The movie script that changed my life wasn’t Howard Koch’s Casablanca. And it wasn’t Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation. Neither was it Herman Mankiewicz’s Citizen Kane, Robert Towne’s Chinatown, or Dan O’Bannon’s Alien (though that one came darn close). Nope. The script that changed my life was Richard Bell’s The Last Day of Winter. It was just four pages long, and therein lies the tale.
Screenwriting. In any dictionary, it should bear the note, “See also: hopeless.” A person attempting this pursuit had best be a sort of chimera: dreamer, masochist, and fool. When I first tried my hand, I certainly had the fool aspect down cold. I had no creative focus, was heedless of my total lack of experience, and moved only by a vague sense that if I remained faithful to my dream — like Linus sitting in his pumpkin patch, awaiting the advent of the Great Pumpkin — then surely things would work out my way.
