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Writing for Television & Theater with Joe Ricci, Screenwriter · The Daily Writer

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Writer.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer: creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with the writers, as well as teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: You know, one of the coolest things about having your own podcasts is that you get to have conversations with people that you probably otherwise wouldn't get to talk to.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's a place where you can invite people and then you can share those conversations with others.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: Well, today I get to have a conversation with one of the coolest and most interesting people that I have met in a while.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_03: His name is Joe Ricci, and he's an actor, playwright, screenwriter, and director.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: Joe has been an actor in stage productions such as the off-Broadway hit I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, The National Tour of Carousel, the first national tour of Saturday Night Fever, and the Broadway revival of Of You From the Bridge with Scarlett Johansson and Leaf Schreiber.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: As a director, Joe's two current projects are the rock musical called Whiskey Land, as well as a play called Squirrel Screams and Other Dating Sounds, which I gotta give him points for an awesome title.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: Joe just recently adapted Whiskey Land into a screenplay, and they're in the very early stages of developing Squirrel Screams into a TV pilot.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: Now, Joe has also written for the Hallmark Channel, most notably the movie called In the Key of Love, which we'll talk about more in the bonus episode that's airing tomorrow.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: His other current writing projects include a rom-com musical called Third Party Ruling, as well as some new pitches for the Hallmark Channel.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, if you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you may remember that I interviewed Trisha Brook last year on the show and we talked about public speaking.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: Joe is Trisha's husband, and it's been an absolute pleasure getting to know them both and being able to feature them both here on the podcast.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: In this conversation today, Joe shares quite a bit about his theater background and how that turned into writing and directing.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: He also talks about the process of turning a play into a screenplay, as well as some other projects that he's currently working on.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: Additionally, I had the chance to ask Joe about his rituals and habits for staying focused and productive.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: So there is a lot to chew on in this episode.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: And no matter what kind of writing you do, or really whatever kind of creative work that you do, I know that you're going to be inspired by Joe's creativity and his approach to writing.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: I know I definitely was.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: So here's my conversation with Joe Ricci.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Joe, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate uh appreciate you taking time to do this.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: Sure, of course.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I want to start out by saying uh I loved the Hallmark movie that you wrote in the Key of Love.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: I just saw it a couple days ago.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to be fresh for this conversation, and I really, really just enjoyed it.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: So thanks.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: Congrats for putting together a really, really cool script and story.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: And um I told my wife it's just so cool to like, you know, the Hallmark stuff comes up, and I'm like, hey, I'm gonna talk to him in a couple days.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: That's pretty cool.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I know that sounds very cool, but uh no, it's very cool, it was very cool to see it.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was amazing.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm gonna do a separate bonus interview to really dive into that movie because I have some questions about it, as you know, of course.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: I want to geek out about that a little bit.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but before we get into some some writing stuff, I really would love to explore your background in theater because this is a writing podcast.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't explored a lot with guests about theater backgrounds and so forth, and I'm really fascinated by some of the various productions that you've been a part of.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: I love you, you're perfect, not change, carousel, Saturday Night Fever, a view from the bridge, lots and lots of cool stuff.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: So give us a little bit of background about how you got into theater and what your journey was.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that whole situation.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I've I've all I come from a family of hams, basically, that whenever we get together, it's just crazy fun.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Both my parents sing.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my dad played the accordion.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So anytime we were together, it was very much about music and kind of having fun.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I sort of fell into performing when I was in the ninth grade.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody told somebody that I sang, and she said, Do you want to do the spring musical?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Okay.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I did 45 minutes from Broadway and I was hooked.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: I then said, Okay, this is something I would like to do.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I started getting serious, taking acting classes, taking singing lessons, taking dance lessons, moved to New York when I was 19, 20 years old, and um started pursuing it.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, uh, like you said, I was in I Love You're Perfect Now Change, which I was in and out of that show for about nine years out of the 11 years that it ran.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um the Saturday Fever, I played Monty on tour of that.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my first national tour was Carousel, where I was in the ensemble and understudied both uh Billy and Jigger, who were the two main, the two male leads.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh I got to do a View from the Bridge on Broadway with Scarlett Johansson, Liev Schreiber.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it was it was really, it's been such a wonderful kind of process for me to get to be able to perform.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it really did inform what was next for me, which not only the writing, but I also direct.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so that's kind of my background of where where I came from.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: Is that fairly common in the theater world for for people to take on multiple roles like that over the years, where you act, you direct, you write?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's kind of a theater seems like um, and I'm showing my ignorance here.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: It seems like one of those things where it is very easy to get involved in a variety of things, unlike other kinds of creative endeavors, where basically you do one thing and you try to master one really specific skill set.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: Theater seems like something where you could easily be involved in in productions from multiple angles.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's probably more common for choreographers who are dancers.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of dancers will become choreographers.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a lot of actors who then turn into directors.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's also a lot less directing jobs.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I do think, and especially with writing, I think it's it's very different skill sets.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I happen to have kind of a dual analytic brain and a creative brain.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, even when I was on tour, I found I'm a computer nerd.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So while I was on tour, I wrote some software because I had to stay balanced.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: When I discovered directing, I'm like, wait a minute.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: This actually uses both parts of my brain.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's that's what kind of drew me to that.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then honestly, I started writing so I could have something to direct because no one was gonna hire me to direct something with no directing experience.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, all right, let me write something and then I'm gonna direct it.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that's sort of how that came about, and then fell in love with the writing process and kind of snowballed from there.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: What creatively do you get from directing that you don't get from acting?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of a one-to-many relationship where when you are an actor, you are you're getting your thing.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's just you.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: When you're directing, you can help a whole cast of people achieve that.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Which I remember the first time I I coached somebody and they booked a film from my coaching.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was so excited.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was more excited, I think, with them getting it than if I had gotten it myself.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's sort of being able to influence many people at once.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: I also like being in charge.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's sort of part of my personality, you know.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I like I like being the one making the decisions.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that was also what drew me to directing.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: There is kind of a satisfaction that you get from helping other people succeed that you don't really get from your own, for sure.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: I get that too when I work.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: I work with a a lot of different writers as kind of a creative consultant or um a script consultant on certain projects.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I do find that as well.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: When I help somebody else, I think of it like being a Sherpa.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: When you help somebody else find that path, you don't want to tell them how to do it.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: But you can see what they're writing or what they're working on or what they're trying to do.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can illuminate something that you see that they don't see yet, bring their attention to it and then let them explore that kind of new path that you just opened up.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: That is so satisfying to me.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: And also, probably career-wise in virtually any industry, I guess, this would apply to there's there's more safety in having a variety of skill sets than there is in just having one skill set.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: If you can coach people, work on scripts, you can direct, you can act, you have this range of things.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: Doesn't that make you more valuable to a wide array of different types of endeavors rather than just saying, hey, I'm a really good actor?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh honestly, yes and no.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because while it gives you kind of a uh a variety of things to explore, in some circles, they want to know what are you?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing a lot of things, but what are you really?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some directors.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you tell as an actor, if they find out that I also direct, that may put them some more insecure directors, may find that off-putting.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's interesting.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: I once was offered uh was talking about assisting a director that I had worked with on a project, and he's like, Yeah, I don't I don't use uh directors for my assistants because then they want to direct it themselves.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, then all right, well, thank you.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: That does show a little bit of insecurity, it seems like, you know, that you would be afraid to have somebody as your assistant who might be able to offer some ideas or input because they've been in that role, but I guess to each his own.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh it's something it's interesting.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you've you know my wife Trisha, who is uh an amazing writer, director, speaker coach.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: She's she's a woman of many, many talents.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And early on in our relationship, um, did I say she was my wife?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, all right.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I will in the intro anyway, but um so one of the things that we had talked about, and I've you know, in this creative world, you put something out there, and there is a fear that somebody else is gonna take it or that somebody else is gonna do something else with it.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it reminds me of this Bill Cosby joke that he used to say, his father used to say, Look, I made you, I make another one look just like you.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember that.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the thing is, I I I would remind her, or anybody that I work with, that you're the source.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: So even though if you create something and someone takes it, it's unfortunate, but you are also the source, you can keep creating more, it's your point of view, and it's something I always talk to my writers about.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody in the world sees through your eyes.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when people talk about, you know, write what you know, or your specific point of view, we all have that every day.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: You see the world, you walk outside, the way you take in all that information is completely personal to you.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: How you process it is personal to you, and no one else, no one else in the world, zero people but you can do that in the way that you do.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a good thing to kind of remember in those scenarios.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even remember what I was talking about.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just went off on a tangent sometimes.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, it's all good.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: That that's that's why I have these conversations.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: I just love all this stuff.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: Is that something that happens sometimes in the theater world where someone will write a script and it gets stolen or ideas get stolen, you know, those kinds of things?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yes and no.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it doesn't necessarily get stolen, but it's more that something is in the universe at the same time, and several people will have the same idea at the same time.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I once said worked on a pilot with a writing partner that was a really great pilot, but it was basically Scandal right before when Scandal was in the pipeline, and everybody was writing a scandal-like show.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody who we sent it to said, we have like three of these.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh that's funny how that works.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I remember back in the uh what was it?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: I guess it would have been the late 90s.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: There was a movie The Truman Show.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_03: Of course, everybody's probably seen that, but then kind of the lesser known stepchild of that, Ed TV with Matthew McConaughey, which was really like very much the same story, but some you know, like those just kind of came out right around the same time.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's weird how that works.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, why that is, but it does.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: I sometimes think that it's just kind of what's happening in the world causes everyone to have a similar vision of what it is, and it sort of births the same kind of thing creatively.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Just a thought.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's it's fascinating.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: Almost like kind of a mastermind concept of you know, something comes into the world or into the popular culture, uh, or it's out there in the news, and creative people can all sort of ingest that maybe in slightly different ways, but it comes into the popular consciousness and at the same time, but in maybe slightly different ways.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like, oh man, they stole my idea.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: But maybe they didn't outright steal it, but everybody's kind of working on the same thing at once, I guess.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_03: Now, one thing I wanted that I'm I'm super curious about and want to ask about is you mentioned that one of your current projects is called Whiskey Land.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, I'm curious, what is the process for turning a play into a screenplay?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: So you've and and for those who are listening who aren't familiar with that lingo, can you kind of explain the difference between a script for a stage play and a script for you know TV or movies and how you would take one and turn it into the other one?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: And why you can see it.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the other thing that's interesting about this piece is it's a musical.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: So Whiskey Land is a musical that takes place in a bar in Boston uh during the last 24 hours before the end of the world.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and I love the concept.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a rock musical.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's really it's really I've been helping develop this as a as a stage piece for a few years, working very closely with the playwright.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the difference between a play and a screenplay is, and this is sort of academic, but plays tend to be about the words, and screenplays tend to be about the images.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in this particular case, this is a wordy screenplay because that's kind of who these people are.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not about the action, it's really about the people.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually just uh listened to Aaron Sorkin's masterclass recently.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: That is so great.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is you do have you seen it?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I have.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: I've it's I'd loved it.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was great.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I loved about uh thing, something that he said about his screenplays was that his screenplays are very wordy, so they tend to run 30, 40, 50 pages over because it's all about the dialogue, it's not about the action.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: So there are always exceptions to the rule, but I think that's one of the the big uh differences between plays and screenplays.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Also, with screenplays, you want to really leverage the media, the medium.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: You want to leverage the fact that you can move from location to location to location in an instant.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you do that on stage, you need a new set.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not gonna have a scene with eight lines and then move to another location.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you're doing something that is uh a little more avant-garde, where it's not really a set, they just maybe hold up two, you know, two sticks and it becomes the forest.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then you do a little thing there and you move on.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: I tend to really enjoy being immersed when I go to see theater.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I like realistic sets.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, Whiskey Land, all of act one takes place inside the bar.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: When we did the screenplay, it doesn't.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: We could use different rooms in the bar, we could go to the basement, we could go upstairs to the office.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: The introduction of a character that happened outside of a bar, out of the bar, now takes place with him and his uh transam on the road driving to Boston.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you can really utilize those locations.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: You also Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: I interrupted.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, I was gonna say also the scenes in uh screenplays tend to be shorter.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas interesting, otherwise you sort of sit in sit in the location for a while, you have longer scenes, screenplays tend to be shorter.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: Is it easier or harder to adapt something that you've written into another medium versus taking something someone else has written and adapting it into another medium?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like, are you more or less emotionally attached to your own play if you're adapting it into a screenplay?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: Does that make it harder or easier the fact that it's coming from something you wrote?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Usually it's easier because it's something that I'm very, very familiar with.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: I know these, I know this world, I know these people.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not a very touchy-feely writer when it comes to my own stuff.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: They talk about killing your darlings.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I remember reading early on was if you have a screenplayer or player, something that's not working, get rid of your favorite thing about the piece, whatever it may be, just get rid of it and see if it creates more solutions than it causes problems.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you may find that something that you're so attached to that you just love this moment, you love this scene, you love this particular character.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you remove them and it starts flowing again, that you were trying to write around that, or like I tell my playwrights, don't write to that.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to get to this thing, and you're writing to that thing, and you're taking this direct B line because you want to keep this other thing.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you take this weird detour to get to it, and then we come back to the play.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I love adapting.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's it for me, that's exciting because the main bones of the piece is already there, so you don't have to come up with everything.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: The conflict is there, the the relationships are there, and now you can expand on it.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a collaboration.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: I see it as a collaboration.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: If you could take any existing play, book, or movie and turn it into a different type of property.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_03: Is there anything that you just really, really would love to work on?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, obviously, time or money being no object, you had the opportunity to creatively work on this property.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: What would something like that be?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: I always thought the movie Hitch would make an amazing musical.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: One with the one with Mil with uh Will Smith?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to turn that into a musical.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I actually have a buddy of mine who um is sort of trying to figure out if we can make that possible.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: The other thing is involved in that process.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, the problem is one of the other differences between plays and screenplays is when you write a screenplay and someone produces it, they buy it from you.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: They own it, they can do whatever they want with it, they can make whatever changes they want.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's theirs.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: When you write a play or a musical, they rent it.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: They only get it for a certain amount of time, and then the then the ownership reverts back to you.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that is difficult about adapting a screenplay into another medium is there's usually a studio involved.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's usually writers involved.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: It depends on who owns the actual property at this point.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes with that, if you show interest, they'll go, oh yeah, what a great idea.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll go to other people to see if they can make it happen.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's an interesting, it's an interesting thing.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I wanted to do a musical adaptation of Heaven Can Wait about a Broadway dancer.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I wrote up, I actually wrote the script, just not having the rights, and then went to a lawyer and he said to me, You'll never get the rights to say it is a nest of red tape is an understatement.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a it was originally a play which was purchased for the first movie.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um the name escapes me at the moment, and then they remade that movie into another movie, which is owned by Warren Beatty and the studios and all that.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: So there's so many people attached to it for ownership.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way to get the rights.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_03: That almost sounds like a a uh Disney Marvel Sony Spider Man kind of uh rat's nest of red tape that would take a miracle to work through.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_03: Right, exactly.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: Now, when we were we're chatting over email to prepare for this uh conversation, you mentioned a few projects that you're working on.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: I love this title, Squirrel Screams and Other Dating Sounds.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: I live in Missouri.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: We have lots of squirrels running over the house all the time.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm very familiar with these sounds that squirrels make.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: And uh you mentioned that being a pilot.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_03: I would love to hear more about that and just how that process works, developing a pilot and what's involved in that and so forth.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is it's at the very early stages.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that particular play uh is written by Lindsay Timmington, who I met when I cast her as an actress in a play that I was directing.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And after the show, One Night Over Drinks, she goes, you know, I have this play that I wrote about James Dean.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Would you read it?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I said, sure.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I read it, I loved it.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: We started working on that.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then she did a short play called Squirrel Screams and Other Dating Sounds.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a 10-minute play.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw it and I said, This needs to be full length.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we started working on developing it into a full-length play.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: We did, we did a presentation of it um a year ago, invited producers and people to come see it.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And a producer that I know who teaches at Malloy College, who runs a theater there, said, I want to do it here.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we were scheduled to do it um this past June.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: But because of COVID, we couldn't do it.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that will be coming, hopefully, if we can get everybody vaccinated, it'll be coming this summer.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll finally get to do it and hopefully move it to an off-Broadway run.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the things, it's these two women who are in this bar, they don't know each other, and we see them each on five different dates.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And two men play, all 10 men.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last third of the play is the two of them in the bar waiting for their dates to show up, and they actually become friends.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's just a wonderful piece.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's great characters.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Lindsay's uh is an amazing writer, and I always thought this would be a great sitcom.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we've just started working out the process of what this sitcom will be.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the big changes is with sitcoms, your characters don't necessarily grow because they they they stay in the same situation week after week, and you get to see them work through this.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because if they grow, then the series changes and it ends.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Many series will die when the two when the two people who have that flirtation end up getting together, and then that chemistry is gone, and the show dies.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I remember reading once that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the perfect version of that, because all she wanted to do was be a regular high school girl, but she had to keep going to save the world from all these vampires.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so it created this loop where no matter what she did, she couldn't get out of that loop.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's what generates week after week of shows.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we are in the early process of figuring out how these two uh women will exist in this in this sitcom.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we're we're in the process of actually fleshing out just the overall arcs of what this series will be.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: Then once you have that nailed down and and you feel like you have a good handle on that, then do you take that to uh networks, studios, producers?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_03: What what's the next step in that process?
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um the next step is basically to get somebody to like it.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: So whether that means getting an agent to send it out, um, getting another producer involved, excuse me, somebody who has more more juice than you, somebody who has more clout, who can shop it around and say this is a good piece, you should take a look at this.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really just about it's about the relationships and getting it into as many hands as possible.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_03: So whenever someone like me who is not in this industry, whenever I'm looking through, okay, here's here's what's on NBC tonight, here's what's on CBS tonight.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: Would it be accurate to say that each of those series has had a a different pathway to actually getting on the air because there's there's lots of different ways that things can actually get green lit and produced based on you know agents, producers, stars, heads of studios, whatever that might be.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: So it's not like it's a it's a very straightforward step-by-step thing that everybody goes through the same process.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: It can happen a bunch of different ways.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Especially now with so many outlets.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there are shows that are on now because they were they started off as a web series and they grabbed an audience.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's really about right now.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: So many, so many creative industries are really about your influence.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Casting shows now, they look at both Broadway and and TV and film, they look at things like how many followers somebody has as to whether, so you know, for example, you are casting a show, and you have two people who you're trying to decide for the lead role.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: One of them has 10 million followers, one of them has a hundred thousand followers.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: 10 million followers is a built-in audience.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way around it.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: That they're gonna tweet this out, that they're doing the show, millions of people are gonna see it.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: As opposed to this person, 100,000 people are gonna see it.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's fascinating because this is exactly how it works in the publishing world.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: It really is.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's not really necessarily about writing talent or even ideas, it's who can sell the most books and can we develop this into I didn't realize that these that these these industries were in fact basically the same, just different media, really different mediums.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I I I think it's really like any business, you want to make it as successful as possible and not have to if if you can work less hard, who doesn't want to doing that?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Making it successful.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's fascinating.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: That's really, really fascinating.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh something else that you mentioned in our email exchange was um, is this uh I didn't write this down, I should have in my notes.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: Is this a play or a script you're working on called Third Party Ruling?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: Third party ruling is uh it's a musical.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, musical.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, gotcha.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's right.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: That's the one I I read you that you sent to me.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, which was really, really fun.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thanks.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um, yeah, that's that's that's a musical, and the title is gonna change, but it's we are just actually getting ready to do next week.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do a zoom table read of the script because it was just I just did a big rewrite on it, changed a lot of stuff, a lot of music changed.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so basically I call friends of mine who are actors who I've worked with or are friends with, and ask them if they would, you know, join me for a table read.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really excited because we have we have an amazing group of people, bro, all Broadway veterans, Jersey Boys, Hamilton, uh Wicked, just amazingly, amazingly talented people.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm very excited to hear this this read out loud.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: That sounds like a blast.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: Well, even from the very beginning uh of that script is just it's so punchy and so fun.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm of course, I don't know what mus what the music is that that's accompanying the lyrics, but I just thought, man, this this sounds like a lot of fun.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: This would be a blast to see.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm I'm really hoping this moves forward and you can get it produced and get an audience for this because it sounds like a blast.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, thanks, man.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: Now you also also mentioned a um a couple of pitches for Hallmark that you're working on.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: Are these films, TV series?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, what's involved in all that?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, these are films.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's so funny.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: I talked about that people stealing your ideas because these pitches aren't out yet.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna necessarily talk about the content of what those pitches are.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, totally makes sense.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: But but basically, with Hallmark, they have a bunch of producers, and those producers have connections with creative producers who have connections with screenwriters, and it basically filters up from there.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I know we'll talk more about the Hallmark process uh in the in the bonus segment.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: But uh friend of mine who I acted with literally 20, 20 years ago, we did a show together.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: He actually, when I moved out of my apartment in Queens, I called him.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was actually leaving the city the next day because he had nowhere to live.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Hey, you want my apartment?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we ended up staying there.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: But he started producing, and he is how I'm connected into Hallmark.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, was through him, and we can talk about all that.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: So again, it goes back to relationships, kind of the the core element of our life.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it absolutely is, you know.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many I'm there's so many times that I think about somebody that I need for a project, or I want to hire an actor, or work with a collaborator, with a playwright or a a director or whatever it may be, and I go through the role ejects of everybody that I know.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, it's just people that I that I worked with literally 20 years ago may come up because they're right for something.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's it's fun when you can kind of circle back and get people involved in different ways, or even give people a job, which is always fantastic to be able to say, hey, I want to hire you for this thing.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yay.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: How do you learn how to how to write a story?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: If some so someone's listening to this, maybe they are they're a nonfiction book author, they write stuff for social media or for blogs or podcasts, but they're thinking, I would love to learn how to tell a better story.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: What's the best place for somebody to start?
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_03: Just to learn basic fundamentals of how do you structure a compelling story?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's that's a huge that's like a whole other podcast.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's that that's a whole other series of podcasts, I know.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one of the things I find when I'm writing something and I find that I'm either stuck or I don't kind of know what to do with what I have.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have a kernel of an idea for something.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: I look at some different kinds of roadmaps.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's the hero's journey, which lays out kind of all the different steps.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's also something called the story embryo or the story circle, which is uh Dan Harman, who wrote yeah, who wrote Community and um uh Brick and Morty.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I watched some YouTube videos where he walks through the four things that he includes in every script.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was yeah, it's it's actually a really nice.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: I actually just used it with one of my the playwright for Whiskey Land, actually, who's a collaborator of mine.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's working on a new piece and he was stuck.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: So he would call me and we talked through the stuff for him.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And and I said, you know what, take a look at Dan Harman's story circle, because it will help you figure out not only parts of a of a play, but you can do it per act or per scene.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can have this apply to that, and it will, and it's and that one is specifically about storytelling, you know, and I think that's I think if somebody was saying how you know, how do I write a better story, how to write a story, I would look there.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: I would look there first because I feel like it allows you to break it down in a way that's not complicated, it's not convoluted, it's not a hundred steps, and it can be something that you can start from the outside and work your way in.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: So and what I mean by that is you can do the broad strokes for what you want, these big, these big points you want to hit.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is what happens at the beginning, this is what happens in the middle, this is what happens at the end.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: So now you have a basic that's a story, not an interesting one, but a story.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it's something to start with.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you can look at how do these seemingly disconnected things connect?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get from A to B?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get from B to C?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: What happens in here?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: How do these characters change?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many different little pieces that uh you would look at.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that's different than a sitcom when you're dealing with film is these characters do need to change.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: How are what's what is their kind of moment of stasis at the beginning?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: What how they're in a state of everything is normal, they're in normalcy.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then somebody comes and shakes that up.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: What happens to them?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: How do they react to it?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they go to next?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: Once they readjust to that, what are they trying to accomplish?
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: What are they trying to get?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you also talk about something called inner and outer conflict, which is the outer conflict is I need to get from New York to Los Angeles in five days, and I don't have a car.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's my outer conflict.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: My inner conflict is that I, and it's the inner one is usually emotional, that the woman that I love is about to get married in LA, and if I don't get there and she gets married and I lose her, I'm my life is going to be destroyed.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you have those two things, and hopefully, when you have those two things, they're at odds with each other, so they can kind of bounce off each other, ping-pong back and forth and affect each other.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_03: So if someone is trying to flush out a story, there's not necessarily a right or wrong answer to the question of how do I structure a story?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think a lot of and here, maybe I'm talking more about novelists and people who are writing books.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's some confusion at times, at least I have felt this about okay, do I follow the hero's journey?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: Do I do some other story structure kind of scaffolding?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_03: So so there's really no right or wrong answer, is there necessarily?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's just depends on so many different factors.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: I I would totally agree.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the interesting things is with any sort of structure like the hero's journey, understanding why they're there and why you would not want to include it.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that makes sense.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: With any of those structures, right?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you write to the structure, it's like writing to a particular character or to a particular scene, it's going to get you in trouble.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have the idea and if you've done some outlining and you kind of know what this piece is about, but it's not fully fleshed out, you can always look at any of these different story structures or methodologies to say, okay, if I was doing this, what would I be missing?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you may discover something.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, for example, like in the hero's journey, they get the amulet or the magical item or whatever it is that helps them.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, well, that's interesting.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: What if it's, you know, he goes to visit his mom and she has his old lunchbox and he remembers that he used to be scared on the bus.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever he had that lunchbox with him, he felt like it protected him because it had Captain America on the front.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it could be something like that that may lead you to then with a relationship with the mother.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now you have this whole lunchbox thing that you could connect to if there's a love interest that could connect through there, and you may discover a piece of something that is exciting and new, and you're not following the hero's journey, but you took an element of it, did your own processing, and discovered something new that then can help your story, fill it out.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: Or, like in The Key of Love, of course, movie that you wrote, where I can't remember the main character's name, um, where she is discouraged.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: I'm obviously I'm paraphrasing.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_03: She's goes back to her house or apartment that's there on the island, and she finds an old song in her guitar case that she then redoes, and that becomes the impetus for a whole bunch of other cool story things.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure if that's what you intended in the story.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I took away from it.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's sort of like, oh, it's almost like it's not a magical quote-unquote thing, but it's something that propels the story forward and presents a solution to several story problems.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and honestly, that didn't come out of a hero's journey element, but it came out of we need to figure out a way to solve this problem.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: How can we solve this problem?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it just so happened that that worked out well because it connected to them in their past.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: It also was very empowering for her to take care of somebody that she loves, but not in a way where she was giving up anything of herself.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: She was doing something that was very strong and independent, but yet giving and wanted him to succeed.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: So she did this for him.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a it's a story solution that, or it's it's an element that really solves a lot of story problems.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, hopefully.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_03: Hopefully it's I think it did.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'd I'd love to.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, thank you.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm a music person, so and I'm a guitar player and a drummer.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: So it really resonated with uh all those elements of the story.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: I I know I'm not the target audience for Hallmark movies, but yet I still really enjoy them.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: So no, that's great.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you I'm glad you enjoyed it.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: So I've got a couple more quick questions here before we wrap this up.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_03: Then, of course, we'll do a quick bonus interview with some geeky stuff where I get to pick your brain about all the Hallmark stuff.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but um, since this show is called the Daily Rider, we talk a lot about habits, routines, and rituals.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_03: What are some rituals or habits that you have in your life or in your daily practice that help you stay focused and productive?
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I discovered, and this is a weird one.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: I discovered a few years ago that I'm a kinesthetic writer, a skin, a kinesthetic thinker, that I think better when I'm moving.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of times when I edit, I will be walking.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know I don't recommend that, but you know, here in New York City, uh, I will find that if I have a script, I'll start walking slowly, reading through the script.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I have this weird good peripheral vision where I can actually, like I'm looking at my hand, but I can still see you.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I will do a lot of editing there because it just comes to me.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ideas come to me.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: There are many times where I'm walking and I'll be thinking about nothing in particular, and a story idea that I've been mulling over will come to me and I'll come up with a solution.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: If I keep walking and don't write it down, I may not remember it.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's possible that I'll come, even no matter how great an idea it is, it's happened many times where I'm like, oh, that's awesome.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I won't forget that.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like trying to get to where I'm going instead of stopping, either doing a voice memo or writing it down.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I get there, and for the life of me, I can't remember it.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's that's heartbreaking when that happens.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: It so is.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: So is.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm also I'm a very early riser.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I do a lot of I do a lot of my writing in the morning.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it usually it it's it depends on what I'm working on, changes kind of what my process is.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: So usually when when I'm in like right now, the process that I'm in with like two different pieces that we're getting ready to either submit or do the reading of, a lot of times it's me reading and rereading stuff, saying it out loud, because this is meant to be spoken and heard.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times that stuff needs to be read out loud in order to figure out what the rhythms are, and it does sometimes require doing a voice.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: One of the characters in Whiskey Land, um, we made Southern uh a draft or two back, and I never did a pass for her speech.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what I did was I in final draft, I created a character report which listed all of her lines, and without benefit of the scenes, I read through each of her lines together to make sure that they had a similar voice and that it sounded southern.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: So then I did on my iPad, I had my pencil and a PDF, and I started making notes of what I wanted to change.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: When I was done walking, then I would come back and I would uh make those changes in the script.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's sort of that's sort of where I am with that that particular piece.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_03: For people who are who are night owls, they would prefer to stay up till one or two in the morning.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think there is there any kind of qualitative difference between the writing that you would do midday, late at night, early morning, or does it really just depend on when you're best in your state of flow?
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's best whenever you're best in your state of flow.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: There are times when I mean, I I know lots of people.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny that some of my writers that I've worked with, they'll go to bed at three and I'll wake up at four, you know.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it'd be like just an hour between hilarious.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but yeah, it's whenever, whenever you feel is your time, you know, there's some people that use the day to gather their experiences from the day and have all of that input and then sit.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: When I was writing In the Key of Love, I wrote most of that at cafes around New York.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: That I really enjoyed being out because I I'm collaborative by nature.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I like having that input.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm trying to figure out a story, that can be distracting.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: But when I'm writing, it's not a problem.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm if I know what the structure is, I have I have the outline, I know what I'm, you know, what it basically is, being out and about with people is great, which is why COVID is so much harder because you can't, I can't be out there with, you know, surrounded by people.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, but when I'm trying to figure out the core ideas of something or trying to formulate, okay, what what do I want this movie to be about, then that that tends to be too much.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because for me, I need to just kind of sit in the uncomfortable blank page piece of it and just see what comes up, just see what comes to my mind, and then go from there.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Joe, thanks so much for doing this interview.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_03: This has been a blast.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_03: I could talk for hours about this stuff, and of course, we're gonna do a little bonus thing here in a moment.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but before I do that and move on to kind of this other episode, can you tell people how they can get in touch with you and learn about all the cool stuff that you're doing?
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: There's a wide variety of things that you're involved in, and I'm amazed by that.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, tell people how they can touch base with you.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, JoeRicci.net, Joe R I C C I.net is my website.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I guess also LinkedIn, Joe Ricci, Joe R I C C I.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Those are probably the two best ways.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's a a contact link on the on the website if if you wanted to drop a line, you can totally do that.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, so those are probably the best ways.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_03: Is it okay for people to shoot you an email if they have questions, follow-up questions based on this conversation?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or uh yeah, absolutely.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you right now what will not happen is if you ask me to read something of yours, that will not happen.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a friend of mine always makes sure that even with friends of his, that when someone says, Hey, would you read this?
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I do this too, how long have you been working on it?
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you just wrote it, because there's nothing worse than getting something, you agree to read something for somebody, and it's got typos.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, wait a minute, when did you write this?
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: Last night?
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is that is that what this is?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you why don't you sit with it a while before you send it to me?
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_03: Same thing in the book world, too.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_03: Same thing, definitely.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: Joe, thanks so much.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: This has been an absolute blast.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate all that you're doing and all the cool creativeness that you're adding out there into the world.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_03: So thanks again.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Joe.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_03: My main takeaway from this interview is the importance of relationships and having success as a writer.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I absolutely love Joe's creativity, and I could listen to him talk all day about screenwriting, story structure, theater, and pretty much anything else that he wants to talk about.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_03: However, one thing that you'll notice whenever Joe talks about almost anything he's doing is that it's a collaborative process.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_03: And that's very true of the theater and television worlds, especially.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_03: You have to create with other people.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_03: Now, for those of us who write books or mostly do stuff online, sometimes it kind of feels like we're a one, a one-man show or a one-woman show.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_03: But the major lesson that I'm taking away from this conversation with Joe is that I need to lean into collaboration a lot more in everything that I'm doing.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_03: So, my question to you is who is around you that you can collaborate with in some way?
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_03: Think about some ways that you can work together or create something better than you could do on your own.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I want to give a massive thank you to my special guest, Joe Ricci.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_03: You can connect with him at joereachy.net.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: And the way you spell that is Joe, of course, is J-O-E.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_03: And his last name, Ricci, is R-I-C-C-I.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_03: So that's joeRicci.net.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, there's a link in the show notes.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_03: Also, if you have the Hallmark channel, make sure and catch his movie in the Key of Love the next time that it airs.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: Even if you don't regularly watch the Hallmark channel or consider yourself a rom-com kind of a person, I think you're really going to enjoy it.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_03: And if nothing else, when you start to look at how he has structured the story and how the story actually unfolds, it's actually really, really fascinating.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_03: So thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_03: I would be extremely grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two and leaving an honest review in iTunes.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_03: Those reviews are extremely helpful for reaching new listeners, and I read and appreciate every single review.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_03: And if you know anyone who would enjoy these episodes, please consider sharing one of those episodes with them.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_03: For more, you can always visit us online at dailywriterlife.com.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much, and I'll see you tomorrow.