The Great McGinty!

I have a vision of myself, hunched over a typewriter, pencil stuck behind my ear, in a small room no larger than a closet, pounding out an award-winning script. For the past six months I have immersed myself in the wonderfulness that is Hollywood. And not just any Hollywood, but the Golden Age (roughly 1929-1965, give or take a few years depending on personal taste). Far beyond my usual fare of Hitchcock, I’ve fallen deeply in love with Lubitsch, Wilder, Sturges, Wyler, Leisen, Capra, and so on. Cary Grant has been pushed back in favor of Gary Cooper, William Holden and William Powell, and Audrey can’t even hold a candle to Ingrid Bergman, Jean Arthur, Myrna Loy, Roz Russell or Barbara Stanwyck.

I’d discussed writing screenplays with my partner in crime, Donna, but never thought it a viable deal because I felt it would take time away from writing books, and that Hollywood of to-day was uninspiring. So wrong. Not only has watching movies sharpened my writing (particularly my bete noire, dialogue), but ideas for screenplays have been flying at me like crazy. I did think to enroll in a screenwriting class but then thought about my writing idols, Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder. They didn’t take a class, they learned through the process! Just as I felt my way through writing a novel through reading books, I’m going to have my own little screenwriting bootcamp through reading screenplays of my favorite movies!

I don’t know why I’m so slow.

I’m a writer

I’M A WRITER

Which means I can write whatever I choose to and have the well-rounded writing career I crave.