When I had my little studio apartment, I created a little corner. I didn't look out the window, and I took everything off the walls, so that became my world. It wasn't the television or the stack of bills or the groceries to unpack. You give yourself a chance to immerse yourself in the story. Create a little environment that you can retreat to.

One of the things I learned over those first five years, where I just churned out screenplays without selling anything is that your screenplay is going to be read a thousand times before a single foot of film goes through the camera, so the damn thing had better be readable. It better be Grisham, it better be a page-turner. People say you've got 30 pages to grab them. Maybe so, but you've got three or four pages to show them that what you're doing is different. In those first few opening pages, it is vital that the reader gets your voice, and gets that the next few hours of reading are going to be worth it.