"No one can teach you screenwriting. Teaching screenwriting is like teaching magic, not just magic tricks but magic. Screenwriting workshops are B.S. Everything starts from reading screenplays". Award winning filmmaker Gordy Hoffman said something to this extent at the full day screenwriting seminar held in Phoenix. 

Gordy won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting award in 2002 at the Sundance Film Festival for his film "Love Liza".  Thanks to IFP/PHX for organizing the seminar. Thought I'll share my notes with you. These are not exact quotes rather my own notes from what he was saying so if something sounds terrible, it's probably not Gordy's fault!!

• 50 cups of coffee on 50 Saturdays will create a history with the characters.
• The 100 pages of a screenplay is sharing this history with the audience. - You as a writer will need to know how it ends. Audience will sense from a million miles if you're not sure.
• What happened to the people we cared about? - The audience will ask this. - Put ourself in the heart of your characters.   
• The magic is in the alchemy between personal writing and imagination.
• People need to have an emotional experience in the theater. That is where it is tied to commerce.
• Understand as a filmmaker that men and women in our world can find ways to get to places where characters become villainous. Filmmaking on a serial killer is not a lame judgment on their soul but an understanding about how we as people can sometimes find a way to get to that place.
• How much time do you need to get close to 10 people? And how much time do you need to get close to one person? Keep this in mind before starting to introduce characters.
• Dialogue is not a transcription of real conversation - Compression of dialogue in rewrite is akin to compression of action in editing.
• Screenwriting is a collaborative art. It's not literature.
• Believable speech may lie in the Subtext but where it really lies is in the Practice.
• Your film is not a masterpiece and it's not a piece of crap. Take reviews and appraisals for what it is and LISTEN.
• L.A. is the marketplace where the oranges are sold. If you want to sell oranges, go to the marketplace. If not, then figure out what you can sell from where you are. But don't haul your oranges from PHX to LA every weekend.

Depth of Field - The distance between the nearest and the furthest object in focus. Amanda Mahan, my good friend and the best grip I have worked with on a film set is also a writer. I feel she has the ability to isolate everyday incidents in her life and transform them into objects of focus, articles that are creative and insightful, articles that touch on a wide range of emotions, articles that are sometimes thought provoking, sometimes amusing and always entertaining. Yesterday I asked her if I could share them with you. She agreed before driving back to her hometown for a few weeks. While she is away, here is one from her old archive about Blankets. Enjoy it with your morning cup of coffee or however you like it.

Bed Therapy

I like blankets. Yes, today I like blankets. Why? Because blankets only serve. Their ultimate goal is to assist in increasing my comfort level. When I'm cold, my blanket traps my body heat and helps me to warm myself. It doesn't do it for me. It helps me do it for myself. My blanket also sooths. It's soft and fluffy. There's nothing harsh or pointed about it. No tags. No zippers. No buttons or sequins or mean words or dirty looks or disappointments or rejections. Just niceness. When I'm trying to rest or I just need to wrap up, its softness covers me without judging. I think the most comforting thing about my blanket is that it does all this where I'm at. It covers and warms and sooths me in whatever position I get myself in to. It doesn't make me lay a certain way or wear a certain shirt or know the password. I just need to be… and it will conform to me. No questions asked. No justification necessary. This blanket of mine knows most of my deepest, darkest secrets, too. Its seen more of my tears than anyone. Still, it waits all day for me to come home and wrap up in it. Even in summer. It's always available and never turns down an opportunity to serve me… where I am… any way it can. Yes, today I like blankets. I like them very much.