1. Make me love you by page 2. You're asking me to spend an hour or two of my time reading your script. Let me know I can trust you not to waste my time by writing an opening that shows you care enough about mine to craft something beautiful or moving or terrifyingly original. 2. Description matters. Don't be glib. Write with craft. Don't waste my time with anything that doesn't truly matter. Every word should either advance plot, reveal character, or create atmosphere. If it doesn't do at least one of those three things, cut it. 3. Your brilliant idea is going to suck. That thing that felt like a gossamer cloud that would write itself is going to collapse like a popped balloon very soon after you start writing it. That's okay. It's like having children. If you had any idea how hard and expensive it would be, very few people would sign up. Your job is to stay with it, even when the inspiration is gone. To see it through the slog, even on days when you produce nothing worthwhile. Especially on those days. 4. If you feel lost and alone and stupid, that's not an indication you're lost and alone and stupid. It's an indication you're a writer. 5. Hoard your secrets. With very rare exceptions, don't talk about your ideas to other people. You don't even know what they are yet. They need to germinate and cross pollinate and wither and die on the vine and be reborn again. Keep them in your hothouse. You know that place earth was hundreds of millions of years ago, moist and hot and weird creatures crawling from the sea to the muck of earth, fighting for air, eating each other, dying and transforming. That's your creative process early on. A confused beautiful mess. The last thing you need is someone peering into your mudhole saying, "Why are you growing wings? No one's ever flown before." 6. It damn well better matter. I don't care if it's animation—Woody's love for Andy is all consuming. He's panicked at the very thought of losing it. The Cowgirl Jesse is utterly destroyed when she's left in a donation box on the side of the road. I still can't talk about that scene without crying. That love is everything. When Woody tells her he has to go back to Andy because he's still Andy's toy, she responds: "Let me guess, Andy's a real special kid. And to him you're his buddy, his best friend. And when Andy plays with you, it's like even though you're not moving, you feel like you're alive. Because that's how he sees you."