Brian Koppelman is a writer, director and producer whose movie credits include Rounders, Ocean’s Thirteen, and Runaway Jury. He is also known for his excellent podcast “The Moment” and a popular Vine series on writing and the creative life.

Recently Brian went on a Twitter rant about fear and writing. It is reprinted here in its entirety by permission.

https://twitter.com/briankoppelman/status/580537795866943489

2) talking to anybody else. I was determined to live it exactly as I was saying it. By writing on spec, Dave, Andrew and I were giving

3) ourselves the freedom to fail, to lose or to write exactly what we wanted on our own terms. that the show got ordered to series today

4) reaffirms for me that this freedom is essential for writers, as scary as it is. And I want you to know that it was fucking scary…

5) for me too But also thrilling and rewarding in a way that writing for hire rarely, if ever, is.

6) I know it can seem that once a writer reaches a certain ‘level’ there’s not much he/she is risking. But for the 4 months we wrote first

7) draft, I wasn’t making any money at all. We had just had a movie crash and burn at the box office, and I wasn’t sure how to recapture

8) the fire inside that made me a writer in the first place. The only way was to write, use the fear as fuel. Which, when channeled, it is.

https://twitter.com/briankoppelman/status/580540087169093632

9) I started the podcast — which I have done for free for 14 months — because I wanted people as diverse as @edward_burns and @JasonIsbell

10) to tell me, and you, how they faced that fear. How they defied ‘experts’ and found new ways to do their art, new ways to power through.

11) I hope that their stories would reaffirm that you don’t need permission from anyone but yourself to work your ass off chasing the dream

12) the truth is, the most frightened people of all have to be the gatekeepers, the ‘teachers,’ the ‘experts.’. B/c they cannot DO anything.

13) They are all Salieri. Courtiers. And honestly, that’s not fair to Sallari. At least he could play a mean harpsichord.

14) finally: the next time you’re tempted to believe that there are immutable laws of screenwriting only experts can unlock for you, find…

15) the Scriptshadow review of this year’s best picture/screenplay winner, Birdman, Catch the condescending tone he employs, the confidence

16) and know that he is exactly like all the other self proclaimed experts. They are bottom feeders.

https://twitter.com/briankoppelman/status/580551372736724993