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Perhaps you heard Coppola being interviewed today (11/22/11) on public radio at the Toronto film festival. Asked about his writing, Coppola said he writes in the morning before anything – before “anyone breaks my heart.” To this day, when I am “birthing” a piece, I do not even open email before I’ve finished the day’s work on it. I also do not read email after a certain hour at night – if I don’t sleep well, it fouls up my writing schedule.
Coppola said, “I’m convinced there is a hormone in the blood of young writers that makes them hate their own writing.” I cringe to think of the writing I destroyed in my
hormonally charged youth as a writer. If only Coppola had been around to tell me this back then: Do not go back and read your day’s writing when you are on a project—a screenplay in his case. He says do not go back and read it for a good 30 days until you have about 80 pages. Give yourself a chance. He says your reaction will be very different. He didn’t say why, but I know why: It’s because if you got that far you have made a commitment to your material and your process. You have a “baby” and it is growing inside of you. You want to nurture it now. He suggests you make a “ceremonial” reading of that 80-page draft. (My ceremony/ritual is to breathe and rub my palms together like a fly. It works for me, don’t ask why.) Make notes on your draft. Then rewrite. “Rewrite is the middle name of writing,” he says so succinctly. My mantra, adopted from William Zinsser, is “The essence of writing is rewriting.” Coppola says, “I rewrite a trillion times.” I only rewrite a million. There is such a thing as over-kneading the dough.