One of the best pieces of advice I’ve received in the last few years came from Steve Moore, the great cartoonist who draws the daily sports panel “In the Bleachers.” If you aren’t familiar with his work, make sure to visit gocomics.com/inthebleachers and take a look. Day in, day out Moore is as good as we have working today.
Moore’s suggestion, which I now often quote, came as I was pawing the ground, reluctant to start writing my first screenplay. I could see the story quite clearly but had always written in narrative form—jokes, articles, short stories, and novels—and was reluctant to dive into the cinematic world of formulaic structure. With narrative work you can explain what’s happening. With scripts the scenery and actors must.
“Just throw down the bones,” he said. “You’ll learn as you go. Throw down the bones, then go back and fix it.”
Moore had recently sold his first movie project, “Open Season,” an animation comedy about hunters going into the woods on opening day where a forest full of fed-up, angry animals wait in ambush with surprises of their own.
By the time the studio finished with “Open Season” Moore’s story had been artistically trampled by a stampede of assigned do-somethings the studio hires to do precisely that. Moore’s story was drawn and quartered in true Hollywood fashion but not until after the check had cleared.
I trust friends I admire very much, so I took his advice. I scrawled “Throw down the bones” on a sticky note and stuck it to the panel of my iMac. Then I started throwing. Moore’s advice proved tremendously right.
The story unfolded like a street map and I gunned through the process of transferring the characters and chaos from my mind to a quarter-ream of formerly blank paper. I love creating something out of nothing, especially when I’m done. (note: I do the exact opposite with investments, with which I turn something into nothing with alarming alacrity. )
After finishing my screenplay I spent some time thinking about why things worked that way, why throwing down the bones was a smart, sound approach. The reason, I decided, is because of how the mind processes progress compared to stagnation.
I coach and teach that waking hours pass one of four ways: they are wasted, spent, invested, or cherished. Walking around with a fully formed story and characters sleeping on furniture in my head achieved nothing. Whatever time that involved was clearly wasted.
But the energy and act of converting those ideas into something real, something tangible, produced a saleable product wrapped by a blue-ribbon of significant emotional payoff. In retrospect every second it took was wonderfully invested, exponentially so if the story is eventually purchased and–studio gorillas notwithstanding–someday comes to life as a funny mainstream comedy.
This psychology of progress is vital to sustaining self-motivation, a happier self-image, and stronger self-esteem. How we see ourselves (and how happy we are when we take the time to look) is influenced hugely by the time decisions we make. Invest as much time as possible and waste as little as we can, and life will always get better.
On a good day the great but troubled Ernest Hemingway wrote five pages. But he did it every day. Day after day five at a time quickly adds up. Soon enough he, like all who follow his trail and throw down the bones, created something out of nothing. And few would debtate that Hemingway’s something was really something!
When it’s time to make something happen, don’t wait. Throw down the bones. You’ll always be glad you did.