the notes you don't play

"The Old Man and the Sea could have been over a thousand pages long and had every character in the village in it and all the processes of how they made their living, were born, educated, bore children, et cetera," Ernest Hemingway told The Paris Review. "That is done excellently

just do it

In 1986, I watched William Shatner host Saturday Night Live. Great host, great episode: You had the Enterprise refitted as a theme restaurant and Shatner exhorting Star Trek fans at a convention to get a life, among other excellent sketches from one of the best casts in the show's history.

a head full of ideas

“You know what your job is?” one director asked a young Tom Hanks after the actor showed up unprepared to rehearsal. “You have got to show up on time, you have to know the text, and you have to have a head full of ideas.” In short, ideas aren't extra.

things that have to go in

Recently, I went to the New-York Historical Society—don't ask me about that hyphen, I have no idea—to peruse an exhibit of Robert Caro artifacts. Caro, author of The Power Broker and four volumes (so far) of the definitive Lyndon Johnson biography, bequeathed his archives to the museum a

writing your own material

Recently, we lost Ray Liotta. Elizabeth Banks directed Liotta in what turned out to be one of his last films, Cocaine Bear. Banks decided to cast him after working with him on another film as an actress and seeing Liotta's approach to performing a scene. After he delivered an "amazing"

treat yourself

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret," advises Special Agent Dale Cooper in an episode of Twin Peaks. "Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it. Don't wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the

keep rolling

Maybe it was all that time spent as an editor, but even after seven years as a full-time writer, I still need reminding that writing—the actual writing of new words, one new word after the other—is its own thing. Starkly, fundamentally different in every way from everything else

one punch!

In the Japanese superhero/comedy manga and anime One-Punch Man, the eponymous hero is so amazingly powerful it takes only one punch to defeat any opponent. No matter how colossal the foe: ONE PUNCH! (If you're wondering how they managed to stretch this conceit over 27 volumes and sell over

clarity and commitment

Get clear on what you're going to do. Then, commit to doing it. The rest takes care of itself. First, clarity: "How do I act so well?" Ian McKellen asks in an episode of Extras. "What I do is pretend to be the person I'm portraying in the film or