Hey, guys, I hope this goofy little song I wrote and performed helps you with the courage to simply WRITE—through the doubts, through the blockages that we all feel. My singing is shaky at first, but it improves as it goes. (I’m not a singer but I can fake it sometimes ;) https://youtu.be/Ib8V2zO1gik?feature=shared Have a great week! Nate

In my day job as an English teacher, I was recently talking to my students about the importance of being wary of absolutist thinking, the type of logical fallacy that is thrown around a lot lately about “those people” from the political party we don’t like, and on and on. I reminded my students that this type of thinking—which many today fall prey to—is at the foundation of many societal ills, such as misogyny, racism, ideological or religious intolerance, and the list goes on. Applying this to our screenplays and novels is similar. When we fall into the bad habit of writing our characters not as three-dimensional people but as “good” or “bad” cliches, or we characterize them based on the ‘type’ of character they are (e.g. assuming every chef is the same type of Casanova, suave French chef from ‘Emily in Paris’—lol) we do our stories a disservice. Gray areas abound in real life and they should also in our stories—yes, even commercial stories—if we want to make them feel real. Life is messy, and it’s important that we not let our plot or characters become predictable. So let that ‘churchy’ girl have actual hormones. Let the guy who just converted to Judaism be named ‘Christian.’ Let us first experience “bad guy” doing something truly good and noble (one great recent series starts this way). Let the French chef be a boring, shapeless guy who plays dungeons and dragons. You get my meaning. Never be tempted to think “this type of person ALWAYS does or thinks or believes A, B, or C.” Because just like us, there are very different sides to these people—to every person, both real and imagined. :)

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