I’M NOT A HACK!

 

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of

screenwriters about the craft of writing and how to survive as a

screenwriter in Hollywood. The speaker before me told the

assembled writers that ‘They should write from the heart, and that

writers who write solely for money – are hacks.”

Excuse me?

When I took the podium, I threw out my opening remarks and

told the writers that when I write for TV shows that I don’t care

about it all, that I wasn’t a hack.

I said I don’t have to write from the heart to write and write well.

My job is to write the best script possible, that, for example,

when I wrote for the pedestrian TV show JAKE AND THE FATMAN, I

cared not a whit if Jake or the Fatman ever caught the bad guys.

My job was to write fast, write well and deliver what the Exec Producer and the network wanted, which I did, in script after script.

The deal is: any writing job is good.

The deal is: to be paid to write is good.

I told the writers that “You don’t always have to write from

your heart – though it’s great to do that – but you always have to

write from your brain.”
Writing solely for money doesn’t make me a hack –

it makes me a pro.

Read my blog:
LAZARUS RISING at TomLazarus.com

And read my recent book:
THE LAST WORD – DEFINITIVE ANSWERS TO ALL YOUR SCREENWRITING QUESTIONS

Available from Michael Wiese Productions and Amazon.com.