After October's whirlwind visit from Donna—where we practiced what we preach with daily roaming, rooftopping with the best of them, and of course, eating out—I’ve been inspired to leave my computer and step out more with my notebook. There’s something about San Miguel that makes you want to be in  it, not just observe it from a café window or a rooftop with a view, but on its streets, with its people, and in the little pockets of magic that surprise you around the next corner

Sometimes in the screenwriting journey, you need to pause and acknowledge the wins. Even the "small" ones that don't come with a trophy or a check. My teen supernatural horror screenplay, Before We Were Afraid, has been selected as a semifinalist in the Cleveland Arthouse Film Awards, and while it might not sound like winning a Nicholl Fellowship, here's why I'm celebrating anyway. The Numbers Tell a Story Let's put this in perspective. Reddit's screenwriting community has m

Three weeks. That's how long it's been since I last posted here, and honestly? It's been the best kind of busy. Donna was in town, and naturally, we practiced what we preach. We ate, we roamed, we wrote. Boy, did we eat . We made it our mission to hit every fabulous rooftop we could for sunset cocktails, watching the sky turn impossible colors while plotting our next creative moves. Between bites and sips, Donna was busy killing villains in her female version of the Bourne Id

You know the advice. Fix the structure. Deepen the characters. Punch up the dialogue. Make every scene count. It's like telling someone to "just play better" after they've lost a tennis match. The advice isn't wrong, it's just not actionable. What does "fix the structure" mean when you're staring at 110 pages? Where do you start? Jack Epps Jr., who wrote Top Gun  and Dick Tracy , developed a system over decades: the Pass Method. Instead of fixing everything at once, you make

I read an article recently that argued screenwriters should avoid emotional direction entirely. Instead of writing "Sarah is devastated"...

Where do stories come from? Why is it that one idea keeps returning while others fade away? What makes a certain story feel urgent, the...

I read an article recently in Script  magazine that got me thinking. Jeff Howard ( Midnight Mass , The Haunting of Hill House ) said that...

Absent an airplane, I'm not an early riser. But Donna is, and she swears San Miguel is at its best when the town is transitioning from...

Protagonists beat villains and conquer obstacles not with capes or superpowers, but with their wits, grit, and the skills and knowledge...

Every screenwriting guide will tell you the same thing: give your character an internal flaw and an external obstacle. Maybe she’s...

Let's be honest: your last draft is sitting there judging you from across the room like a disappointed parent. You know what I mean: that...

After our last post on introducing a single character, someone asked: “Okay, but what if I’m introducing six characters at once?” That’s...

There’s something magical about the first moment we meet a character on screen. Maybe it’s the flicker of movement in the corner of the...

Picture this : you settle onto a barstool, your open notebook poised for inspiration, and raise a glass of mezcal that smells of charred...

While getting my weekly massage, I was wrestling Act Two plot points in my mind while my masseuse's elbows were working on every knot in...

At the risk of sounding tedious, San Miguel de Allende has again been awarded the Number One City in the World. The top cities in the...

San Miguel de Allende is one of those rare places that feels both timeless and vibrantly alive. I first visited in 1999, and made it my...

We’ve been roaming San Miguel since 1999, and over the past 26 years the city’s steak game has gone from modest to magnificent. Here,...

Writing a screenplay demands precision, passion and that elusive spark of magic. You will find all three at San Miguel de Allende’s most...

Some days, I roam with purpose. Other days, I drift, following my intuition, wondering what new thing I'm going to discover. Either way,...