Somewhere, in the midst of all of this talk about format, plot, dialogue, pitch meetings and million-dollar deals lies the real core of our profession -- the story.

What are your stories, why do you choose to tell them, and what do they mean to you? If any of your answers to these questions are determined by market forces beyond your control and your craven greed to pursue them, then you already live in a materialistic hell which I hope to never share. Because I'm talking about the innate human desire to create -- to pursue subjective, flawed, truthful analyses of human desire, experience, motivation, and idea via the art of the motion picture screenplay.

While treading the harrowing waters of the stormy flood of pop culture and media that constantly threatens to drown our fragile creativity, how do we separate ourselves from the viral information which infects our private thoughts to discover what it is that we want to say -- for ourselves, about our own hopes and fears, and viewed through our own eyes and perspective on life?

Granted, screenwriting, more than most branches of the arts and media seems utterly beholden to vast forces of capital, which in this case are needed to finance the enormous costs of film production. But if one approaches a creative act solely from the perspective of profit, then any artistry inherent in the process in killed from the outset. Art and commerce are uneasy bedfellows, and the bastard children produced of their ugly couplings are often stillborn, grotesque mutations. Yet the occasional success, financial and/or artistic, keeps them at it.

But it doesn't have to be this way. The best films start from somebody's rock-solid conviction that they have a great story to tell. When a person is utterly convinced that they have an idea so powerful that it threatens to boil over within them, and they feel as if they want to shout it from the rooftops, then such a person is going to fight to get that story heard -- money be damned.

This urge to share our concoctions of fancy and philosophy is as old as human communication. The need to hear and tell stories drives social interaction, and causes us to seek out conversation as well as to consume stories through numerous forms of literature, art and media. Stories want to get out, and people are addicted to hearing them.

When staring at the proverbial blank sheet of paper, the first thing that should pop into your mind should not be a thought akin to "Action films make bank -- I should write one of those." Rather, begin from yourself and work your way outward. Try to examine your values, your worldview. Ask yourself: Who am I? How do I perceive the world differently than those around me? What is my philosophy, my way of living, and how can I express that through my writing?

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