Transition - my path from screenplays to novels

I've written screenplays for twenty years - I've been disciplined, I've had the stamina, I've loved the challenges and I've had the good fortune of being commissioned again and again ... and had eight of my scripts produced, with the great ratings as the icing on the cake ... the business remains - but I find that I have changed.

Everything I've done before was everything I had ever wanted to do - to write screenplays. I had discovered it for myself in 1992. I was prolific, I worked on my craft and I never neglected the business side of it. I've had so many blessings over the years and every maddening challenge thrown at me by networks, producers, directors and actors was a challenge I loved to rise to ... well, not anymore.  

I never thought I'd write novels. I have always loved the crisp, the concise - boiling something that would fill ten pages in a novel down to that perfect five word sentence. Actually, I still love that. My writing's still crisp, my style still more cinematic than literary. I've now written three novels and find myself entirely fulfilled in the creation of those worlds and characters. The challenges are those I set myself, no longer is there a question of budget and time constraints, of network concerns and wants and needs, both good and bad, from egos of every kind. As an author, I am a free man.

The reality of screenwriting is that, most likely, the final product nowhere near resembles the writer's vision. Thankfully, in the new world of television where show runners rule - the writers are far more in the driving/deciding seat. Me, I've been a solid writer - a steady hand, reliable. I've always delivered - on rewrite requests for good and bad reasons, on rewrite demands that clearly negatively impacted the story. I would argue, I would laugh, I would find a way and make it happen ... and then sometimes the network would tell me that I had been right and could we please just all go back to a previous draft. Like I said, I actually used to love that - the joyous battles on the way to the shooting script. If you want to be a screenwriter, your heart's got to be in the fight. It's not just about a passion for film, it's about a passion for collaboration with all the good and all the bad.

I've written countless drafts on dozens of projects and, as mentioned, I've had eight of my scripts produced ... of those eight scripts, I'm proud of one. One. One time where I truly felt that, what I had set out to achieve, what I had worked my ass of to put to paper, showed up in the final product. From an end product point of view, one complete satisfaction ... in twenty years. Some of the films I downright hated and with some of those the ratings were still stellar. But it isn't about that - it's not about the final product, it is about how I feel along the way. Collaborating on a film is messy and glorious and that's the journey a screenwriter must embrace with a passion. I did, for a long time, and realized at some point that I just didn't feel like taking any of all of that anymore. It's fun when you love it - it's soul-sucking if you don't.

And so I had started writing novels. Writing novels harbors the same joys you experience when you write a first draft - when it's just you, your imagination, your worlds, your characters - you and the blank paper and nobody gets to weigh in. Who's kidding who, I've always loved writing the first draft more than anything else. The collaborative process came in a close second - but nothing beats the solitary freedom of the first draft. That's what I get to have, as an author, at any given moment now - that freedom. I still need the same discipline, the same stamina, the same passion to write - but it's my writing and will remain my writing and the final product, the novel, will be me, every single word of it. 

Around the end of last year I had accepted one final (in my mind) screenwriting assignment. I had worked with them before and the collaboration had always been first rate. But when I handed in a treatment I was thoroughly happy with and word came back that the development with input from others was about to begin, I politely opted out. It's only honest. If you don't have a passion for it, do everyone else a favor and get out. They understood as I knew they would, as I said, great people to be working with. Since then, the focus is on novels only ... I couldn't be happier.

So is this the end of screenwriting? It's the good old "never say never". One truly does never know. It may or may not happen but I most certainly won't push it. The screenwriter within me, however, is alive and well in my novels. I've even written the second novel as a script first, just for the fun of it. And the third is actually based on a spec I had written more than twenty years ago. Oh, by the way, this is something I can only recommend - use your specs! You all have them. Don't let them collect dust, revisit them and turn them into novels. Stories of yours can either be lost forever, or can be discovered by thousands of readers around the world (and that in turn may breathe new hope/life into one of those dusty specs).

... Why now, you might wonder. Why the change ... age undoubtedly has a lot to do with it. Experience has even more to do with it. I've done it, I've been there - again and again. I'm at a place in my life where I look at everything and ask myself "Is this worth my time?" ... When it comes to the collaborative screenwriting process, the answer is a clear no. When it comes to writing, the answer will always be a resounding yes. In a nutshell, put your energy where your heart is.

PS: People keep telling me that my novels should be turned into films ... that may or may not happen one fine day. In the meantime, I'm happy.