Technically, I didn't go to Hollywood when I was in LA for the writing conference (I was too busy trying to pick up career tips), but I was close enough to pretend. That's what you do to fit in with the rest of phonies in Hollywood, right? (Again, I wouldn't know anything about that since I was never there!)
Okay, so here are the last few bits of wisdom I'll share:
- The perfect ending is a surprise and is inevitable
- Art is in the details
- Fiction has a higher standard of believability than real life
- Male energy is action, adventure, fun, and blowing stuff up; female energy is relationships, interaction, beauty of language, and character
- Use male energy to make things happen and female energy to make people care
Bruce Coville (from his session "Plotting: The Architecture of Story")
- Try to create some semblance of order in the chaos of the world and within
- Children are game for anything
- Yearning is part of what defines all art
- Use your very guts to spill out your very best
Susan Patron (from her speech "Endings: Surprising and Yet Inevitable)
Okay, that's all I have for now. As my brother would say, "Think about it."
*Counting Crows
