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Unfortunately, there's still a lot of beginning writers who think you can just write your first draft and hand it in.

I'm not a fast writer, and I find the process of writing a first draft to be painful and frustrating. Usually, I start with a character, a premise, and some image that gives me a particular feeling.

Writing film scripts is the hardest thing in the world. A script has to go to five or six drafts, and you need the feedback of other people and to keep coming back with a fresh eye, honing it down.

Writing, yeah. Me and my friend Scott Bloom just finished the first rough draft of a script. It's taken us three years to do, but we finally got a first draft. And we'll see whatever happens with that.

I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them - without a thought about publication - and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.

Maybe other writers have perfect first drafts, but I am not one of them. I always try to get the book as tight as I can, but you reach a point as the author where you have lost all perspective.

The simple idiot's advice I give to screenwriters who say they want to sell a screenplay is, 'Write good.'

If making movies was easier, there'd be a lot more good movies. So you kind of learn that if it's just a good script, or if it's just a good producer, that's not always enough. You need an entire team of creative people coming together.

Most development doesn't make it to series. So you want the writer and director to have a really good experience with development because, if it doesn't work out, you want to work with them again. You have to know their work really well, know the drafts really well, and when you give notes, you need to have really thought them through.