Workspace

Who are you and what do you write?
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My name is [Michael Chabon](http://michaelchabon.com/) and mostly I write [fiction](http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Chabon/e/B00456TWZY). Five novels, a couple of novellas, short stories, essays. I have two screenwriting credits, for [Spider-Man 2](http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/spider-man2/) and for [John Carter](http://disney.go.com/johncarter/), and a lot of unproduced or uncredited work.

My latest novel, [TELEGRAPH AVENUE](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061493341/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0061493341&linkCode=as2&tag=johnaugustcom-20), is just out from HarperCollins.

Where and when do you write?
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I mostly work in a studio behind my house in Berkeley, California, at night, from 10 PM to 3 (or 4) AM.

My wife and I have four children, which means that frequently I feel compelled to flee for a few days, a week, occasionally as long as two weeks, to try to bear down and get deeply immersed. Immersion in a project, in a house with four children, is all but unattainable.

What software do you use?
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Started out in 1983, using [WordStar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar) on an [Osborne 1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_1). Many gray years of Word. Tried what feels like dozens before settling down in recent years with [Scrivener](http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php) and [Final Draft](http://www.finaldraft.com/), making occasional resort to [Pages](http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/).

But now I am in love with [iA Writer](http://www.iawriter.com/). Its beauty and simplicity, its tight cloud integration, and its device agnosticism have me rapt. I used Writer to write an entire [essay about Finnegans Wake](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jul/12/what-make-finnegans-wake/?pagination=false) on my iPad (and even, sitting at the DMV and the orthodontist, my iPhone).

Lately I have been moving, for screenwriting work, to Writer/[Fountain](http://fountain.io/)/[Highland](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland/).

What hardware do you use?
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MacBook Pro, iMac, iPad, iPhone.

What (if anything) would you change?
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I wish Scrivener had better cloud integration, and was spread beautifully across platforms the way Writer is. Writer is a sharp tool, but Scrivener is still, by far, the best app for organizing all the pieces of a big project like a novel.

Who are you and what do you write?
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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?
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I’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?
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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.

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?
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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?
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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.

Who are you and what do you write?
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My name is Chris Sparling. I write screenplays and, on occasion, wills for old people I plan on squandering money from after they die. My first paid writing gig was for a website I had never even heard of, and the article was on veterinary pet insurance – a topic I had no knowledge of whatsoever. I was paid $20. Boo-yah.

I won Best Original Screenplay in 2010 from the National Board of Review for writing [Buried](http://www.experienceburied.com/), and also won a Goya Award in the same category.

These days I’m prepping two projects, Mercy and Incident on 459, which are being produced by Peter Safran and Mike DeLuca, respectively. I primarily write feature-length thrillers, including the upcoming film ATM, which will be released by IFC Films in early 2012, and Reincarnate for producer M. Night Shyamalan, the second of three films in The Night Chronicles series.

I will be making my feature directing debut this spring with the supernatural drama/thriller Falling Slowly.

I recently joined Twitter. Find me [@ChrisSparling](http://twitter.com/chrissparling).

Where and when do you write?
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Most times, I write in this little-known coffee shop not far from my house. I’m not sure what it’s called. Stardust? Starburst? Hold on, let me ask the girl behind the counter…

She said it’s called Starbucks. What a stupid name.

Anyway, here I am, and here I usually am, stealing their electricity and working for at least a four-hour clip. I have a small office in my house, but because my wife works from home (and we have an achingly cute little daughter toddling around), it’s nearly impossible to not forego work for the day to instead hang out with them. So, Starburst it is.

I sometimes like to change things up and visit my satellite office, a.k.a. Panera Bread. I’ve been lobbying for them to change their name to Pantera Bread, thinking it will cool up the joint a bit, but they don’t seem all that receptive to the idea. I steal their electricity, too.

Typically, I split my day around my trip to the gym. My daytime writing happens outside the house, but I also try to put in about three or four hours of work at home each evening. As pretentious as it probably sounds, I also do a good deal of “writing” in my head while driving. Thankfully this hasn’t resulted in a car accident yet.

If I have any “process” (dangerously toeing the pretension line again here), it’s plugging in my headphones and listening to some movie scores that match the tone of what I’m currently writing.

Also, I have a fantastic manager, and he’s great with feedback — such as, “Dude, this fucking sucks.” Well, maybe not that exactly, but he’s not one to pull punches, and that’s incredibly valuable. When I’m done with a draft, or a treatment, or even just a sentence describing a new idea I had, I’ll run it by him. It might not be the most scientific approach, but it seems to work pretty well.

What hardware do you use?
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I use an HP laptop. It’s about two years old by this point. I’m not really a tech guy, so it suits me just fine. The only problem is battery life (hence why I’m always stealing electricity). I frequently travel back and forth between the east and west coast, and my battery barely lasts half the flight. The other weird thing about it is that these obscure websites — showing attractive women in various states of undress — always seem to randomly pop up on my screen. Go figure.

My wife’s a Mac user, and she pulled the trigger on buying an iPad. I love that freakin’ thing. I don’t really know how to use it, but that doesn’t stop me from loving it. Primarily, I read scripts on it and/or source material (books, producers notes, character bibles, etc.) either for an assignment I’m going after or as a general point of reference. It’s also great for watching movies during cross-country flights after my laptop battery dies.

Lastly, I sometimes still rock the pad and pen. I have a bunch of old notebooks filled with ideas, sketches, and nearly-incoherent scrawling that I refer to from time to time. I had my fair share of crappy jobs in my pre-screenwriting days, and I used to always jot stuff down that I could plug into a script I was working on when I got home that night. Or morning, depending on the hours said crappy job ran.

What software do you use?
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I’ve always used Final Draft, but it was only about a month ago that I finally upgraded to Version 8. Before that I had been using Version 5 for over a decade. Again, I’m not really a tech guy, so upgrading didn’t seem all that necessary. Both versions format screenplays; I didn’t need all the bells and whistles later versions offered. That is, except for the ability to convert to .PDF, which Version 5 did not do.

Prior to the upgrade, I used a separate .PDF-conversion program; however, the text would, on rare occasion, show up all funky on certain computers. So, I said enough is enough and upgraded to Version 8.

How’s that for a boring fucking story? Wow.

What would you change about how you write?
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For starters, I would stop wasting so much time online. Twitter has been fun so far, but it is a pretty big time suck. Same for Facebook, and I don’t even have an account. I would also like to be better at prioritizing projects I’m working on simultaneously, rather than bouncing back and forth so much. The work suffers, I feel.

But all in all, I don’t think I’d change too much about how I write. I mean, it’s writing; you think up some stuff, you write it down, and you hope people like it. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. And, sometimes they actually pay you for it, even if it’s only twenty bucks.