The screenwriting lecture from Jasmine was a good overall summary of the skills of screenwriting.

One point that I took from it was: “You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club” – Jack London. This really resonated with me as in order to write you need to keep at it and use as many different writing exercises to develop interesting characters, scenarios and story ideas. Majority of the time, the best and most interesting ideas arise from trying a different approach to writing by using different writing exercises rather than waiting for an interesting idea to pop into your head. As someone who likes to have an overall sense of a character or story before putting pen to paper, the notion of just going with your first instincts and letting the character or scenario take you in any kind of direction is interesting and liberating.