Your Ideas Aren’t Big Enough

I usually give one note on most scripts and it’s this:

Your ideas aren’t big enough.

There, you’ve gotten my note. No need to ask me to read your script.

There’s a reason why this note works: it’s the master note — the pituitary note of all the other notes.

I could go in and try to do battlefield triage (or what I think most people are expecting, some kind of invisible but masterful plastic surgery that will transform the prone patient into a job interview candidate — )

Here’s the problem — if you have a distinctive voice, which you should have — then no amount of tinkering and fixing is gonna do much. It’s either there or it’s not there.

I mean, you should tinker and fix. But moving stuff around and cutting stuff and sharpening this and adding that does nothing if your ideas aren’t big enough to begin with.

My life is chaos right now. I am making some really big plays — writing two different heady complex scripts simultaneously. And I’m being audited by the IRS, among other life stuff.

And yet — I walked back from swimming in the ocean tonight feeling pure joy.

I think it’s because I am swimming in a huge ocean these days. My possibilities are unlimited by time and space.

I had been texting my co-founder while I walked across the sand — pushing for a mobile play —

JULIE WANTS A PONY

— was his response —

And I pointed out to him that because I cannot be heads down in the product, executing, like him, my view can be broader.

Your ideas aren’t big enough.

That’s my one note.

That’s my value-add. As a screenwriter. As a producer. As a co-founder.

He agreed with my note and built on it with ideas of his own. We chatted some more — -we decided V3.0 would be optic nerve integration — then I swam. Then I felt joy. Despite — or perhaps because I took multiple big swings today.

My ideas are big enough.