Todd Graff on How I Write
The first thing you need to know is that I write longhand, on legal pads, which makes me either a romantic or a dinosaur or both. When an idea starts percolating in my head, I jot notes everywhere: matchbook covers, snaking around all the white areas in a magazine ad, etc.Bad movies seem to get my juices flowing, and I’m forever ripping up popcorn containers, scribbling on their oily, white insides with the tiny wallet-clip pen my boyfriend bought me for Xmas (a far more useful present than the gym membership).
These notes all make it onto individual index cards. As time passes, the pile of cards grows, until all that’s missing is the connective scene-tissue between all the jotted down sequences.
When it’s time to write, I procrastinate as much as the next guy. I find I have to sneak up on it ‚Äî like I sit down to work, knowing I absolutely have to be somewhere in an hour. That way I can’t fuck up too much at any one time.
I also take long showers, where I don’t let myself leave until I’ve had at least one valuable idea about the script. Solved one problem. My hot water bills are always an accurate gauge of how blocked I am.
Todd Graff wrote and directed CAMP. As a writer and producer, his other credits include BEAUTICIAN AND THE BEAST, ANGIE, THE VANISHING and USED PEOPLE.
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