The Stories that Choose Us
People always ask, “how do you choose your stories?”, “do people hire you to make your stories?”, or “where do you get your project ideas?” Life has led me to the stories I’ve filmed and written. I felt the same with regards to my most successful legal cases I had as an attorney. In essence, the stories-and previously the cases- choose me.
Don’t misunderstand as I do have the ultimate decision making power. I don’t take any project just because it comes to me. I’ve always been a business person with lots of work and don’t actively seek it. I turn down most film and book projects that come my way. I’m very selective and discriminating as to what I work on. and with whom I collaborate. However, I do believe very strongly that the films and books I’m to produce choose me through my life’s experiences, passions, and intuitive guidance. In law, I was adept at picking the winners and I equally exercise that same intuitive and analytic reasoning in my creative projects.
I come from a line of voracious readers. My mother had a lifelong habit of reading 8-10 books each week. As she was housebound during her cancer treatment, we actually had difficulty finding books she hadn't read from the local library. Her father, my grandfather, likewise, consumed books at a ferocious pace. His favorites were historical fiction and also, Louis L'Amour westerns. He read all 101 books published by the prolific L'Amour. As a five year old, I would visit my grandfather and recall the great memories of him reading to me. Dressed in a pink tutu straight from ballet lessons, I would sit with him as he read the unexpected tales (not exactly the "girly girl" material I was accustomed to in my childhood) of cowboy gunfights, trailblazing pioneers and Texas Rangers. He also introduced me to the infamous director, John Ford's films. From those books and films, I developed a love affair with the American West. It led me to relocate from my home state of Michigan, as a lawyer, to the western state of Arizona which, at the time, still seemed like the wild west to me in comparison. The passion remained when I then moved to California as a lawyer embarking on my film career. As if orchestrated above, two amazing western genre films-much outside of the other type of films I had made- chose me. Those films which I thought were simply honoring my grandfather were distributed to over 50 countries world wide and over ten years later, still being streamed, sold on DVD and Blu Ray, and are producing "mailbox money".
Never deny the unsuspecting influences in your life when it comes to writing, film making, content creation or business innovation. Tap into those insights and the intuitive feelings embedded in your life's history.
That 5 year old girl in the pink tutu ended up in her future directing two westerns on horseback.
To be continued...how my other genres of film and book projects "chose" me.
START WRITING. START CREATING. Write that book or screenplay. Make that film. There are stories inside of you that need to be shared.
