Storytellers in London.

I had a bit of a break from writing here about my progress. I’m not sure if what’s been happening I could possibly call the progress, but there were things happening. Well, mostly I have found my motivation and once is back I have been working a bit and the new projects will be attacking.

I promised myself I will write down several things I consider as the most valuable of the London Screenwriting Festival experience. The festival itself was a magnificent place to be for a passionate writer. I don’t know what I was looking for when I was going there, but sure I have found it.

I picked my three favourite speakers of the festival, each of them special for the same, but sort of different reason. They all share the same feature – they have an amazing charisma that excites the audience. They know how to entertain you and it doesn’t matter if they are teaching you or just telling you about their life.

The first one, hands up, is Joe Eszterhas, a legendary Hollywood screenwriter, who I didn’t know much about before except that he wrote “Basic Instinct” and “Flashdance” (<dancing>). He told his story beautifully, but without soppy moments. An honest, hard-working, modest guy.

“Keep writing even if you’re throwing up”. God, it helped me.  For some reason, sometimes you have to hear such things  so they push you. If you thing this quote is silly – you have no idea what you’re talking about, people. Go away.  Joe was also referring to writing as a storytelling, because at the end of the day – that is what we want to do or why we wanted to do that when we were little (then the reality came and we realized that we need to make a living). BUT. We are supposed to tell stories that someone else really wants to listen/watch. That is when the moneys come. He also said an extremely important thing, very personal to me – “Don’t apologise for who you are”. I mean, you hear those things from everyone, but there is this moment when you actually understand what does this sentence mean. I hope that was my moment of fully understatement at least that is how I still feel about it.

The second speaker was Pilar Alessandra, who I have already seen during the screenwriting festival in Warsaw. She is a truly charming  speaker, she puts knowledge  in your head and you don’t even know it! She throws some jokes at you, she hides some tips between them, then she makes you write thinking of them a little “Just write whatever, what is on your mind” and then suddenly, a week later you still catch yourself doing that. You’ve improved your craft and you didn’t even notice! I mean, it’s the simplest and the most silly way of explaining her phenomenon. So if you have a chance I would recommend to go and listen to her.

The third one was Luke Ryan, a Hollywood executive who gave a few lectures and all of them were funny and super entertaining. He is the guy who makes those sort of comedies, which we consider to be silly but we always laugh while watching them. I am mentioning him, because he is a walking example of being passionate and enjoying what he is doing. He likes to laugh he makes comedies (well, not only). So let’s do what we enjoy, other people will follow.

I spent some quality time in London, I have met a few people and I hope to stay in touch with them.

I will finish this post with what BBC producer, Kate Harwood said about writing. As it doesn’t matter if it’s TV or film or whatever “The drama is drama is drama is drama”. We’re story-tellers, we need to learn to tell good stories.

(Oh. BTW THE STORM WAS REAL. THERE WERE TREES FLYING and stuff).