06 August 2003 - 1:26 pm

Last night was my graduation from Writers Boot Camp, a two year screenwriting program offered here in LA (and other cities) with headquarters of course in LA. This was the speech that I prepared and read very nervously to the assembled gathering.

As reward for my hard work, and two years of payments, I was given a diploma printed on a mousepad, and a leather book cover, that fits any cheap composition book.

Hope you enjoy.

The Tortoise and the Hare

I would like to say a few words on the wisdom of Aesop. You know, our good friend Aesop, trying to impart morals upon us thousands of years ago through the use of fables. And I would also like to point out the relevance of applying one of his more famous stories to the work we do here at Writer’s Boot Camp. The story is the tortoise and the hare.

Imagine if you will, that the hare is inspiration. Inspiration gives wings to our words, has us scurrying to get them all down, forsaking our friends, obligations, possibly even work, when we are in the throes of inspiration. We just want to write. It makes us do insane things like write all night, write all weekend, write, write, write, because we can think of nothing more deliriously wonderful than riding the wave of inspiration, seeing where it takes us. The problem with inspiration, is we never know when it will strike, and we never know when it might desert us. Thus in the fable, the hare lopes along, far ahead of the tortoise, only to stop to get a good rest before finishing the race. That’s when inspiration finally left him, that rest he took. He’d been riding high on that crest, and suddenly it was gone. Although inspiration is intoxicating and addicting, when it leaves, gone as quick as when it struck, often we discover we are very tired because we had been ignoring our body’s prompts to eat or sleep, for example.

Now the tortoise. He can no more easily see the end of the race than the hare when they begin, but he has faith. He doesn’t rely on tricks, wings on a prayer, on adrenaline and inspiration, he just plods along. The goal of the end is what keeps him moving. If you have ever done a marathon, you know the feeling. Yes, it’s 26.2 miles long, but the end is the only thing that keeps you moving. The end will come, only if you keep moving. And continue moving, despite the temptation to take a break and rest.

Hopefully you can see where I am going with this. Although as writers we enjoy the exhilaration of inspiration the hare experiences, it is the faith in ourselves, in there being an end, and devotion to our motto of “The secret to writing is writing” that in the end will get us a finished script. The tortoise, really, whether first or last, always gets there in the end. And so it is with the tools we have learned here at Boot Camp. Draw up a plan, give yourself time, do something productive, some tool we have learned, every time you have scheduled yourself, and in the end, voila, like magic, a finished script will appear.

But instead of relying on one or the other of the two choices Aesop offered up, why not harness them both? Ride the crest of inspiration the hare gives when he hops into your life, and continue plodding on in your writing on the days you feel like sleeping rather than writing. Between the two, there can be no doubt of achieving your goal.