Paul Zeidman

Paul Zeidman Award-winning screenwriter of thrilling adventure & yarns author. He’s also a notoriously meticulous script editor and proofreader, with the ability to spot a rogue comma or misspelled word at a hundred paces. When not writing, rewriting, or reading scripts, he enjoys watching movies, reading comic books, running half-marathons, and making what could possibly be the best pecan pie west of the Mississippi. He host the Creative Writing Life Podcast.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Hello everyone, and welcome to theLadystel Podcast. Guess what, y'all I
messed up? See remember before?Actually you know you wouldn't remember because now
you be listening to the Lady Stealepodcast. I know I lied. I
lied. I like, that's upnumber two going for it today, That's
what I'm doing. So the podcastbefore this, the episode, if you

(00:22):
were listening to it, I said, oh, I'm going to make this
a Lady's Tell podcast because I don'thave someone for the Lady's Tail podcast and
we have four podcasts, so Imade it a Lady's Tail podcast and then
right after them the next interview withsomeone for the Lady's Stel podcast. So
double double double your fun, hey, and don't suit me on that because

(00:45):
there's nothing left to take unless youwant someone my cotton candy and I just
don't give that up. I'm sorry. Someone came up and robbed me and
they were like, cotton candy oryour life. I'd be like, well,
it was my last good bit oflife. Give me one more second
before you stab me me, getit off my off my palm, all
right, go ahead, I'm good. You can kill me now anyway.
That's why my tongue is blue,and I said before I started this,

(01:07):
I wasn't gonna show my tongue,and I because I'm currently eating gotten candy.
I got up and drove ten minutesto a store, waited for my
cotton candy to get made, stuckin a bag, drove back and eating
gotten candy with no water. Nowbecause I moved spots, so it's gonna

(01:27):
get a little hairy. Okay,sticky's gonna get a little sticky. So
I'm gonna hurry up and talk aboutwhat I do because I moment never to
introduce myself. Okay, I aprofessional person here, I should act like
I forgot that. I'm not doingthat. It was a lovely try,
though I tried and I failed.I'll try again the next one. No,

(01:51):
Okay, I wrote books, Yes, yes I did, and they
are and I thought the worce wasbad, and I thought being Girdla was
easy. If only are me andMemoor and worse foreign call Wittle's web end
Widdows debt. If you're counting alongwith me, that is six six audiobooks.
And if you're wondering why I'm doingsix, like this because that's a
sign language. Six alright, youcan get those audio books. Oh my
goodness, and he signed back,I understand with it. Yet, Oh,

(02:16):
we're gonna have to do some signlanguage here today. I see that
name. Oh and then he ruinedit with little fits. Okay, moving
on with my interview with myself apparentlyat this moment, and then if you've
been watching us for a while,you know that what comes next this is

(02:38):
a sign language part. So therewere six books, and now we're gonna
add eleven more books, and thatequals seventeen books total, and you can
find the rest of oh, I'msorry, seventeen more books, which makes
it twenty three because I've forgotten thatwe wrote two more books this year,
so you can find the rest ofthose a Www. Dot n I thought
ladies dot com and I've spent toomuch time talking about to do it as

(03:00):
a car salesman. Oh screwed.I lied one more time as a car
salesman for my website www dot indlady dot com. Yeah, you feel
like you should go down They godown to the street and like buy a
website or something now, right,car salesman style. Anyway, you don't

(03:22):
here to hear about me, whichfeels weird to say, because I've been
talking the whole time. You hereto hear about my wonderful guess. Wonderful
guys. Would you like to introduceyourself, I'd be happy to well,
no, thank you so much.Hi everybody, I'm Paul's i'dman. I'm
a screenwriter based out of San Francisco, and I was instructed when we started
this thing to tell you three thingsabout me. Okay, well, I've

(03:42):
already told you my name, Itold you what I do where I live.
I can tell you a few otherthings. I've got this many books
to my name. They're all prettymuch the same title. There. It's
called go ahead and Ask books aboutscreenwriting and pie because those are two very
important things to me. And thoseare assorted interviews that I've done over the

(04:03):
year. So I run this blogcalled maximum Z, which is about screenwriting.
Primarily, it's about me trying tomake it in as a screenwriter.
And I started it in two thousandand nine and I'm still going now.
I post once a week, andover the years I've done over one hundred
interviews with script consultants and movie makersand writers in all kinds of mediums like

(04:26):
comics and plays and short films,and I just have all had this a
big collection of interviews, and Ithought, I want to put these out
as books, so I did.So I have three books, Volumes one,
two, and three, and they'reall available on Amazon. There's my
plug for that. Another thing aboutme. Part of the reason that the
book involves the word pie is becauseI love to cook. I love to
bake. If you ask me whatmy favorite thing to make is anything that

(04:47):
makes my family happy. And fortunatelyfor me, there's a lot. Like
just last night, I made pastabecause I love homemade pasta. I don't
think I've ever going to buy itagain from the store. We had a
vegan pesto sauce because my wife can'treally do the oil thing as much,
and so that was really yummy,and roasted Brussels sprouts and that was Yeah.

(05:11):
I could see you rolling your eyesbecause it sounds delicious, and it
was Third thing, Wow, tryto think I live in California. I
love it. I was born andraised in the wilds of southern New Jersey,
but decided had to get out andso I'm on the other side of
the country now and no regrets.Love it here. The ocean is from
my perspective, the ocean is abouta mile that way, so straight ahead.

(05:35):
And I consider myself very fortunate tolive here. And I think that's
three plus things about me. Sowe'll know to feel free to you know,
fire away with any other questions youwould have. I could talk about
cotton candy as well. My wifegrew up in western Pennsylvania and stone's throw
from an amusement park there in thePittsburgh Kennywood exactly. She lived just to

(05:58):
like really like a mile away,and one of her earliest jobs was making
cotton candy there, and so sheknew how to do the thing there.
And and you know, every timewe'd go there when I was visiting,
or after we got married and goback to visit her family, we'd go
to Kennywood and she would say,oh, yeah, there's the potato patch
there, and there's you know,the word that we did, the cotton
candy, and here's that roller,the thunderbolt and the jack rabbit and the

(06:20):
racer not too far away from thewater rabbits. Uh, well, there's
sand castles. The water park.Oh there is, Yeah, there is
a water ride there. I thinkit's cool. It's rapids or something like
that. I know what is Okay, Okay, we didn't do that one
as much, but we did allthe other stuff. So it's how I
found the potato shack. Okay,cotton candy, cotton candy, and I've

(06:42):
had cotton candy across this nation.Wow, has the most amount of cotton
candy an amusement park and a bagit's freshly done for a cheaper price than
I have ever had. And mywife, you know that she spent part
of her teen years making that cottoncandy for people like you to enjoy.
I'm tempted to pay for you allto come over so you can in my
cotton candy machine. Oh, shewould know. She still knows how to
do it too. And there's awe're really lucky here that there's like it's

(07:09):
kind of they do it like Aprilthrough October. Every Friday night. They
have this thing called off the Gride, which is what it's like, huge
assortment of food trucks, like twentyto thirty food trucks. And when my
daughter was little, we went toone of them and she got this thing
of cotton candy was probab like thatbig so like about two and a half
feet wide, and there's have thispicture of her just holding it, like

(07:30):
you know, like she won MissAmerican and there's this giant bouquet in her
arms. But it's cotton candy andit was like white, but it had
flavors to it. And that's thatone of That's one of the things I
remember about cotton candy, at leastthe most recent one. Anyway, I
had three weeks ago. I hadone of those, a large one.
Because the lady next next to meat we also do some other type of
events, lady next to us,I was like, maybe the biggest cotton

(07:53):
can you could ever make. AndI'm standing there literally like I just got
the crown my head cotton candy.Like yeah, okay, anyway, we're
there to talk about cotton candy.We're here to talk about pie. Now
we can do that. You guyssay, hey, if you're not talking
about one sweet, you should talkabout another. It's true, we have

(08:16):
the leading country for diabetes. Let'sgo ahead and trend. Let's continue the
trend. Yes. Oh, andthen number three, I have to talk
about PASSA. And then I swearwe're going to talk about what we could
talk about writing stuff, but I'mmore than happy to talk about food.
Yeah, we'll get to the writing. We will, Okay, it'll be
like the last question. So,Hi, what is your favorite pie?

(08:39):
Please don't say rhubarb? And howdo you make your crust like wonderful?
Okay? So okay. So Iwould say I have two favorites. It's
a split down the middle between pecanand pumpkin. And I and I love
to like I said, I loveto bake, so I love to make
pies. And I've kind of makeit an effort, like whenever I go

(09:00):
out and there's pecan pie on themenu, and if I'm not stuffed from
the rest of the meal, Iwill get a piece and kind of gauge
it. I will compare it tomy own. I can't say I've had
like phenomenal pecan pie. And Iwill say that probably the biggest compliment I
ever got was I made it andwe took it to a friend's house.

(09:22):
And this woman was born and raisedin Georgia and so, but she lived
in the Bay Area at the time, and so she had a piece and
she said, speaking as a formerGeorgia peach, I have to say This
is probably one of, if notthe best pecan pie I've ever had,
And so I took that. Itook that so much to heart, and
so I pride myself on my peconIt's really good. And it took me

(09:46):
a lot of experimentation to get it. So it didn't get it wasn't all
runny and goofy when you cut it, even after you let it cool.
But I think I finally got it. So that that's what I love to
make, and when i'm pumpkin andI make them primarily in the fall in
the winter because when the local pumpkinpatch goes on, they sell you know,

(10:09):
jack of land and pumpkins, butthey also sell sugar pumpkins which you
can use to make you know,pumpkin pie from scratch. And I've I've
started doing that, and people arealways amazed and impressed that when you can
do that, because it's like,oh, well, you know, anybody
can open a can, you know, get your candilivis at the store and
you know, whip it all together. But if you can take a pumpkin

(10:31):
and roast it and mash it allup and mix it together, and it's
just got a certain special quality toit that it's it's kind of hard to
beat. And regarding crust, Ithink I just have wow, I forget
oh gosh, because I have likea stack of recipes. It's like that
that big that I've accumulated over theyears, not for pie, just for
everything. And so one of themis like I think it's like best ever

(10:52):
pie crust, and it's pretty prettystandard, pretty basic. I use it
for all of them. But oneof the things I've discovered, because my
daughter loves a pumpkin pie, thatI tried making it without a crust and
it worked out really well. It'sjust it's because it's so solid that you
can cut it and it comes outof the pan without falling apart, without
leaving anything in the pan, andit's really good, and it's a little

(11:13):
bit lighter because you don't have thecrust, you know, much as you
like the crust, without the crust, it's actually just as good. Exactly
how to make my pumpkin pies.I make them once a year and then
stick them in the freezer. AfterI make them, I make six pumpkin
pies nice, then I make minipumpkin tartlets, and then of course you
got a roast the pumpkin seeds,and then of course then after that it

(11:35):
becomes pumpkin muffins and pumpkin loafs ofbread. Okay, so I will throw
add one more in for you.So about it about a year and a
half ago. So there's a lotof local coffee shops around our neighborhood,
and so we went to one.This was probably like November early December of
I guess twenty twenty two, andthey were selling chocolate chip pumpkin scones,

(11:58):
so probably about like the size ofyour fist, and they were five dollars
and I thought, wow, that'sthat's that's high for a scone. And
but it was really good. Andso you know, we get into like
February of last year, and Ithought, because my wife really liked it,
and I thought, I'm going totry and make it myself. And
so I found a recipe and youknow, had the pumpkin and the chocolate

(12:20):
chips and you whipped it all togetherand it made eight scones. And because
I get up super early for myregular job, and so I had time
to uh make scones while she wasstill asleep, and so she woke up.
She said it smells so good andand I surprised her with it,

(12:41):
and she's like, oh, andso I've had that. I've made those
a couple of times, and I'veeven like made them to send to friends
and family because they're you know,popular, and then they're just so darn
tasty coming up. Uh you knowwhat I've I've sent baked goods through the
mail. Well, like I said, to friends and family. And because

(13:03):
as I mentioned way back in thebeginning of this that I'm also a screenwriter,
and so I've offered two because alot of people will pay to get
script notes on their work, AndI said, would you would anybody be
willing for a cookies for notes exchangeprogram? And I had a couple of
people actually take me up on it. So they read my script, gave
me notes, and I sent themlike three dozen cookies. Oh my goodness.

(13:24):
Okay, so now now we aregetting alive. One more detour then
we're getting right there. Sure,sure, So was this your first time
making pasta, because if it was, I really want to hear about like
how it worked for you. Imade pasta as well. Okay, yeah,
it's a lot of work. Well, you're never buying it again.
And I was like, well,what it can be. It can be

(13:45):
a lot of work, but it'smean it's pretty much uh so uh.
My holiday gift a couple of yearsago was a kitchen Aid mixer. Oh
and so got that and had thatand loved using it to make stuff.
And then I saw on social media, like friends of ours they had pasta.
I guess, like a pasta maker, but I didn't want an actual

(14:07):
pasta make because we only have somuch space. But apparently kitchen Aid has
pasta making attachments for the mixer,so that was like my gift the next
year, and so I decided Iwas going to try it, and it
comes with a recipe for pasta,and so I made that. And this
was in our previous place, sothere was much tighter space to work with.

(14:28):
But so I decided I wanted tomake pasta just to see if I
could do it. And also Inever made pesto before, so so I
made you know, fetucini and pestojust like it was like it was all
one big experiment. And the reactionfrom my wife and my daughter was just

(14:50):
like, oh my god. Andit was just because there's something about I
think about fresh pasta as you probablyknow, it's it's, it's it.
It's got a certain it's so differentfrom you know, you know, you
buy it to the store and boilit for ten minutes type of stuff.
And it's so much lighter and thatthere's it's just a better quality. Uh.

(15:11):
I hate, I hate to useit because I hear it on almost
and I hear this on bake offso much. It's got a different mouthfeel
to it. Okay, but it'strue. I'm sorry, and not like
that. Oh my god, yeahyeah, but so yeah, so pretty
much. I have made so manybatches of fuccini and the occasional spaghetti i'd

(15:33):
do. I do. I wantto make stuff like you know, macaroni
or bucatini or or any of that. I would love to. But we're
lucky that there's a place relatively closeby. It sells like they make fresh
pasta every day, so if wewant something different, we can. They
have like three dozen kinds of pastaavailable, so it's it's phenomenal. So
I'm jealous. It is a veryfood centric town and we're thrilled about it.

(15:58):
When you and he said at thebeginning. He loves living there.
There you go, that's one ofthe reasons why he loves living there.
Yes, now, I was gonnasay that because I've talked about this with
friends, Like, we're really spoiledliving here in the Bay Area because,
like I think it's we have morerestaurants per capita than any other city,
and unfortunately, there's a lot ofturnovers, so like, you can go
to a restaurant and love it.But he tried to go three months later.

(16:21):
They may have closed because they youknow, they just had to shut
down because the rent was too highor whatever. But yeah, we're extremely
lucky that, you know, wewe've got all the farms in the Central
Valley and throughout the Bay Area,so all this amazing food and of produce
and vegetables and all kinds of meatsfrom local farms. It's just, you
know, it is a food lover'sparadise around here. Oh my goodness.

(16:42):
So I've always said I wanted tovisit San Francisco, but I wouldn't go
because it's too expensive. I'm drivingdown from from Los Angeles next time,
and I'll be in La and May, so yeah, it is only about
a five to six hour drive north. So you're all set. Yeah,
it's gonna be a long drive,but it's it's gonna be worth it.
I'm gonna be sleeping in a parkinglot somewhere, but it's gonna be worth
everyone driving back. Okay, we'regetting to screenwriting. Yes please suppose to

(17:08):
be here for Okay. I lovehow you said yes please. I think
even he's tired of talking about food. I'm not tired of hearing about it.
Oh my goodness. So you havedecided to become a screenwriter. How
does one to even begin on beinglike, this is what I'm going to
do and get into the process ofactually like getting your screenwriting closer to being

(17:32):
a movie. Well. See,that's the thing is that it is.
Screenwriting is such a unique animal inthe world of writing. Like everybody writes
a book and they think, oh, and you've written a book, or
or they you know, they seea movie and they figure out I like
that. I want to learn howto do that. And there are certain
rules and guidelines that you need tofollow, but once you kind of become

(17:53):
familiar with them and you learn howto do them, that you can kind
of start bending the rules a littlebit, so you don't have to have
a cookie cut or script that.I mean, I'm one of those people.
I've I've been a writer since Iwas little. I mean for me,
it was like I had a notebookand I just you know, scribbled,
you know, really crappy stories init and that and I just really
loved, you know, writing storiesand creating concepts and characters and just things

(18:18):
that One of the things I alwaysI do this presentation on screenwriting, and
one of the things I tell writersis write something you would want to watch,
because the passion you have for yourstory should be evident on the page
that you can tell the writer reallycares and put a lot of effort into
it. And the thing is withscreenwriting is that it takes a long time
to not just learn how to doit, but to learn how to do

(18:40):
it well. And it's for me, it was kind of like I started
out you know, that kind ofwriting, and then I you know,
started and I love movies my wholelife, and I thought, well,
you know, I'll give it atry. And first, you know,
it required you need special software forwriting a screenplay. You can't just put
it in word and you can't justyou know, you know, kind of

(19:00):
wing it that first. I hadto try it. This was you know,
like in the mid nineties, Ihad to try and getting screenwriting software
was an impossibility, and finally youmanaged to track it down because you had
to get it, like at aat the Writer's store which was in la
and they had one up here inSarslito. But I meanmember going into like
regular software stores at the mall andsay, hey, do you have any

(19:22):
screenwriting software and you get the twentysomethings. Clerk is like what because they
didn't know what it was, andso, you know, all of the
scripts up until then, you know, they had people to type them out
for you. But once these programscame out, and the two are Final
Draft and Movie Magic, and there'ssome other ones, but I don't really
I'm not familiar with those. Thatonce you kind of learned the basics of

(19:44):
how a script should look on thepage, that's kind of where that's your
launching pad. That's where you start, and you're going to make a lot
of mistakes when you start out.I know I certainly did, and you
because when you're writing a screenplay,you're probably still thinking with them mindset of
a book writer that you can writedown what somebody is thinking, or why

(20:06):
somebody is doing that, or whatsomething really means when they're doing something,
And you can't do that because theprimary rule with screenwriting is show, don't
tell that. If you see someoneon the screen, like you see a
guy at the sink washing dishes,you can't write. You know, Bob
stands out the sink washing dishes,but his mind goes back to that girl
he took to the prom and dumpedhim and ran off and now lives with

(20:26):
a plumber and acron. You knowwhat we're going to see on the screen,
a guy washing dishes. So youhave to figure out a way how
do you convey this kind of informationin as visual way as possible. And
you don't want to have the charactersjust speaking things because that's boring and that's
really not what cinema is all about. So it's all about learning how to

(20:47):
present the information in a visual way, but to also make it interesting.
You want us to. It startswith the reader. You want the reader
to you want to grab their attentionand hold on to it, or you
know, ninety to one hundred andtwenty pages and that's not easy because a
lot of writers kind of their writingcan be a little drab. You have
to learn how to punch it up. You have to learn to make it

(21:10):
interesting. That you can't say thingsthat are exactly what the character means.
There's there these things called subtext andnuance, and you want to make it
a fun read. I mean,it depends on the kind of story.
If you're writing a horror, youwant it to be scary. You want
to. You want to keep thegoosebumps on the reader's skin. You want
to. You want to scare them, you want but they they're so scared,

(21:30):
but they want to know what happensnext, or if it's a drama,
or if it's a you know,a silly cartoon. You know,
is that kind of vibe coming offfrom what you're reading on the page?
So go ahead. I love whereyou said that you have to show And
I think that that's such a hugepoint, especially coming from an author's point

(21:51):
of view, because we are we'reused to having a good seven eight pages.
You know, what was going onaround and thinking and then all of
a sudden, that's so and eightpages is about about four lines. Yeah,
well that's everything else around it hasto be built. So those four
lines actually you get the same feeling. Yeah, so they're like I took
a seminar from he's since retired,Richard Walter, who was the head of

(22:14):
screenwriting at UCLA, and he hadthis story that a writer had was describing
a garden party and they were butthey were going into so much detail,
and he was talking about, like, you know, what the weather was
like, and what the people werewearing and what they were serving. And
he said, and think of thepage of a screenplay as real estate,
and you want the more white spaceyou have, the better. And his

(22:36):
his guideline, which I think isprobably one of the best pieces of writing
advice I've ever heard, is rightas if ink costs one thousand dollars an
ounce, So you want to havesay as much as you can with as
few words as possible. And sohe asked this writer, said, well
why are you why do you haveall this subscription? He said, because
I want to this is how thisgarden party is going on. He said,
well, that's this takes off likesix lines and that's a lot of

(22:59):
that's a big chunk text on thepage, and that's kind of not the
best way to do it. Sowhat is the what is the core message
you're trying to convey And he said, well, it's a lavish garden party.
So okay, you know exterior gardenday, a lavish garden party takes
place. See you you hear thatphrase. You can visualize what it is
in your imagination and it's probably totallydifferent from what I'm imagining, but it's

(23:23):
the same idea. It's a lavishgarden party and this is what's going on
in this scene. And that's oneline, or you know, with the
slug line and the description line,that's two lines on the page. You
just saved yourself like six lines ofthe script. And so a lot of
writers, especially in their earlier scripts, they tend to overwrite. They'll put

(23:44):
too much information on the page andnot realizing like I don't need to say
that, like because I've had I'veseen the scripts where the writer goes has
like almost a paragraph describing what thecharacter looks like, and you don't need
that because they'll they'll talk about theirparents out with it's you know, she's
five ten and she's buxom, andshe's blonde, and she's got gorgeous blue
eyes, Like what if they hirean actress who has brown eyes? Is

(24:07):
that gonna mess things up? Andjust say, you know, you know,
you know, she's dropped dead,gorgeous. You know that's all you
need because it's all about trying tobe as concise and to the point as
possible, but also really conveying themessage you're trying to get across exactly.
I think I was Again, I'msorry I talk about me a lot here.
Yes, So I was really fortunatebecause when I really wanted to get

(24:33):
my screenplay, not em the screenplay, TV screen thing done at the time,
my friends were directors and budget producersfor line budgets. Mm hmmm hm.
So I started writing and they werelike, money and where is my
fund? If you write every description? What am I supposed to imagine?

(24:56):
More white space means my job?I was like, so character thirty five
year old man, dad Bob,black hair maybe like and they were like
and the black hair goes okay,Yeah, that's a casting director's job,
right. I was gonna say,you've got dad Bob. That's all.

(25:18):
It says everything I need to know. He's got his age and always you
only need something specific about the appearanceif it's important to the character or to
the story, like if they havea scar, you know, maybe there's
a story behind that. Because oneof the things I've seen in so many
scripts is you know, you know, Bob, you know forty ruggedly handsome.

(25:41):
I said, well, all actorsare handsome, so does it have
to be ruggedly handsome? Is he? You know? I think I described
a character one of my scripts islike hipster lumberjack, and because that was
different, and also it was twowords, and I think it conveyed what
I was trying to get across.But you don't need especially for female characters.

(26:03):
You know, she's you know,she's so gorgeous, or she's beautiful
and you know, or they arethe dreaded gorgeous but doesn't know it now
trusts me, she knows it.Oh my god. So okay, you
have been in this game for alittle bit because huh you went through and
had to go to the writer's shop. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry you

(26:26):
had to go to the writer's shop. Oh well, that's that was the
only place to get it was theonly place to get the software. I
mean, you can easily get itnow, online. But you know,
I've been doing this for quite awhile. I mean I've had limited success.
I've had a you know, workwith a couple of producers on their
projects and had a couple of shortsmade, but I haven't gotten the golden
ticket. I don't have something youcan go to your MULTIPLEXNCY or something that's

(26:48):
streaming. But I'm working on it. And the part that's the thing is
that a lot of writers get intoscreenwriting thinking, you know, I'm gonna
churn out a script and only takeme like two or three weeks, and
I'm going to sell it like thati quit my job and I can move
to LA and buy a big asshouse. But no, it doesn't work
that way, because it really aboutscreenwriting. It's a marathon, not a
sprint. That nothing happens, nothinghappens overnight, and you're pissed off at

(27:14):
the person that happened to. Well, that's the thing writing. And because
you see someone achieving success and itcould sometimes you say like, oh,
it's their first script, but it'sthe first one they sold. It may
not be the first one they wrote. They could have been you know,
struggling away, burning the bended oilwhen they're not working their day job for
ten years, and then they sella script and everyone's like, oh,

(27:37):
you know so fine, Yeah,worked for him, Why isn't it working
for me? That a lot ofwriters. It's also easy to get jealous
and angry about other people's success becauseyou're like, you know, I've been
working at it longer, just ashard as them. Why not me?
You know, there's no why,rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes it
happens. Sometimes it's about luck,it's about timing, you know. Maybe

(27:59):
sometimes fortunately is about somebody you knowthat you know someone, maybe someone has
a connection to someone else and like, hey, I heard you wrote a
script about you know, I'm theHaunted House. Hey, we're my my
guy, I know a guy it'slooking for a low budget haunted house picture.
Let me see it. Yeah,and if you're lucky, maybe they'll
take it. If not, they'llsay, yeah, it's great, but
it's just not what I'm looking for. That. You have to you can't

(28:21):
just have a thick skin when itcomes to this. You have to be
practically bulletproof, because you know it'snot even you're gonna hear a thousand nos.
You're gonna probably hear ten thousand knowsbefore you get that one. Yes,
because think about it, so manypeople love movies and they want to
write movies. And how willing areyou to put in the time and effort
to not only become good at it, become really good at it, so

(28:41):
so undeniably good about at it,good at it that someone's going to read
your stuff and just they can't putit down or they're just going to say
I have to see this. Youknow that could happen. You could also
get someone say I love this script, I love your writing. There's no
way I could get this made.But you know, maybe you'd be open
to working on this other thing thatthey're there's no specific path to it.
It's kind of like what you haveto create your own path and do the

(29:06):
best you can with it. Andthat's a great way. And I want
you to say, like, Iknow, I have a lot of authors
that listen to my podcast, soyou already know you had the thick skin
because the amount of nos that yougot and the how they were given.
I'm gonna tell you this one's easier. I actually don't mind getting the nose

(29:26):
for screenwriting. I'm like, no, but it's no because sometimes or maybe
it's just a note, but no, and when writing, it's just no,
well no, why no, justno, no, no, no.
They will tell it. They peoplewill say like, you know,
it's just not for me, orit's not what I'm looking for, or
you know, it's it's it's toosimilar to something we're already working on.

(29:48):
And you can you can't come backand complain or say like, oh,
well but you know, but mine'sreally good. But no, just you
know, take the no. It'skind of you can't wait for the phone
to ring, so to speak.Can't we for that email to come in?
You know, send it, moveon to the next thing. Don't
even worry about it. If youhear back, great, If not,
it just wasn't meant to be.And that there's nothing you can do about
it. Once you send it outthere. It is totally out of your

(30:11):
control and you can bitch and moonall you want about it, but nothing's
gonna have It's not going to changeanything. And that's the thing is that
I've said this a lot to alot of writers that I would rather be
frustrated and disappointed and keep trying thanto stop because I love the writing part
too much. I love coming upwith these stories and I love seeing how

(30:33):
people react to my stuff. Andit's not perfect, you know, there's
always a little tweaking that has tobe done. But I just love the
creative process of coming up with thesestories. And I always try to think,
like, what's a take on thisthing that we all like and enjoy
so much? What's something different Ican do with it? So, like,
you know, I have a Westernand I love you. I love

(30:53):
westerns. You know, I grewup I was one of those lucky kids.
You know. I grew up onStar Wars and out of Jones Back
to the Future. It's like,so, what's a different approach to the
Western that I come up with?And I'm also a huge fan of old
time radio and I was listening tothis one about the heroes were trying to
help this this girl because it wasthe fifties. She and her dad had

(31:17):
died and they ran a cargo train. I found, huh girl in a
train, So that developed to thisstory about a female engineer who is like
who kicks ass with the best ofthem, and she had and her best
friend is a former slave and he'sa mechanic and they have this train and
the bad guy steals the train andthey go off to get it back,
and it was just I just itjust I just wanted to do something with

(31:38):
this genre that I love. Butwhat's a different take on it? What's
something new, what's unexpected? Becausethat's a big thing of screenwriting is familiar
but different that you know, there'sall these tropes and cliches of stories,
But what's a different take that youcould take to your story that would make
it, you know, have thatfamiliar but different feel. And so they

(31:59):
like, you know, West SideStory was Romeo and Juliet, they just
moved it to the Lower East Sideof New York and Christmas Carol and they
made scrooged with that. They madeit a musical, but it was set
at a TV network. So justkind of like to think of like a
story that you want to write,is it similar to something that's come before?
And if it's too similar, whatspin can you put on it?
And so that's the kind of stuffI like to do with my stuff.

(32:21):
So that brings me to pitching,Yeah, sure, because you know everyone's
in a while, you get ascreenplay and someone actually is interested and you
have to pitch it. Hm,and you mentioned it's like this, but
it has a twist. So canyou tell us a bit about pitching and
what we should know as like freshnewbies that are going into this room to

(32:44):
pitch our show. Okay, well, first, it's okay to be nervous
because you want everybody to like it, and they know and these are people,
These are not monsters, these arenot corporate machines. They know you're
going to be a little nervous,so practice before you do it. But
also you have to let, likewe were talking about earlier, let your
love of the story come through.Don't just go in front of people and

(33:07):
like you know, like this happensand this, this and this and this.
Don't like don't recite your story.Talk about why did you want to
write it, what's so exciting aboutthis story? What what is the uniqueness
about this? And let your loveof the material come through, because that
will help you relax because that's notsomething you can fake. You can they

(33:29):
will see how authentic you are withwhat you're talking about. And yet again,
you have to practice before ahead,because don't try don't do not go
in and try to wing it becauseyou will stumble all over your words.
You have to practice and just conveyyour excitement about the story because that can
be infectious to other people. Andif it's a concept that really grabs them,

(33:52):
you know, and they hear thisthing like oh oh, and if
you see them lean in like,oh, I want to hear more.
I want to tell this sounds great, And you can do the whole story.
You can give away how it ends. I'm not it's kind of a
mixed bag reactions about people like wholeave it on a cliffhanger. But I
think if you're pitching it, you'reprobably going to want to do the whole
story so that they have a betteridea of what it's all about, but

(34:15):
also can focus on the important parts. If you're going to talk about the
story, don't don't do the storybeats. Talk about the here's why it's
exciting, here's some exciting parts init. And try to keep it tight
because if you start rambling, you'regoing to lose their interest. Like they
could be fascinated in the beginning,just kind of like okay, you know,
they're just like stumbling over word,They're just they're just rambling. They're

(34:37):
just you know, doing things byrote right by now that you want to
keep it tight, you know,like ninety seconds is ideal. You can
talk about that or if you wantto, like throw in a little bit
about yourself that helps too. Andit just and also practice practice with people
you know and people who haven't yearheard about your story before. See what

(34:59):
they're react action is are they arethey interested? Did they lean in or
are they kind of like uh huhYeah. If their eyes start to glaze
over, you know you're doing somethingwrong. Uh, Or if they're really
like you can like see there,you've got them, You got the hook
and you're trying to reel them in. It's all about confidence and enthusiasm for
the material and just really you wantto share your love and excitement for the

(35:23):
material with that other person, andthe best thing to do is just to
really, you know, put yourheart into it. Yeah, definitely,
Like I think the enthusiasm thing isamazing. I don't get to I don't
pitch, Okay, there's just noreason I used to. It's it's too
nerve wracking. But I love whatyou said the enthusiasm. I remember one

(35:45):
of the interviews that we had beforethey mentioned that, like, if you're
a storyteller, bring that because youknow how many stories we hear aday Oh
well, oh yeah, because alot of times you know that you that
you also have to remember that somethingyou think is a great idea for a

(36:07):
story, nobody else might think thatyou have to think about because a lot
of times, excuse me that thethe like if you're pitching to a manager
or a producer, it's not reallyabout you know, they can think the
story is great, but in theback of their head they're thinking, how
can I sell this? Because remembershow business that so it could be you

(36:29):
know, you could think it's thegreatest idea ever, but to them it's
kind of like, you know,there was something like that two years ago
and a bombed at the box office. And then if it's you can't salvage
that again. You have to youhave to really, you know, try
and put your own spin on it. So it's unique but also really interesting
that would hold somebody's interest. Ilove this now completely. I don't do

(36:50):
segues here, so we're just jumping. Okay, sure you're known for Switch
Switched. Oh my gosh, that'sa short film. Yes, so it's
something that got made. I waswe're going to talk about something that got
made that I haven't I haven't.I haven't talked about that so long.
See, like come on to pruitionon the screen That was really that was

(37:15):
a project I was brought on bythe director, and honestly, I wasn't
really involved with it because that's thething is, that's that's part of the
writers the screenwriters thing is that youwrite the script and it goes off to
the director and if you're lucky,you'll get invited to set. Depends on

(37:35):
how big the project. If it'sa short film, unless it's like someone
in your town, probably not.I mean actually I worked so a friend
of mine connecting me with the produceron the East Coast a couple of years
ago, and we worked on afeature length script together. And while we
were working on that, he cameto me like six months in he said,
actually, you know, I've gotthis idea for a short would you

(37:57):
be could you like put something together? And so I wrote like an eight
minute short film for him, andhe was on the East Coast and so
he was able to film it overa weekend and I put it together and
then when it was done. Hesent me a copy of the film and
then he and it did well insome of the smaller film festivals, and
that was the extent of my involvement. So all of these short films that

(38:20):
I've been involved with, I'm reallyI write it, I send it off,
I get back to my own stuff. So that's pretty much it.
So that's it's just the way thatit is. I mean, I don't
Yeah, it would be great tobe on set. Yeah, but I'm
not going to worry about it becauseI'm more interested. I just want to
get my writing done. I mean, I I've written a couple of shorts
that I want to make myself.I'm hoping to actually film one later this

(38:43):
year, and I've got a greatdirector and you know, she's got some
projects to work on over the summer, so we'll probably film it in the
fall, and so's it's up tome to put it all together. Says.
That's really about crowdfunding to get toraise the funds for production, and
so that's kind of my homework forthe summer. That is a whole nother
subject about funding. One day,I'm going to talk about it. Oh

(39:04):
no, I did, I did, ALRIGHTY with Naomi Okay, like,
oh, I'm about to jump downthe slab. I was like, no,
no, no, because there's onethe next to the last question that
I have for you, and Ireally want to get to this because I
spent the rest of the time talkingabout pasta and pie. So you interview
people, you get to interview someamazing people. How do you prepare?

(39:25):
How do you not like go ohmy god? Well it depends well,
oks, like as I talked aboutin the beginning. So I did all
these interviews with well known script consultantsand a couple of filmmakers and writers that
I know, and that was differentbecause that was all via email. So
I would send them the questions andthen they would just send their answers back

(39:45):
and I would edit them and postthem. But since I've been doing my
podcast, The Creative Writing Life Podcastwith Me Paul's Idman on Spotify and Apple
Podcasts. Thanks for listening. Wealso have a YouTube channel go with there
too, ching So when I startjust by reaching out to writers and people

(40:05):
that I know, I've also hadbecause we were doing the I've been doing
the podcast for a while, I'vehad people come to me and say,
Hey, I got a writer wouldbe a great guest for your show,
and so I do some research onpeople. Okay, this is something that
not only I would find interesting,but I think the listeners and viewers would
find interesting as well. And soonce we set it all up, I'll
just do a little more research.Like I talked to a to a pair

(40:30):
of writers that their publicist reached outto me and said, hey, these
guys wrote this. It's it's likea take on like a military slash fantasy
fiction and it's kind of like whatif a squad of marines was in Lord
of the Rings. And I thoughtjust that, I mean, I just
thought that sounded hilarious. And that'show they wrote it. They wrote it
as a it's not a comedy aspectto it, and it's, you know,

(40:53):
about this squad of marines and they'retrying to make thee with this dangerous
kingdom type of thing. And soit's tough talking to them and did my
research on both writers, but thenI also ask them questions about themselves.
You know, how did you getstarted, how did you guys connect,
and like, what was the ideafor this story? Just because one of
the things you probably experienced this aswell. When you talk to writers,

(41:15):
they love to talk about their work. Maybe not talk about themselves as much,
but they love to talk about theirwork. Because when I talk to
a writer, like I'm at awriter's conference or whatever, I never go
in and say, Hi, I'mPaul. You've probably heard of my books,
you probably know my blood. Idon't make it about me. I
make it all about the other person, Like, tell me about what you're
working on or how you know,how did you come up with that idea

(41:37):
that sounds really cool, And thatputs them at ease, because I want
them to be at ease, andso I want it to be very casual,
and so I'll just ask them questionsabout like almost as a fan,
but not a gushing fan. SoI'll ask them about themselves and about the
material and just have fun with it. And that kind of rubs off on
them because like these two guys,they were talking about book and everything,

(42:00):
and so you know, of coursethere was a D and D geek in
high school, and so you know, I said, you know, and
I said, okay, I haveto ask you. The question is on
everybody's mind, and everybody's dying toknow is there a gelatinous cube in your
story? And they just burst outlaughing because there because that's the kind of
thing if you're familiar with dungeons anddragons, you would hear about and they
and we had like a five minuteconversation about why is it a gelatinous cube

(42:23):
and it's placing in that kind ofstory and it was just fun. And
I think that that helped them relaxa little more and it was just fun
to talk about because that made themmore comfortable just being a little more relaxed
talking about their stuff. So nowcomes to myself egotistical question here. Okay,

(42:44):
you know it's National Poetry Month andthis Creative Write a Life podcast.
I'm just wondering, have you hada poet on? You know, adorable
African Americans write screenplay, sold amovie. Wow, we have not had
a poet on. But I'm totallyopen to it because I'm the host and
I'm also the producer. Uh soI can and I'm also the scheduler.

(43:05):
Uh so yeah. I mean that'sthe thing is that because it's the Creative
Writing Life podcast, so there arewriters in all kinds of fields. Like
I said, we've talked to authors. We've talked to screenwriters. We've talked
to a guy who works with writersand helps them publish publisher, He helps
them with publicity for their material.Talked to a guy who's kind of like,

(43:27):
he's not a motivational speaker, butafter you talk to him, you
will be so charged up to wantto get to work about your stuff.
And his his thing is pancakes.Trust me, this is I swear to
God, this is his thing.That person out there Butterfields in Chicago,
I'll have to ask him. He'sin a he's in Los Angeles, so,
and he had a couple of placesthat he recommended as well, but

(43:50):
I'll pass that on to him.Uh. But yeah, I've never talked
to a poet because that's not anarea I'm as familiar with. But I
think having seen some poetry done onTV and also kind of like seeing about
what what the I guess what thefield is like, it's it's something that

(44:13):
is definitely worth exploring. Uh,and you know, you know my people
will be in touch. Seriously answerthis question. Oh my god, No,
seriously, but like I am,thaoroughly enjoyed it. I fairly enjoyed
your answer. Okay, well,it's all again because I like talking to
writers, because writers like to talkabout writing and to come on your show.

(44:37):
I definitely would not be talking aboutpoetry. I turn poetry in the
screenplays. Okay, yeah, andyou don't meet too many people who do
that. No, No, Wellthat's the thing is see, that's see.
That's probably one of the most fascinatingaspects about this whole thing is that
every writer has their own path ofhow they got to where they are,
and it's great to hear them talkabout it because, like we were tal

(45:00):
talk about, you know, writerslike to talk about themselves and their material,
and I love to hear all thesedifferent stories because I just think it's
great because I have because one ofthe best things I heard so many years
ago, I went to a writingconference in LA and Shane Black was one
of the featured speakers, Shane Blackkisskiss, bang bang, lethal weapon,

(45:21):
and someone asked him, it's like, I forget what the exact question was,
but something about like about being anaspirational screenwriter. He said, no,
let me stop you right there,that you don't aspire to be a
screenwriter. If you are writing andyou're working on a screenplay, you are
a screenwriter, because aspiring means youjust you you're thinking about wanting about writing
a screenplay, actually just ass inchair writing it. That means you are

(45:44):
a screenwriter. No, it's not. You're not getting paid for it,
it's not being produced, but youare still a screenwriters. Don't call yourself
an aspiration and an aspiring screenwriter.You are you can call yourself legitimately a
screenwriter. And I just thought thatwas brilliant and I've kind of adhered to
that ever since that, And sowhen I hear other writers use that,
I will use that quote and they'llsay, oh, yeah, I never

(46:04):
really thought about it that way,And I think it's kind of like it
helps reignite that spark that they haveabout you know, wanted to actually sit
down and write something exactly, andI wanted to say I wanted to go
back earlier. You were talking abouthow you're about getting really good at screenwriting,
and it's one of the things that'swonderful of being able to practice it
over and over and over again.After the form. I remember when I
was very discouraged one of my friendswho owns a production company. I was

(46:29):
like, it just says that unfortunatelyit's a horror production company, which means
that it'll never do anything that Ido because I don't do that. I
was like, oh my god,it's bad. Deal with every taking anytime
you read that screenplay, She's like, first of all, the people who
reading your screenplay amazing. And thensecondly she recognized You're like, you recognize
the top one percent are going tomake it onto like big movie theaters and

(46:52):
big televisions and on studio network television. Yeah, the odds are terrible.
Oh yeah, the odds are againstyou. But the amount of skill and
fun that you have doing it justmakes it worth it. And I was
like, you're right. And thenthe next morning I woke up and I
sold a movie, so I can'tthere you go, yeah, because because

(47:14):
don't don't go into this thinking thatyou know, it's a lottery ticket,
because it's not. That. Ittakes a lot of effort and a lot
of time and work to again havea not just a script that's good,
but something that someone might be willingto pay for, or something something someone
is willing that I'm willing to investtime and money to see that this gets

(47:34):
into production, and those are extremelyrare. And don't don't do it because
you think you're going to get richat it, because you're not. If
you know someone in your community who'slike a wants to make a movie,
you get in touch with him.Yeah, maybe they'll want to make like
a ten minute short. And ifyou trust me, the first draft or
whatever, right, it's going tobe allousy, But that's that's that's a

(47:57):
starting point. You can take thatand you can kind of work on it
and making better. And again,if you just had a great experience,
you know, writing it and workingwith a filmmaker, and at the end
you still have a ten minute shortthat you can show to people. You
can if you're willing to send itinto film festivals, see how it does.
You know, all the better becauseyou can also just point it and
say I made that, I wrotethat. And there's no better feeling that

(48:20):
having be able to be able toshow that kind of thing to people,
because it's it's all this you know, Oh I have, I'm working on
a screenplay. Oh I have I'veseen anything you've written, Well, not
yet, but I'm working on itexactly. I want to thank you so
much for being here with us today, and I want to be like first
of all, and coming this fallor whenever the movie actually comes out,
because I know you're shooting it thisfall, you're going to be able to

(48:42):
say that like I was really involved. It wasn't because the friend of a
friend of a friend called and thenI got involved at the end. No,
this is why. Yeah, yeah, that's because I wrote it like
five years ago with the intention Iwanted to make it so I wrote it
from a producer's standpoint, like makeit inexpensive. So you have four characters,
two rooms in a house, andsuper easy. And I've had a

(49:02):
couple of false starts leading up toit, but I think this is the
year it's finally going to happen.So I'm just really excited about it.
Oh my god, I'm so excitedknowing about other people and their struggles,
it's just that is so amazing.Like I don't know how you're not just
like like every time you think aboutit, because I know all that work
I have to do to get there. Oh, because there's a lot because

(49:25):
a lot of people don't realize allthe things are involved with trying to get
a movie made, and let alonea short film. So there's a lot,
a lot. That's a lot.I want to thank you again for
being here, so this time I'mreally wrapping it up for real this time.
Okay, that's fun. Tell what'sabout where we can find we can
find your three books, we canwatch the movies that you were involved in,

(49:49):
and where we can listen to thepodcast. Okay, well, I
can definitely do the books in thepodcast. So the books are it's called
go Ahead and Ask about Screenwriting andPie. They're all on Amazon. It's
all my name, Paul Zeidman.The blog is maximum z dot blog.
It's all about screenwriting. It's theonly maxim z blog on the Internet as
far as I know. The podcastagain, the Creative Writing Life Podcast.

(50:13):
It's on Spotify and on YouTube,and we also have a Twitter account at
podcast CWL. I'm also on asocial I've got I'm never gonna call it
the other thing. I'm still onTwitter at maximum underscore Z and my Instagram
is at PEZ Screenwriting Pez. Thoseare on intials just like the candy.
And regarding this stuff I've written,I can't remember because I think there's a

(50:42):
short I wrote this one for thisproducer. It's called the Call, and
that was on vimeo the last Isaw. I don't know if it still
is, but you can dig itup. His name is Tom balsam Medes.
But maybe my name is in thecredits on the web page. I
don't know. But you can digit up, or you can just reach
out to me and I'll see ifI can get you a link. Oh
nice, Wait, like, I'mlooking at your IMDb credits right now?

(51:04):
Okay, wait, is it there? Yes, it is twenty twenty two
the call right, yes, butlook, you can find him on IMDb.
I am there, So I'm gonnawrap it up for me over here,
which is weird because I'm used tosaying us because there's only like a
jade or on either I don't know. Sometimes she sits on the side,
sometimes she sits on that side.But you know, so when I say

(51:27):
us, I do mean the missingjade. Anywhere. You can find out
everything that your ladies are up toat www dot and I thought ladies dot
com. And when you go downto the middle of the page you can
see the charities that we proudly support. But yes, did you give them
a moment and support them too?That does not mean monetary. It can
mean with your with either hands inthe dart, you know, get out

(51:50):
there and do something. Or itcould be knowledge, which we had a
guest on earlier today and it wasjust so much knowledge for nonprofits. I
was like, oh my god,please called them immediately. Either way,
we thank you in advance for thatsupport and remember that wisdom is all around
you if you're open to finding itand accepting it. So peace and love
you guys from Will No Not andthe Missing Jade. Oh yeah, thanks for listening