Don't let another season slip through your fingers!

Greg is offering a SPRING FORWARD SUPER SALE on his creative consulting. Get 12 hours for the price of 10 and commit to weekly check-ins for the next 3 months while you...
Draft your script
Write your show
Outline your book
Finish a book proposal
Create your online profile
Transform your standup act

Veteran screenwriter, story editor, teacher and writing coach Greg Miller will get your creative work on track with concrete suggestions, fresh perspective, strategic planning and regular deadlines.

"It's like magic!" - Parker (outlined and drafted article)

If you have material you've already generated, e-mail your pdf or link(s) or mail to: 137 N. Larchmont Blvd. #107 LA CA 90004. Greg is an expert reader and will help you focus the project, re-ignite your excitement for the material and chart a course to a finished draft (or performance).

"Terrific insights!" - Noah (re-wrote a script)

If you don't have any material generated... then you really need to saddle up and get started. Call Greg directly at 323-717-4731, explain your particulars and schedule your first session today.

Once you're writing and the words start flowing, you can get totally carried away.

A little carried away is a great thing for creativity. Too much and you hit hurdle #4: Losing Perspective.

This is tricky because a crazy person doesn't know they're crazy, right?

So here are several ways you'll know when you've lost perspective -- and what to do about it:

#1: Your latest version of the material seems oddly familiar and you realize that you're re-written yourself in a circle and have arrived back at your original version of the material.

Beth just sent me another great quote about the creative process, this one from Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Easy reading is damn hard writing". And of course, when he says 'hard writing', he means rewriting. Which can be the hardest kind of writing of all.

Over the years, we've developed a number of techniques to take some of the pain out of the rewrite process. It's inevitably going to be a little painful,  because you have to confront the fact that you're writing isn't perfect. Yet.

I use these techniques when I work as a writing coach for private clients. We also use them, and others like them, at The Comedian's Way Workshop for Writers, Performers and Other Humans (next class this Sunday, Nov. 1, 1-4pm at M Bar in Hollywood).

There's nothing magic about any one of these. The point is to make a game of the rewrite to keep yourself from taking it so seriously that you get blocked. I realize some of these are going to be way too cutesy, or too woo woo, for some of you serious writer types. Maybe you'll feel differently the next time you're in the middle of a pit of rewrite despair and considering slitting your wrists.

Beth always starts our workshop sessions with a rap about creative process. Here she talks about finding the right context for your work - and how you have to translate a particular piece of material when you adapt it to a different medium or context.

She couldn't do the kind of personal intimate storytelling that she wanted to do in the mainstream comedy clubs and that's why we started Un-Cabaret to begin with.

Click here for more info about The Comedian's Way workshop.

Nine is the number of completion. So, to align with the energy of today, the magical 9-9-09, here are nine tips for completing a creative project, composed with the aid of the magical Beth Lapides.

You can work on finishing any project with both of us in our The Comedian's Way workshop (upcoming classes Sept. 13, 20, 27 in Hollywood). A lot of very concrete work has come out of the workshop, including books, scripts, one-person shows.

If you aren't in LA, or want to work privately over phone and e-mail, talk to me about my consulting services. I have helped people finish articles, scripts, pitches, essays, books and book proposals.

1. Pick the right project - If the project isn't the right one for you right now, you're never going to get there. You may feel like you've already put so much energy into it that you may as well keep going, but if you're heart isn't in it (anymore), or it isn't the right project for you, the world and the marketplace right now...

(with special guest contributions from Merrill Markoe, Cindy Chupack, Rob Ramsey, Beth Lapides)

The old axiom is: "Writing is Re-Writing". Which, of course, is true to an extent. I've never read a first draft that doesn't need some work. But when does re-writing become counter-productive?

Are you making progress or just chasing your tail in a circle? How do you know if you're about to strike gold or just digging yourself into a deeper hole?

I've personally walked away from scripts after four or five drafts and I actually broke up with my writing partner over a screenplay after nine drafts. He insisted we keep going and even tried a few subsequent drafts on his own but the script was never 'finished'.

I know. File management sounds like the most boring topic in the world, and it really might be.

But a lot of writers don't have any system for keeping track of their work and that ultimately ends up costing a lot of time and leading to confusion down the road, especially when you're dealing with a long-form project like a script, screenplay or book that is going to require multiple drafts. I actually think that ignoring draft numbers or dates might be a way of staying in denial about how much work is really involved in the project.

But whether your reasons are psychological, motivational or just never thought about it, my advice is to put up with a little annoying non-creative organization at the beginning of your project, then you never have to think about it again! I recommend this simple 2-step protocol:

Writing, of course, isn't just one thing. (What is these days?) The bad news is you have to be pretty good at all of them. The good news is that you have at least 7 different ways of moving forward with your project:

1. OUTLINE/RE-OUTLINE - A great way to plan your project and/or get perspective, especially if you've been slinging words down in the trees, is to take an overview look at the forest. Try to take a bird's eye view, noting major landmarks, and think about the big picture.
2. MAKE NOTES - These are seeds for your trees. They could be bullet points to expand later, details about characters, lines of dialog or specific moments in your story. But not vague philosophical thoughts about the project.
3. EXPAND NOTES INTO ROUGH DRAFTS - Pick one of your notes or bullet points and expand it. Think of it as getting your seeds to sprout. Of course they'll be weak and helpless at first, but if you keep sending them love they might grow into mighty oaks.

"The Practical Writer" ed. by Therese Eiben & Mary Gannon with the staff of Poets & Writers Magazine is a couple of years old but still has some great relevant advice, especially "Loose Bottoms" (about editing your work - best advice: you can probably cut your first and last lines), "How to Land an Agent" (a specific plan for finding an agent for your work) and "How to Read Rejection" (about decoding responses to your work).

Also fun stuff about titling and getting into glossies or small literary journals. As with any anthology, some articles are better (and more useful) than others, but this one will give you a lot of helpful perspective and some concrete tools.