In The Art of War, Sun Tzu emphasizes that picking your battles is the foundation of strategy, with the ultimate goal of winning without fighting. True mastery, according to Sun Tzu, lies in recognizing which conflicts are worth engaging in and which should be avoided, as not every dispute warrants the expenditure of energy and resources. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vabnZ9-ex7o It can be overwhelming life/artistry. You can't win all the battles unless you pick which you choose to engage in. Which script etc

We build something in isolation, and then we proudly present it, and it’s a levelling experience. It can feel like a direct attack on us down to the marrow of our bones. Terry Pratchett famously said, "The first draft is just you telling yourself the story." This permits you to be "messy." Shannon Hale views a first draft as "shovelling sand into a box so that later, I can build castles." Toy Story 3 took three years before Michael Arndt got the green light. Paul Thomas Anderson likens screenwriting to ironing: you move forward a bit, then go back and smooth things out. I don’t recall who said it, but they spoke about reframing how we look at a first draft and to stop seeing the rewrite as punishment but as showing we are intentional, in other words, professional rather than amateur. Does that make sense to you, and how would you amplify this?

When I was 16 I was in the honors society in HS and taking college writing. I worked for weeks on an essay regarding the socioeconomic policies of Scandinavia. Maybe the teacher thought I was a commie I don't know, but he traumatized me. He basically said to the class that this is total garbage with no redeeming value. I went to his house for a honor's society holiday party. I asked him if I fixed his electric train if he'd give me a B so I could go to the University. He agreed. It wasn't until I took a writing class at a local college 6 years after my entrance to the University of Washington that I got my first A on a legitimate essay. Timid? yes. Afraid? It's not whether or if you're afraid in my opinion. It's how you deal with that energy. Thanks @Chad Desrochers and community for being you.

Let’s go, people! These premium calls are critical. In my opinion, they are a mixture of revealing the magic of our creativity and ideas that flourished out of the universe unexpectedly, but we caught them because we showed up to the page. The other side for me is it’s like triage. Something in my story is bleeding out, and the table read is where I identify it and get some solutions from the community and David Stem. As David has said, “A good table read doesn’t just improve dialogue — it reveals the *soul gaps* in the story.” Bring your pages and let David Stem and the community help work on your story. Please reach out to people to cast your pages in advance. It helps to keep the call moving. Here’s the link to where you put up your casting and your pages. Here’s the link for the Tuesday, April 7th Premium Coach Call. Here’s the link for the Friday, April 10th Premium Coach Call.

Hi, friends and acquaintances. For those of you in similar roles, I have a situation as a leader. I've been a leader for as long as I can remember yet, I still have (those situations), that as my friend says: "refrain from having your talent on tenterhooks". I have two voice actors in mind. One of them I'm fairly certain is better than the other. The other one's wife I need to lock in as the female protagonist... I'd like to listen to both performances though. Question: How do I diplomatically say, "I'm not going to choose either of you until I examine your performances?"