A friend who’s a painter sent me this in an e-mail: When you write, are you coming from your gut/heart, or from a merchandising view? Both? It got me thinking about the old Hollywood axiom, “One for love, one for money.” This is the wisdom proffered in good faith to writers, actors and directors by their agents. It means, “Alternate the projects you work on. Do one that’s commercial, then do the next ‘for art.’” The counselor offering that advice is trying to steer her client’s career between Scylla and Charybdis. Don’t be too precious and work only on artsy-fartsy…

If you wanna get strong, go to the gym. If you wanna get fast, go to the track. If you wanna get rich, go to (I’ve never figured that one out). The point is: where the body goes, the spirit follows. Therefore, move thy butt. Put your ass where your heart wants to be. If you want to paint, don’t agonize, don’t ikonize, don’t self-hypnotize. Shut up and get into the studio. Once your physical envelope is standing before the easel, your heart and mind will follow. If you want to write, plant your backside in front of the typewriter.…

A couple of years ago I was struggling to finish a novel called The Profession. I was lost. The book was dying. It was a Bad Moment. Enter Shawn. This is when it’s great to have a friend/editor/literary Kahuna who really knows his stuff. Shawn flew out to L.A. from New York and we beat our brains out for a couple of days. I remember vividly what he finally said: “You know what this book is about? It’s about stories. We all have stories that we tell ourselves about what our lives are—and those stories are always wrong.” That was…

We were talking last week about Villain Speeches. But there are some great Good Guy speeches too. I’m not even sure what to call these. Here’s one from Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham. In the story, Nuke Laloosh (Tim Robbins), the clueless but athletically gifted pitcher, has just been called up to the major leagues, “the Show.” Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), who has been mentoring Nuke in the minors, has just heard the news. Crash knows that he himself is never going to get that life-changing phone call, even though he’s ten times smarter than Nuke and has worked ten times…