American screenwriter Zak Penn

When you work with Steven Spielberg, he’s got the best people in the world working for him. It definitely was the best experience. I don’t want to say it was easy, but it was more like suddenly you’re playing with an All-Star team.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Zak Penn about writing and “Ready Player One.” Yes, it was a lot of fun, and my head is still spinning!

If you’re not familiar, Zak’s career began as a screenwriter when he sold his first script, “Last Action Hero,” at the age of twenty-three. Since then, he has become known for his work on numerous films based on Marvel comics, including X-Men 2 and X-Men: The Last Stand, Elektra, The Incredible Hulk, and The Avengers. Whether you’re an aspiring writer, movie buff, or both, I hope you’ll enjoy five Inspired Money success secrets from my interview.

Figure Out Your Gift Early

I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t doing creative writing, even in first grade.

Zak started writing at a very young age, penning class plays in fourth and fifth grade. He was always writing short stories. In high school, he studied play writing at Yale summer school where he wrote a full-length play that got produced as a high school production.

The earlier you start, the sooner you put in your 10,000 hours to get good. You’ll also put in those hours, willingly. It’s no surprise that psychologists and business coaches often ask, “What activities made you happiest as a child?”

Develop Your Re-Writing Muscle

The hardest thing about writing often is rewriting. It’s writing something and then figuring out what’s right or wrong with it and then fixing it.

Zak attributes much of his success in Hollywood to practice. Write, rewrite, rinse and repeat. While many people have a natural facility with words, the art of storytelling and use of good story structure are things that need to be learned. Most often, the best way to learn is through trial and error. The more experience that you get, like with anything, the better you’ll become.

Turn Disappointment into Motivation

I think if [Last Action Hero] had been a big success I doubt I would have ended up where I am now, because I think it would have been very hard to resist thinking I really knew what I was doing at 23.

Over his career, Zak has learned how to face adversity — when something “was supposed to be my home run and instead it was a triple play.” The key has been to positively channel his emotion into his work by taking his anger out on his computer by saying, “I’m going to write something even better to prove that they made a mistake.”

This is hard, and not everybody can do it. The silver lining is the more you go through it, the easier it gets, and you develop a thicker skin over time. Because life, and particularly screenwriting, will inevitably throw you lots of curve balls, your ability to stubbornly rise in the face of disappointment will ultimately prepare you for your “Ready Player One.”

Write with Passion, Then Let It Go

I try to be passionate about the things I’m writing even if it’s something that I at first think is stupid.

Zak finds ways to develop a passion for all projects because he doesn’t really know any other way to write. For most movies, though, it is not uncommon for producers to hire and fire screenwriters over the course of a film being made. Therefore, it’s important to put your best effort into a writing project, but then you have to let it go. “I’ve definitely gotten much better at accepting that and just saying, “ Okay, I’m going to do this job for you guys and then I’m going back to the other thing I’m doing. And if you need me, call me, because that’s a much healthier attitude.”

Success is in the Process

Success is doing something that you enjoy doing every day or maybe a better way to put it is having a job or a career that you enjoy the process of makes you successful.

Once you’ve reached a certain point in your career, it’s time to focus on work that brings you satisfaction. For Zak, he strives to create something he is proud of, wants people to see, and doesn’t have to qualify it for his family and friends. While it’s rewarding to have commercial success and validating to earn the success of your peers, you have to ask yourself the “why” of what you’re doing.

“This is the thing I wanted to put out into the world, and I’m proud of it. I enjoyed making it. Enjoying the process is far more important to me than climbing to the top of the ladder of my profession because there’s so much luck involved in terms of does your movie come out on the wrong weekend, does it end up getting mis-cast, I mean, so many things can go wrong you can’t as a screenwriter really control the level of success. Once you hit a certain threshold you kind of just have to take it in stride and just do the things you want to do. I think that’s the whole point of getting into this business.”

Full Audio Interview

Like this? Listen to the whole Inspired Money interview to learn:

More about what it was like working with Ernest Cline and Steven Spielberg.

Who knows more pop culture trivia — Zak or Ernest?

Zak answers a listener question, “Do you think Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is selling out whereas DC Comics Extended Universe (DCEU) is artistically and cinematically timeless?”

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