Screenwriting From Iowa

Gotta keep rollin’, gotta keep ridin’ Gotta keep searchin’ till I find what’s right Bob Seger Roll Me Away  I was in the city today—Des Moines. Late Friday I received a call from a group in D.C. to do a video shoot in Des Moines on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it didn’t have anything with [...]

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“You’re born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I’m living like there’s no tomorrow, because there isn’t one.” Don Draper (Jonn Hamm) Mad Men “Well, what if there is no tomorrow?” Phil (Bill [...]

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I really should say “Story Plotting the J.K. Rowling Way,” but Harry Potter seemed more catchy and fun. But it was J.K. Rowling who actually wrote the Harry Potter books  empire. The one that helped create her net worth (as of March 2011) of over one billion dollars. Want to know what part of her [...]

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“In 1998, I had finished writing ‘Toy Story’ and ‘A Bug’s Life’ and I was completely hooked on screenwriting. So I wanted to become much better at it and learn anything I could. So I researched everything I possibly could. And I finally came across this fantastic quote by a British playwright, William Archer: ‘Drama [...]

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Reading departures signs in some big airport Reminds me of the places I’ve been… Jimmy Buffett Changes in Lattitudes, Changes in Attitudes  If you ever wonder why you ride the carousel, You do it for the stories you can tell… Jimmy Buffett Stories You Can Tell  Jimmy Buffett has said when he was a youth [...]

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“His body was battered, his whole world was shattered And all he could do was just cry…” Jimmy Buffett He Went to Paris When you think of Jimmy Buffett in terms of geography you probably think of the south, but did you know part of his early performing roots were in the Midwest? Buffett was [...]

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As a dreamer of dreams and a travelin’ man I have chalked up many a mile Read dozens of books about heroes and crooks And I learned much from both of their styles  Jimmy Buffett Son of a Son of a Sailor  Jimmy Buffett will be playing in Iowa Tuesday night. The Des Moines Register [...]

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      “On my first night in Vienna, Jonathan [Carroll, author of Bones of the Moon] walked me down to the Danube, where we sat on a flight of steps leading down to the river. The dog walkers were out in force. Greetings were exchanged with small movements of the eyes, and the dogs sniffed [...]

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“In 1928 I lost everything I had, and in 1936 I went broke again. So did most of the other soundly advised people in the county…I lost very little money through extravagance, I regret to say. Most of my losses were the result of the dubious pleasure of remarking over the phone, ‘Yes, go ahead.’” [...]

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Playwright and screenwriter Samson Raphaelson would have been 54-years old when he guest taught a class one semester at the University of Illinois at Urbana back in 1948. At that time, along with his play (The Jazz Singer) that was performed over 300 times in Broadway, he had more than 25 feature credits as a [...]

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