Film Courage: Don why do you say that you never plan to retire?
Donald F. Glut, Writer, Film Director, and Screenwriter: I will retire if I get a flat
on the freeway and I have to call the AAA and they come, they retire for me because I don’t know how
to do that. But I want to die working. I want to die between the words action and cut or falling
over my computer keyboard or something like that because I just love to work so much, I really
do. I have so many friends who are much younger than me and much longer ago than now they’ve just
thrown in the towel, they’re just resting on their past laurels. All they talk about is something
they did 40 years ago and I don’t want people to think I’m a has-been. In some ways I’m doing more
now than I did when I was in my 20’s. But a lot of people who did the same types of things I’ve done,
they don’t do it anymore, they have no interest, they’re taking day jobs, they work in stores
and things like that and I want to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m going to keep making movies
and keep writing. I’m writing mostly comic books again now which is the way I started
out years ago and from a magazine called Shudder and another magazine called Vampiress Carmilla
in their horror stories and then most of the associate editor in those two magazines and I’m
having a ball and they’re better than any of the stories I wrote 30 years ago 40 years ago
so I’ve improved I’d like to think. I just can’t imagine spending the rest of my life
watching flowers grow in the garden or watching television shows, that’s just the way I am.
Film Courage: Do you think people get tired or do you think they give up on their own ability?
Don: In the case in the case of the arts and I use that in a broad sense
(making movies, writing stories, drawing pictures, acting, playing music, whatever)
there is a such a thing as age bias in these businesses. Some of these places when you’re when
you're about some of the TV stations that had hired you as a story editor or something or even
a freelance scriptwriter figure after you're about 30 years old you're all burned out with
no new ideas and a lot of people don't get to work anymore when I became my own producer my
own production company there's nobody to hire me I I do the hiring so I can be 100 years old as long
as I can still make a movie and get around the set and even if it's a wheelchair on a walker I'm
going to keep making and have the money to do it I'm going to keep making movies and keep writing
stories I mean how much energy does it take sitting behind a keyboard going like this you just
got to come up with the ideas with the stories and a lot of people don't I see on Facebook
former writers former artist all they did was put up stuff they did 40 years ago and I don't
want to be known for that I want to be I want to be known for what I'm doing now too sure I did
some stuff in the past that got a lot of notoriety and got my name all over the place but that's not
all I ever did and I think the things I'm doing now are better than the things I did years ago
how do you set goals well in my case there's two ways one is I get an idea for something
and then I think about it and then it starts to bug me a little bit and I gotta do this
and then the next day I sit down and I start doing it the goal could be a story or a novel
or it could be a movie or it could be a song but when I get the idea to my head it's there
and sometimes it bugs me I gotta figure out how to do it but then I do it and I finish it see a
lot of people will start something but they won't they can't finish it either they don't know how to
finish it or some people have told me it's too depressing to finish it because then it's over
with me it's not depressing because I think it's something time to think of something else which
is equally or maybe more exciting the other way is somebody will call me up and say Don
we need a such and such we're going to pay this much money can you do it
that's my goal at that time so either I come up with something on my own and it becomes a
passionate thing with me or it becomes something like a work for hire or or something that I never
would have thought of but I but now I got to think about it and figure it out or something
that's really their idea but I'm the one who brings it to life so those are the two ways I
usually do it I don't know how other people do it have you ever had trouble with discipline
discipline well I was kind of a rowdy teenager I had a lot of problems with discipline with
the nuns in school and my mother and things but you mean sitting down and actually doing it
no I never have I've never I that I can recall in my life in my career have what they call it
as writer's plaque it might take an extra day to think of something but eventually it comes and
it's funny when I write these comic book scripts now I'll write them in the afternoon
takes me about three hours to knock out a comic I'll tell you what the process is
I come up with a title the title will be something a famous expression name of a product something
that I can twist around a little bit I was thinking I was watching something on the Alamo
and I remember the old expression “Remember the Alamo” well thinking in horror terms like I do
the time I said what about this member of the Alamo or what if the night and then I come up
with an ending what kind of an ending can I come up with a shock ending that ties in with that
title I still don't know where the story is going to be I have no idea what the plot's going to be
and then and they say what if before the final battle they discovered that the the Texicans as
they were called were dying off strangely with their blood drained out of their bodies and pale
skin and two marks on the neck and nobody in the Alamo knows what a vampire is except this one peon
who works there who came from Spain where they knew such a thing as El Vampiro well anyway this
whole thing turned out at the end and to the ending of the Battle of the Alamo where Davy
Crockett is swinging their rifle and all that but a guy finds the skull of the vampire with
the fangs on it that they just destroyed by driving Davey driving Jim Bowie's Bowie knife
and it was hard I mean it's very complicated but that's how it comes out so then I write that out
and I usually I know the ending I know the title I start writing the first page I still don't know
exactly how the story is going to go but it just comes together and it comes out in six pages okay
now where it's about four o'clock in the afternoon so I make something to eat and I then that night I
watched something on TV maybe a movie or something during the movie I get all kinds of ideas for
tweaking the story a little bit here a little bit there what if I change this word to that word
then I sleep on it the next morning I start re I rewrite the whole thing and then I let it set and
I sleep on it one more night in case I get any more little subtleties or innuendos or whatever
and then it's done and I send it off but it always starts out with the title I never have trouble
going through the whole process and finishing it but I have other friends who can't do that they
they halfway through or when they get towards the end they ended and they don't finish it
because it puts finality on something and a lot of people are afraid to finish it because
somebody then besides themself selves is going to have to read it and judge it and decide whether
to buy it or not to buy it and they can't take that because they take a rejection is a personal
attack or rejection of themselves their own self-worth as a person I've got rejections
rolled off my back because when I first started I got some rejection deservedly earned the rejection
slips you wouldn't believe I got one that just said we would admire your persistence Mr Blue Book
but come now and and it was it almost destroyed me at the time but I got so many of those it
just kind of rolled off the back and I learned being in a position where I hire people myself
reasons why people get rejected that have nothing to do with the quality of the work or their worth
of the human being one is what I said before if it comes in and you have your meeting on a Monday
or Friday that but what if you have a meeting you walk in the office you're going to be hired as a
writer let's say by a story editor or a publisher or whatever and you just happen to look like the
girlfriend he had a bad argument with that morning or that night before and that's all he sees
and he doesn't hire you or you're a movie casting director and you've already hired a six foot tall
leading lady with red hair and then a guy comes in to auditions for a leading man role and he's
five feet seven with flaming red hair you're not going to put those two people together it's it'd
be ridiculous or in my case when I was casting my first movie an actress came in who looked
like she could be the twin sister of somebody we already hired and that confuses people and a lot
of creative people have to learn that that's those are reasons why they're turned down in many cases.