Okay, when you start a new screenplay it’s a new shot at success both personally and professionally. Here are my Top Ten Daily Disciplines of a Screenwriter… (drum roll)…

1. Every day act like a professional in all action and manner. Take your craft seriously and respect the mountain that you climb every day.

2. Learn your strengths and weaknesses as a writer and continually work on both every day to become an excellent screenwriter.

3. Be a team player who is open to collaboration and notes. No ego, but the reality of pushing your screenplay closer to getting noticed, sold and produced.

4. Carve out a schedule and protect your precious writing time. “Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.”—Ernest Hemingway.

5. Empower yourself daily by doing your homework. Information and knowledge is powerful currency in Hollywood. Stay updated on the film business, read scripts, watch current and old movies, and study film history and the artists who came before you.

6. Detach from the work and the outcome for daily survival. It’s going to be a long haul to success.

7. Take responsibility for your career and don’t blame others for your lack of success. Do something every day to push your career farther along the pathway.

8. Take chances. Be brave and don’t be afraid to fail miserably. Fear and insecurity love to scare off screenwriters—these destructive emotions hate those who get knocked down but get up before the “ten count” and start screenwriting again. Take your lumps, but always fight back by continually doing the work. It’s all part of the learning process on your journey to becoming an excellent screenwriter.

9. Practice humility. Your craft is bigger than you’ll ever be. Check your ego at the door. Become a sponge to soak up knowledge from mentors so you can expand your writer’s toolbox.

10. Be patient. An overnight success is usually ten years or 10,000 hours in the making. I hope you’re in this for the long haul because it’s going to be a marathon. Enjoy the little successes along the way on your journey to success.

Keep the faith and keep filling your blank pages. If you stop writing you’ll never have any shot at success.

Scriptcat out!

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“Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?”― Lao Tzu

“The professional also “dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come.”—Steven Pressfield, “The War of Art”

“… the payoff of playing-the-game-for-money is not the money (which you may never see anyway, even after you turn pro). The payoff is that playing the game for money produces the proper professional attitude. It inculcates the lunch-pail mentality, the hard-core, hard-head, hard-hat state of mind that shows up for work despite rain or snow or dark of night and slugs it out day after day.”—Steven Pressfield, “The War of Art”

“There’s a certain pride among people who’re good—a race car driver, a flier, a baseball player, a hockey player, anything like that—the primary thing is to do a really good job. They forget everything else in order to do it right—it’s their job; they’re supposed to do it. You get a stunt team in air acrobatics—if one of them is no good, they’re all in trouble.”—director Howard Hawks, interview with Peter Bogdanovich in “Who the Devil Made It”