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What does a reality producer do?

First Person, Television

According to Google Analytics, one of the most popular articles on this site is one I was hardly qualified to write: [Formatting a reality show proposal](http://johnaugust.com/2004/formatting-a-reality-show-proposal). There appears an underserved need for good information about how reality shows are pitched and produced.

And with reality TV having become one of the stepping stone jobs in the film/TV industry, I’ve made it a goal to write more about it this year.

I asked my friend Matthew Watts to write up an overview of what a reality producer does. A Columbia film school grad, he served as a producer on both The First 48 and Swamp People.

—

first personFirst, a word about reality television. I like to think of reality television as an adaptation of reality. Essentially these shows take real events and manipulate them, often to extremes, so they fit into three or five acts of thirty or sixty minutes of thrilling dramatic television.

And here’s a fair warning: this post is laced with spoiler alerts about reality shows.

The first little-known secret about reality TV? Not much of it is really real. Okay, maybe that’s not a big secret, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people, even the critically savvy, believe everything they see on reality TV.

In truth, these shows are all “produced.”

matthew wattsTake [Swamp People](http://www.history.com/shows/swamp-people) on History Channel. Due to the treachery that is quite skillfully built into each episode, viewers are led to believe that alligator hunting is a dangerous, even deadly occupation. The truth is that in the history of alligator hunting there have been very few human deaths. (I haven’t found an account of a single serious injury — if you do, let me know.)

Alligator hunting is not a dangerous occupation. It’s a sport, like fishing. And alligators are very easy to catch. In fact, if the tightly regulated hunting season didn’t protect the prehistoric beasts to the extent it does, alligators would be extinct within a few years.

Don’t get me wrong. Alligators are dangerous and potentially deadly. If you scare one and it’s cornered or if you shoot it with a paintball gun or something, it can attack and do incredible damage to a human. An alligator can be deadly, but the fidelity between the reality of a random isolated incident every year or two and the adaptation of reality where these hunters can literally be eaten alive at any second, is incredibly low.

Of course, each show has a subtly different approach to how far the limit of adaptation can go.

If you’ve ever seen the opening credits to [Ice Road Truckers](http://www.history.com/shows/ice-road-truckers), you might be concerned that at any given moment an 18-wheeler will crash through one of the ice-covered lakes it is carrying vital supplies over. But in the history of ice road trucking, it’s never happened (again, if you can find an incident please share). Yet it’s the genius of the opening credit sequence — an impressive computer animated graphic shows an 18-wheeler sinking through ice and into the oblivion — that sets the stage for a gut wrenching hour-long trek through the most harrowing frozen paths on Earth.

It’s tricks like these and the ability of the producers to utilize storytelling to its maximum capacity that eke every bit of drama from reality. While these men are certainly doing extraordinary things, the events are not always as death defying as they may seem.

The facts that fit
—-

On crime shows where the subjects are homicide investigations, like [The First 48](http://www.aetv.com/the_first_48/) on A&E or [The Shift](http://investigation.discovery.com/tv/the-shift/the-shift.html) on Investigative Discovery, the producers do not change facts. It would be unethical, as these cases are literally about people’s lives and deaths. It could also lead to a lawsuit that could take down a show.

So the producing part comes with figuring out the best way to tell the story, and in exploring and highlighting compelling character traits in the homicide detectives and the other characters involved.

The goal in these types of programs is to hone down the actual events into their clearest, most concise and compelling form. It is a process and a skill to whittle down what can sometimes amount to hundreds of hours of footage into a straightforward 44 minutes of storytelling.

A friend of mine — a Series Producer — explains it like this: the goal of reality television is to “simplify and delay.” Tell the stories clearly and hold off on the resolutions for as long as possible. ((Maybe that’s the goal of storytelling in general? Please discuss and submit your answers.))

So, what does a reality producer do? There are a few types of reality producers, and of course quite a few genres as well. I’ll stick with Field Producers, Post Producers and Story Producers. And my experience is mainly in “docu-drama” or “reality/doc.” Depending on which coast one is on, job titles can vary, but the functions are fairly straightforward.

A **Field Producer** (aka Shooter/Producer or Director/Producer) is out in the field, either shooting or overseeing the shooting of the material.

With the less intrusive, vérité-style, fly-on-the-wall approach, the field producer is often a one-man-band, armed with a camera affixed with a shotgun microphone, and a wireless microphone affixed to the subject.

The field producer’s main job is to cover all the action on camera while identifying scenes and storylines as they’re occurring. It can get intense and takes a solid set of time management skills. These folks need to know when to shoot on-the-fly interviews (OTF’s), when to break away and roll on establishing shots of locations and B-roll, and when to get signed appearance releases from every person who may potentially wind up in the program — all while not disrupting the routine of the main characters.

Field producers often have discretion regarding what is suitable for a potential scene.

There’s a saying in the field: “If it didn’t happen on camera, it didn’t happen,” meaning if you missed something, it’s not worth regretting what you don’t have and will never be able to go back and get.

For a field producer, it’s exhilarating to be shooting a scene knowing without a doubt that what’s happening in your viewfinder is definitely going to be in the show (90% of shot material usually winds up on the cutting room floor). So it’s all about getting the coverage that the editors will need to eventually build out scenes in the most compelling ways.

A lot of repetition happens in normal everyday conversations, so a field producer needs to pay attention and be aware when to utilize these moments to get reaction shots. It’s as important to cover the person listening as it is to cover the person talking. Reality shows, you’ll start to notice, are built as much on reaction shots as they are on shots of people speaking. Reactions shots cue the watcher to what they should understand about the information they have just been given.

Concerned face on the detective? Must be some trouble. Excited face? The dude confessed.

On a crime show, a field producer must set up the investigative chronology on camera — that is, the beginning, middle and end of the case, which is the seed of the structure.

Who are the most interesting characters? Why do I care about what is happening here? At this point, the field producer should focus interview questions around those details and ask the detectives (in opportune times only) to clarify what is going on: “Tell me about such and such detail…” “What can you tell from this piece of evidence?” “What does that rap sheet tell us?”

More importantly for narrative purposes is considering these real people as characters in the story being told — setting up and tracking Hope vs Fear. “What’s the best thing that can happen right now?” “What’s worst case scenario?” “Tell me why it’s so important for you to…”

What makes reality shows work is getting answers to these questions on camera in the words of the characters in the moment. It’s the insider’s edge.

Creating stories out of events
—-

After the tapes are shot, field producers summarize their footage on paper. In some cases, these summaries are nothing more than tape logs, simply describing the factual elements of what’s occurred. A phone call with a Story Producer, Series Producer or Executive Producer back in the office can determine potential interesting story angles and plot points to follow up on.

The footage is sent to the post-production office where the **Story Producer** ((I’m using the east coast definition of Story Producer: the person who oversees the field and determines which stories are worthy of post-production.)) will read the summaries, screen various pieces of footage to see how well the outlines match the coverage.

Remember: “If it didn’t happen on camera, it didn’t happen” — so don’t include it in the summary.

They will then organize the stories into what’s suitable for potential episodes. When a storyline is deemed worthy of an episode, the Story Producer will construct a broad outline of how that storyline might potentially play out.

Outlines vary a lot from show to show, but on ours, the broad outline is usually written in Word as two to three pages of prose. We keep it fairly vague, and often base it more on conversations with field producers than actually watching all the footage. Transcription and time code are rare in these. Tape numbers are more common.

The Story Producer then hands the footage and the broad outline to a Post Producer, who will work directly with an Editor in producing the episode.

The **Post Producer** screens every piece of footage and writes a detailed outline of the episode. For our shows, detailed outlines can be five to seven pages with dialogue (sound bites with timecode) and act breaks (including cliffhangers).

These are signed off on by the exec producers, and if it’s the first season of a show sometimes the network needs to sign off on these outlines as well.

Scripts are often done as Excel sheets, with one column for audio (narration, vérité sound bites) and the other for video/text (subtitles, chyrons). We also use index cards to break down stories — on the grander series sense, and on each episode so post producers and editors can track characters and scenes.

Getting it on the page
—

The script writing process is where the different styles of reality shows become evident.

In shows where the goal is to stick closer to reality, narration is used sparingly, to either clarify events, state pure facts or bridge scenes. Generally, the more narration there is in a show, the more liberty the producers are taking with the footage. (The post producer generally writes the narration.)

For example, Swamp People contains quite a bit of narration. If the show were a hunk of Swiss cheese, the narration would be the cheese and the vérité sound bites (dialogue the characters actually uttered, unprompted, in the moment) would be the holes.

For example, a post producer locates a nice bit of vérité footage of one character yelling to another, “Look out…!” A piece of narration can be written that leads into the line like, “TROY NOTICES AN 800 POUND GATOR HEADING TOWARD THE BOAT.”

The editor can find a shot of a gator, cut it into the sequence and voila! Danger.

In actuality, Troy may have been referring to his son’s lunch pail falling into a puddle. The rest of that vérité line may have been, “Look out…your lunch is about to get wet!” But it plays so well regarding a gator. So why not adapt the line into a more dramatic fashion?

My example may be a bit extreme, but it’s not far off. Conversely, in a show that sticks closer to reality, you could say that the hunk of Swiss cheese is the vérité footage and the narration is the holes filling in the blanks. Either way, stories are being told. It’s just a matter of how much adaptation.

One of the more clever devices for hiding narration in reality shows is the video testimonial style in MTV’s godfather of reality television series, The Real World.

In a soundproof room somewhere near set, characters speak to the camera as if it’s a close friend or therapist. Most of the frothier shows use this format (Rachel Ray, Kardashians, etc). What is elegantly kept from viewers is that these testimonials are actually serving as narration. We’re hearing answers to written questions (and sometimes written answers) that the post producers have created to tell these stories in a clear and compelling way. We are not, as it may seem, hearing spontaneous reactions from the character’s deepest pools of forethought.

Sometimes the field producers do these interviews as they see a story developing. Other times, the interviews are filmed during post production when a story develops and needs to be filled in with the characters’ commentary. The genius of the reality testimonial is that they play to the idea that these events are all just happening, and the cameras are lucky to be there at the right time.

Ever notice how on The Real World, when one of the characters with a boyfriend or girlfriend back home starts sleeping with one his/her cast-mates, the boyfriend or girlfriend from back home flies in for a weekend visit? Drama inevitably ensues. Who do you think bought the ticket?

Humans love to be told stories. And Reality TV is a great medium for the storyteller. For all the “producing” and highlighting and editorializing, at the core these shows are just telling tales — tales with narrative arcs and heroes and journeys that scare us and thrill us and make us feel something. Which is why I think so many people are eager to believe what they are seeing.

Do people care that Troy may have been warning his son about his lunch getting wet and not an 800-lb gator? Probably not. People want to be told a story. They want to be entertained, to identify, to live vicariously.

It’s also why, despite the constructiveness of the tales, there is always something interesting to be found, something curious and/or beautiful about the people who have agreed to let us travel with them.

—

*Matthew Watts is now in post on the indie feature [Mutual Friends](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2112209/), his feature directorial debut. Photo from the set by Michael Seto.*

Using a wiki to outline a screenplay

Tools

Sveta writes in:

> Over the last several weeks I’ve been outlining a sci-fi/thriller piece, and had the hardest time keeping all the information organized. I used Scrivener, then I used the index cards in Final Draft, then I used actual index cards… but there was always too much loose information floating around. I couldn’t find a good way to stay organized.

> Finally, I decided to try a private wiki. And it’s been amazing. The home page is a plot synopsis with acts as headings–and links to a character page when they are mentioned. There are also links to past events, organizations of importance, fictional technologies, etc. Character pages have headings like “Early Life”, “Relationship with xyz”, and in standard wiki style, are interlinked. I also have a tab of snippets, with pages for loose notes, dialogue and ideas I’m not sure I’m going to use yet.

Nothing is overkill if it helps. The only danger I see is that you can spend so much time getting the wiki just right that you never actually write the movie.

I haven’t used it in years, but I remember loving [VoodooPad](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/voodoopad/id404057607?mt=12) for the Mac, which makes for a fast and nimble single-user wiki.

We’re using an industrial-strength [MediaWiki](http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki) for the bible on a very complicated project that involves a number of specialists. It’s been a good way to keep people on the same page over the 15+ months we’ve been in development and production.

Workspace: Eric Heisserer

Workspace

eric heissererWho are you and what do you write?
—

My name is Eric Heisserer, a screenwriter and (soon to be) director. I’ve worked with a number of studios on a variety of genre films, but the ones that have withstood the arduous trek to screen are all horror movies like [Final Destination 5](http://finaldestinationmovie.warnerbros.com/) and [The Thing (2011)](http://www.universalstudiosentertainment.com/thing-the-2011/).

I’m looking to break that streak by shooting a script I wrote based on the short story [Hours](http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/popcornfiction/stories/Hours_by_Eric_Heisserer.html), first published on Derek Haas’ anthology site [Popcorn Fiction](http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/popcornfiction/). We’re in pre-production now, aiming for an April 2012 shoot date.

I’ve written a few other stories for Popcorn Fiction this year, like [Last Vegas](http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/popcornfiction/stories/Last_Vegas_by_Eric_Heisserer.html) and [Simultaneous](http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/popcornfiction/stories/Simultaneous_by_Eric_Heisserer.html). I try to write in at least two different mediums each year because it helps me develop/maintain new creative muscles.

On Twitter, I’m [@writerspry](http://twitter.com/writerspry).

Where and when do you write?
—-

workspaceI’m a hallway commuter with a home office. I’ve been writing at home my whole career (and before then, too), so I’ve come to find a discipline in keeping a normal work schedule. Before this I was a cubicle monkey in the white-collar world, so my body is used to getting up and putting in eight hours every weekday (typically 9 – 6).

If I don’t write at least a little each day, I start to feel nervous and on edge, as if I were quitting caffeine cold turkey. My best hours are typically just before and after lunch. When I need to stop for a meeting or to eat, I try to break at a point where I know the next thing I want to write, because it makes getting back into the work so much easier when I return to the keyboard.

In my home office I have my computer desk, a reading chair, a TV, and a cork wall where active projects are tacked in the form of a hundred different index cards plus photos and magazine clippings as visual inspiration. The cork wall and a few of my magazine clippings are relatively new to my process, courtesy of my brilliant wife Christine Boylan ([@KitMoxie](http://www.twitter.com/kitmoxie)), whose home office is just across the hall from me. (Check out [her Workspace post](http://johnaugust.com/2011/workspace-christine-boylan).)

What hardware to you use?
—-

I’ve recently upgraded to a desktop iMac with a cinema display, but my last iMac was four or five years old. I also have a small MacBook I take with me to set or when I’m going out of town. Both Macs get the job done, but I get best results from my desktop.

I use a lot of 3×5 index cards. White ones. Colored ones. Lined and unlined. I use whatever I can get my paws on when I’m seized with a new thought.

The cards are the first form my projects take, and they fall in two categories: Story and Snippets. In the story structure side of things I’ll have cards like “[hero] states his goal” or “[villain] collides with [hero] for the first time.” These are basic milestones that form the frame of the thing I’m building.

The Snippets side of the cork wall is for all the flotsam and jetsam that comes to me for the project. Specific details. A line of dialogue. A character description. An illustration from a comic book. A photo of a setting.

Once I have a critical mass of cards on the board, I take them all down and Voltron them into a single document. I will scan visuals if I need to. Then I create a new set of cards, this time designed to look more professional, and I print them on my color printer.

This is probably the most important step for me, because it tricks my brain into believing it’s a real project and not some crazy collection of thoughts. I use photos of actors to cast the major roles, and I look for images and key words that evoke the tone of the project. The casting choices aren’t meant to be realistic options for the actual production, but they remind me I’m writing words for someone else to say. And if I can’t envision the actors delivering a convincing performance in a scene, I know I’ve strayed off-course.

I do this with every project, but where these cards are most helpful is in a pitch. Studio and network exes love visuals and they love structure. It helps that the movie or pilot is already pseudo-cast for them, because it reinforces the tone and the size of the story. Through trial and error I’ve come to learn not to put too many words on a card, otherwise the execs will read them instead of listening to the pitch, and sometimes the writing on the card spoils a reveal before you speak it.

Here’s an example: I adapted the Popcorn Fiction story Simultaneous into a TV series concept, and then built the pilot structure as a modified procedural. When I designed my cards for the polished version, I made a title card (at top), my major characters, their supporting characters, and then the guest stars for that episode (at bottom). My villain/crime for the pilot episode is the card placed in the center; the Ash Killer card.

The right-hand column offers a card with two films as my thematic or tonal touchstone for this project, and then three sample episodes that I had developed. This particular layout of cards resembles a Tarot spread; the Celtic Cross. That was intentional, as one of my characters reads Tarot.

cards example

Again, at this stage there isn’t a lot of words on these cards, because all that content now lives in the Voltron document I built from my first round of index card collecting. These new cards go on my cork wall where I can see them as I write the script. They’re visual cues. They speak more to the characters’ motives than to story, because that can be my blind spot during scripting.

That was a terribly long tangent. Sorry. On to other hardware:

* **Sharpie pens.** For that first round of index cards. I like their fine-point retractable ones, but any will do as long as it’s black ink.

* **Office Depot 4×6 postcard sheets.** The fancy cards. There are other options; Avery makes some, but generic brand works just as well.

* **My Canon MP560 color printer.** For the fancy cards.

What software do you use?
—-

I use Photoshop and QuarkXPress for the card design process, because I worked in print design for many years, but they could just as easily be made in a word processing application. I’m just more familiar with Quark and Photoshop.

For the scriptwriting, I use Final Draft. I’ve worked in Movie Magic Screenwriter, too. Both get the job done.

What would you change?
—

Not to cheat off [Phil Hay’s answer](http://johnaugust.com/2011/workspace-phil-hay), but: I would write more.

I tend to abandon ideas before giving them the proper attention. I have a bad habit of expecting a reader or studio response long before I get one, and I can talk myself out of a good idea like a pro. I need to be better about silencing the voice who discourages new ideas and new hope with my work, because it is painfully easy to say “This won’t sell” or “This won’t survive production.”

There is a town full of people ready to say “No” to my projects. I can’t be one of them.

Workspace: Christine Boylan

Psych 101, Television, Workspace

Christine Boylan

Who are you and what do you write?
—

My name is Christine Boylan. Most of my day is spent writing and producing television — I started on [Leverage](http://www.tnt.tv/series/leverage/) (TNT), worked on the sweet but never aired alien invasion series Day One (NBC), then [Off the Map](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587694/) at ABC and now I’m a co-producer on [Castle](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219024/).

I occasionally write short stories (such as [Hoss](http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/popcornfiction/stories/Hoss_by_Christine_Boylan.html) at Popcorn Fiction) and plays. I’ve also written comic books for DC, Marvel, Boom, Tokyopop and NBC, including two of the Heroes comics.

On the Twitter, I’m [@kitmoxie](http://twitter.com/kitmoxie).

Where and when do you write?

—-

workspaceMost of the time I write in my home office, which is a stone’s throw away from my husband’s office, but, luckily for him, we have doors.

I can write anywhere if I can get the spirit to move me (or I have a heart-stopping deadline) — passenger seat of cars (no motion sickness), trains, planes (usually drunk), the middle of the jungle, etc.

I try to change locations during a long writing session to keep myself going — this might be as simple as moving up to the kitchen and sitting on the annoying bench that hurts my back but keeps me awake, or it might mean just lying on the floor in some kind of weird cobra-pose for an hour and writing there. My office has a giant wood desk that’s more like a table than a desk. I alternate using two different chairs: an Aeron I stole from my husband when I moved in and a [Swopper](http://swopper.com/www.swopper.com/index.html).

I had spine surgery when I was younger, so I try to move around and change positions as much as I can. I have yoga blocks and a foam roller, too. Also, a heating pad. And Vicodin. It’s a back-friendly office.

If left to my own devices, I’m a night person. When I was unemployed and writing my first spec pilot, I would sleep until noon, run errands, and then settle down to write from about 4pm to 8, then break, then 10pm to 4am. That was a very special, very Scotch-driven time in my career.

Now that I’m employed, I find that every TV writers’ room has its own culture and rules, so I adjust my schedule to theirs when the season starts.

John Rogers ([@jonrog1](http://twitter.com/jonrog1)) at Leverage is a productivity nerd, so he likes to use his writing staff to try out new processes. A lot of what we did there has stuck with me: working on a story for 48 minutes, then resting for 12. That one’s inviolable. You can’t fool around too much during a 48, you can’t discuss work on a 12. If caught, John would stop you — “Respect the 12!” — thus inculcating the idea of an earned rest period.

Speaking of rest, Mark Waid ([@MarkWaid](http://twitter.com/MarkWaid)) taught me the value of walking away for a few hours and letting something simmer. If I’ve put in the time, then sleep, then I shower or take a yoga class, an idea will come. Maybe the idea is for the next project, but hell, it’s an idea, and I’ll have it happily.

This has been my schedule since June: I’ll get up at 7, head to the gym for swimming or yoga, then to the Castle offices in Hollywood. We run writers’ rooms all day, usually 10 to 7, and we often have two going at once. Then in the evening I’ll spend two or three hours working on one of my own projects or, if I’m burned for the day, have a drink and watch TV or read.

Weekends are exercise, writing in the afternoons, socializing. If I really need to get a personal project done, I’ll get a hotel room in Malibu or Palm Springs and marathon — room service is very, very helpful.

What hardware do you use?
—-

I have a Macbook Pro at home and on the road, and I sometimes use the desktop Mac provided for me at the Castle offices. If I want a little extra crunch or manual exercise, I’ll hook up the [Das Keyboard](http://www.daskeyboard.com/) recommended to me by the lovely and talented Leverage writer M. Scott Veach ([@mscottveach](http://twitter.com/mscottveach)).

I use an iPad (first gen) for reading scripts and some books (GoodReader and Kindle for iPad, respectively) and watching shows on Netflix or the beautiful HBO Go. I have in the past written entire first draft outlines on my iPhone while on set. (I love being on set. Everyone knows what his or her job is. Boundaries are such a relief sometimes.)

I use index cards — something else I picked up at Leverage — to break story. I have cork squares on an entire wall of my home office, and it’s a nice, big wall space useful for everything from pilots to plays to features. We use white boards at Castle, which I admit I still dislike. I have the distinction of having really terrible handwriting on the board.

What software do you use?
—–

I handwrite my first drafts, which drives some of my colleagues crazy. I don’t know if it’s advantageous or not, but it’s just how my brain works. It’s good to be away from the computer (though I may use the dictionary/thesaurus on the phone or iPad); it’s good to feel the pen in your hand (I use a Libelle fountain pen, because the nib forces me to hold the pen correctly and not hurt my hand); it’s great to see the legal pads (letter sized) stacked up, full of scenes. They may be terrible, they may be marvelous, but they exist, and now you can rewrite them.

So then I type it all up — I use tall document holders from Fellowes (one at home, one at Castle) and I rewrite and edit to an extent while I’m typing that first draft. Then I print and go through it with the red or green pen — the pilot G2 works great. (I can’t stand ball points. Using one feels like scratching nails on a chalk board.) Then I re-type the changes.

If I’m in a real hurry — and on Leverage I had to write the first draft of one episode in a weekend — I’ll get someone in and dictate the script. My gorgeous friend Alex Engel can use all the software and can also read my mind. Unfortunately, he’s now a working writer and I can no longer take advantage of him for long dictation sessions. Sometimes I’ll dictate the boards in the writers’ room to our writers’ assistant at Castle, Adam Frost, and it ends up becoming a rough draft for the outline. Whether I dictate the script or not, I always have a step in the process where I read it through out loud.

Some people are visual, but I’m predominantly aural. I can hear if it’s wrong faster than I can see it.

For software, I use whatever the show uses. My first three shows used [Movie Magic Screenwriter](http://www.screenplay.com/p-29-movie-magic-screenwriter-6.aspx), and I still use it for comic books and stage plays. Castle uses [Final Draft](http://finaldraft.com), which I hadn’t picked up in four years, but I’m getting used to it again.

None of these programs feels particularly elegant to me, though. Hand writing helps me avoid any software frustration early in the process, so by the time I’m typing I feel enough urgency to learn the damn keyboard shortcut and move forward.

For notes and research archives I use [Evernote](http://evernote.com). I don’t know how I ever got along without it…except I do, and the evidence is scraps of paper in project-specific piles all over my office floor.

For organization purposes I swing insanely between [orthodox GTD](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done) and [total chaos](http://thegloss.com/career/bullish-how-to-be-a-productivity-unicorn/), but I’ve been through [Things](http://culturedcode.com/things/) and [OmniFocus](http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus/) and now I use 3×5 cards in a [Levenger Circa PDA](http://www.levenger.com/PAGETEMPLATES/PRODUCT/Product.asp?Params=Category=326-339%7CLevel=2-3%7Cpageid=5654%7CLink=Img).

Sometimes I listen to music when I’m working, usually something without lyrics unless I’m desperately trying to evoke a tone. Then I can put the same song on repeat for a few hours. Otherwise white noise apps are great (I listened to a lot of Amazon jungle sounds while writing Off the Map), and a good, solid metronome helps me find rhythm.

What would you change about how you write?
—

I would eliminate some of the self-loathing that takes up a lot of the energy I need to write. Procrastination is both useful and deadly. Again, if I’m stuck on a problem and I go away for four hours to ride horses, I’ll come back with a solution and I can get to work. But if I’ve procrastinated all weekend and then my time is up, I’m going to go to bed unhappy and have five miserable wake-ups in the week ahead.

I’m a huge fan of Steven Pressfield’s [The War of Art](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0446691437/?tag=johnaugustcom-20) – I have it on my Kindle, I keep a copy on my desk at home, I have an audio version on my iPod. Those lessons unfold themselves every day.

A really good friend of mine, [Jacob Krueger](http://www.writeyourscreenplay.com/ ), instills some of this stuff in his screenwriting classes, acting classes and hypnosis sessions in New York. It’s not about removing blocks per se, but about embracing the part of yourself that puts up those blocks.

Or maybe it’s about needing another Scotch.