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Transcript

Nobody Knows Anything · The Daily Writer

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Writer, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for creative success.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: William Goldman was one of the most successful Hollywood screenwriters of all time.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: He was the creative genius behind scripts for The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, among many others.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in total, he had nearly three dozen scripts produced, which is remarkable by anyone's standards in Hollywood.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: In his funny and insightful book, Adventures in the Screen Trade, William Goldman famously said, Nobody knows anything.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Every time out it's a guess, and if you're lucky, an educated one.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a really vital truth to understand, not just for the movie business, but for any creative endeavor, including writing.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the truth is that nobody knows what's going to work.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's no set standard about what constitutes a great movie, a great book, or a great anything for that matter.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever writers get together, we sometimes talk about the successful people as quote unquote great writers.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have friends who have written books and you consider them a great writer because of their success.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: But honestly, what does it mean to be a great writer in a world where nobody knows anything?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: How do we quantify and measure success, much less hope to achieve it?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, at the end of the day, greatness means that you accomplished what you set out to do.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: It means identifying who your audience is and serving them well.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: It means being consistent with your writing and making it a habit.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: When you reframe greatness in this way, it means that greatness is completely within your reach.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: You and you alone get to define what it means for you to be a great writer.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Travel your own pathway and live by your own definition of greatness, not somebody else's.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, nobody knows anything.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.