A couple months ago I said to read Source Code. Now go read the interview with the writer of this awesome spec, Ben Ripley and his advice for aspiring screenwriters:

I would tell him to keep faith, that it’s all going to be okay. I would tell him that the reason I’m a screenwriter today is that I believed in my talent and made the sustained sacrifices to become one. I eschewed other career paths. I worked day jobs to support myself. I wrote on weekends when maybe I would have had more fun at the beach. I started and finished scripts and then started new ones that were better. I kept at it. There are no shortcuts. The dues-paying process can be bewildering and lonely, but its job is to separate out the professionals from the merely curious, and when it’s over, you’re oddly thankful for having asked a lot of yourself.

Don’t know about everyone else, but it sure is comforting to hear that it took him several drafts over a couple of years to craft this kick-ass sci-fi story. VERY inspirational interview.

John August gives a fascinating insight into his writing process on the film Big Fish:

Sitting in front of a full-length mirror, I brought myself to tears. Then I started writing Will’s dialogue. I looped over and over until I got a piece of it finished, then started on the next section. It was three solid days of crying, but it was cathartic and productive. These were fake tears, in the sense that I wasn’t actually guiding my Southern father through his last moments on Earth. But they were true in the context of writing the story. I was creating in myself the experience I was hoping to create in the reader.

Might be worth a try.