give a feel riding a boring story no no I know I I
you mean fear that defines here define here very well I think I think for some
people you know it's like you're okay with not being perfect but I think for
some people that's their whole sort of persona maybe they've been told with all
their life maybe that is a class thing or I mean yeah but that's their Ella
that's who they are they live in that world that I do everything right so then
they don't want to do stuff that's wrong but it sounds like if you're willing to
be free and make mistakes then boring doesn't really enter the picture I not
yes and and and and that's it I'm not afraid of being boring because I I just
that I I will jump off creative cliffs and I and sometimes I'll land really
hard and break my neck and sometimes I'll land exactly where I
need to land but boring isn't an issue for me and it's interesting because I've
been at this a long time now and I feel more unborn than ever I feel I feel
creatively Unleashed some of it is I have nothing to prove I've got some cool
posters and a couple of classics and all of that but I'm not I'm not ever worried
about boring I am worried about good and that's a different thing and good that
it's going to resonate and and and and that people are going to feel it and
that's a different thing not but not boring but being good I worry about
every day when I write and I'm very I'm I'm my hardest harshest critic and
sometimes that gets in the way a little bit
I I wish I could go to bed not analyzing and reanalyzing what I wrote that day
but maybe that goes with the territory but
yeah I always wanted I want to be better than good
and and I wasn't you know and and again it's sort of silly and maybe arrogant as
it sounds and like when I'm starting Betelgeuse with Michael we're going to
write a classic I want everything I do to be great
and you don't always do that I'm not even pretending that you always do that
but good isn't good enough ever for me and boring doesn't enter into it
so when you see a student let's say that you can tell that's maybe something they
need to get out of that rigidity what tips do you have for a writer that or to
help them avoid writing a boring story because maybe they're too to perfect you
know yeah and and and it's and it's your yeah
that's so that's so true that students
writers Newton I'm going to say new writers that sense of perfectionism in
that sense that they have to get it right the first time and went went when
I when I teach there are people within this room who can attest to this back
when I teach I am the home of TMI I come in and vomit everything going on in my
life be a good bad tragic happy I I am I am an open book if I'm being completely
honest a because it's free therapy and I have a captive audience of 20 people but
but it's also because I
here here when I wanted one of the great sages and of all time and moving with a
view of the human condition Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin said said I never want
to be respectable I always want to be responsible and I love that quote and I
hope after the first class that people take with me they know they're not going
to get respectable at all I can I will I will again I will tell too much and
there is a little bit of method to my madness though because because I don't
want because I know writers directors who put themselves on that pedestal
because they've had this degree of success and they feel that they have to
come in and be very buttoned down and very above the people that they're
talking to or talking down to I don't look at it like that at all I will tell
you about my bad night my hangover my whatever but but and part of it again
it's like free therapy but part of it is also this is this is my life and where
and it sometimes it's not terribly respectable but I'm responsible because
I'm responsible because I will get my ass to my computer and write and don't
worry about being perfect but that is a debt that I wish I could say that that
my success rate was a hundred percent with that but again most people will
never finish their scripts because that sense of that needing to be perfect
oh I'm being boring oh this isn't gonna this isn't working it will take over and
it will crush their creativity and it's a very sad thing the witness I try to
get people over it I try to say look it's a first draft I tell you know
don't worry so much but but that is the toughest job any person who's teaching
any kind of creativity has is to convince people to get out of their own
way and my way of doing it again is to say today students I am a hot mess but I
wrote but I but I wrote for four hours and then they feel okay the they're also
imperfect but whatever sort of front were all we know we all have our public
image that we put out there I think that's great because really well they
feel superior - yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but I know that but again it's some of
it it's just the nature of my personality but but some of it's very
deliberate it just don't you know I I you know i I've knock wicker I've made a
living at this for thirty years I mean it's insane
sometimes great sometimes skating by sometimes whatever but it hasn't come
out of being perfect believe me but it's coming out of having that enough
discipline to ride always don't need to be respectable
obviously responds you know Paige let me pay thank you
you