Writing Advice from a Successful First Time Author and a Songwriting Couple Who Just Won an Oscar

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

                             

CBS Sunday Morning highlighted writers today: a first-time author as well as a husband and wife songwriting team. They gave some great advice to other writers.

Ready Player One was written by Ernest Cline. It’s his first novel and his first published work—and he won the author jackpot! In just 24 hours he accepted a lucrative offer from a publisher. He was also told that the movie rights were being auctioned. Steven Spielberg bought them. Cline then wrote the screenplay and was the technical expert for the movie on all things about the ‘80s.

As described on CBS Sunday Morning, Ready Player One envisions a dark future in which people spend most of their time plugged into a virtual online world. The plot is a high stakes scavenger hunt with clues from 1980’s pop culture.

Cline notes, “I am a testament to what happens if you be free about what you love, and why you love it, and not afraid or worried about what other people think about what you love or your passions. Just be bold and celebrate the things you are passionate about and amazing things can happen.”

He’s still amazed every time he speaks with Steven Spielberg, a hero from his childhood.

In the segment titled “In Harmony,” Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez are highlighted for writing eleven songs for the animated movie Frozen. (They credit their two daughters for the inspiration.) The couple is working hard on the Broadway version now after winning an Oscar for their song “Remember Me” from the animated movie Coco.

They met at a songwriting workshop in 1999 where Bobby was working on his puppet musical “Avenue Q” which Kristen loved. It was a big success. At the beginning, their romance had ups and downs, but their career together has produced many hits.

Bobby’s advice, “You need to create from joy, from the part of you that loves what you are doing.”

I just wanted to share this advice from writers living their dream lives.

(There were several other stories worth watching in the episode—a profile of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was killed 50 years ago on April 4, an American tragedy; a heartwarming story about Jamarion Styles, a 14-year-old basketball player who lost both hands and most of his arms to an infection when he was a baby; and actor/director John Krasinski, a self-described scaredy cat, working with his wife, Emily Blunt, on the horror movie A Quiet Place. Also a segment on innovations in stained glass and a look at Google and Facebook and how they can affect people.)