Justin L. Murphy
Try everything you can and start as early as you can! Surround yourself with more experienced published authors who can be there for you, even if they rip your writing to shreds and you disagree with them! They could be right or they could be wrong....
Also, try to make as many Film/TV contacts as you can -- actors, writers, producers, directors etc. Working in Film/TV might be a long shot compared publishing your books through, but who knows? You may learn a lot from this other side of the industry and might even get an opportunity as a result!
Experiment with any genre, format, and medium you can for as long as possible! You may write better or be marketable at Southern Crime Fiction and Non-Fiction Entertainment vs. Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Or you might do better with short fiction better than with full length novels or Film/TV Scripts, but you never know until you discover this for yourself...
Also, your writing process will constantly evolve over the years. Sometimes it can be a very smooth transition, or it can be the hardest thing you ever had to go through in regards to learn something new. For example, in the aforementioned restructuring of both my writing process and publishing my books overall, said writing process currently consists of a couple steps I learned from my failed screenwriting attempts.
I outlining my story scene by scene on index cards followed by a 10 page treatment before into a 100 page notebook draft before typing and proofreading a 50 page rewrite on my word processor before uploading it to Kindle and setting the book's price before its release. I was inspired to do this a few friends felt my writing process was getting lazy and indeed they were. This process has changed many times over the years and will no doubt change again at some point.
Also, try to make as many Film/TV contacts as you can -- actors, writers, producers, directors etc. Working in Film/TV might be a long shot compared publishing your books through, but who knows? You may learn a lot from this other side of the industry and might even get an opportunity as a result!
Experiment with any genre, format, and medium you can for as long as possible! You may write better or be marketable at Southern Crime Fiction and Non-Fiction Entertainment vs. Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Or you might do better with short fiction better than with full length novels or Film/TV Scripts, but you never know until you discover this for yourself...
Also, your writing process will constantly evolve over the years. Sometimes it can be a very smooth transition, or it can be the hardest thing you ever had to go through in regards to learn something new. For example, in the aforementioned restructuring of both my writing process and publishing my books overall, said writing process currently consists of a couple steps I learned from my failed screenwriting attempts.
I outlining my story scene by scene on index cards followed by a 10 page treatment before into a 100 page notebook draft before typing and proofreading a 50 page rewrite on my word processor before uploading it to Kindle and setting the book's price before its release. I was inspired to do this a few friends felt my writing process was getting lazy and indeed they were. This process has changed many times over the years and will no doubt change again at some point.
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