, writers inner life, books by actors

“I know that this subject is fodder for ridicule…. But ultimately, I have to write what I have to write about, including the question of life continuing beyond our ordinary senses.” ////

“Some of it [depression] is probably biochemical, but I think it is also in my family tree. I didn’t do anything about it for a long time, because, like many people, I worried about altering my psyche with drugs.

“As a writer, I was especially concerned with that. … [She used Zoloft.] I needed help… I don’t believe that good writers are born through unhappiness.”

From Amy Tan – a brief profile.
~~

writing and depression, Amy Tan, depression and creativity, creative experience characteristics

“My wife says that when I emerge from my office and declare that not only am I writing a bad book, I’m writing the worst book anyone has ever started, then she knows that I’m two-thirds of the way there.”

Excerpts from article: With ‘Spook Country,’ William Gibson is still carving out his corner of cyberspace, By Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times, August 10, 2007:

Obsessed with science fiction

“I don’t think anyone told me that I was crazy,” William Gibson recalled last week, sitting on the leafy patio of a Creole restaurant near his home.

“But they didn’t read science fiction, they didn’t care. I suspect they sort of thought it was sad, to become obsessed with doing this stuff.”

From obsession to cyberpunk

Gibson, almost three decades later, has had the last laugh. The black hole he disappeared into, day after day after day, became “Neuromancer,” the 1984 “cyberpunk” novel about a keyboard cowboy that envisioned both the Internet and virtual reality years before either existed….

His ninth novel, “Spook Country,” which came out this week, takes place in the same world as its predecessor, “Pattern Recognition,” the tale of a “coolhunter” who is allergic to logos and brands….

I never start with intentions

Gibson, who hardly seems like the slick technophile his novels suggest, often has this trouble describing his work. “The part of me that walks around, that conducts interviews and behaves in the world, has no idea how to write a novel,” he said. “I never start with ideas and intentions at all.” …

And despite the exuberance of his prose — his early novels are positively psychedelic, and “Spook Country” inhabits so many different cities and subcultures it carries the reader on a bewildering rush — he admits he’s a bit of a grind when it comes to writing a book.

Slowly bits and pieces emerge

“If I sit there long enough and become sufficiently frustrated at the page being blank, little windows open up… little glimpses of mood and territory,” he said. “And very slowly bits and pieces emerge, and I find myself in the company of a character. But I don’t know what the character is doing.

“My wife says that when I emerge from my office and declare that not only am I writing a bad book, I’m writing the worst book anyone has ever started, then she knows that I’m two-thirds of the way there.”

At that point he can tear up what he’s written and reassemble it in a way that works. “I’ve trained myself to do something that’s nonrational or pre-rational,” he said. “If I had to pitch one of these things in any detail, I don’t think I could do it. I don’t think anybody would go for it.”
~ ~ ~

Related pages:
Writing resources : interviews articles sites-programs
books: writing
My article: Being Creative and Self-critical
Article: In Praise of Positive Obsessions, by Eric Maisel, PhD
~~

William Gibson, writing from your subconscious, cyberpunk novel, writers inner life

“Each year hundreds of screenplays become feature films. And each year thousands of teleplays become television episodes.

“Opportunity-wise, television’s got feature films beat. TV’s got the heat. The magic. The glitz. All that’s missing is you. How do you change that?

It’s about YOU first and your talent and ability second

“Well, first you’ve got to dedicate yourself to the Game. Accept the fact that TV is a personal business. It’s about YOU first and your talent and ability second.

“Your next step is to adopt the ‘career’ mindset. In television almost no one hits the jackpot with one script. In television we make a reputation for ourselves, amass credits and contacts, and get to a place where we can go to work everyday. Staff writing jobs are what TV is all about.

It’s easy to learn what the execs want

“Like most managers, TV execs want to work with people who are just like them. For many that means YOUNG. For almost as many that means NEW. But most of all it means you’ve got to be THEIR KIND OF PERSON.

“In all likelihood, you’re already leaning in that direction. It helps, though, to learn as much as you can about what captivates the hearts and minds of the execs, and, fortunately, it’s relatively easy to do so…”

Continued in article: Getting Started in L.A. – by Larry Brody
~~

Larry Brody, writing for tv, writing ambition, writing resources