joshua chamberlain

Category: writing

  • start with the soundtrack

    If you’ve been paying attention, you probably know I’m working on a movie. I’m still writing it. It’s roughly ninety pages of a final draft document, a hundred or so post-it notes tacked out on my bedroom wall, a series of scribbles in a few different notebooks, and about eighteen…

  • a masochistic urge to create

    I’ve been feeling stuck lately. I finished a screenplay at the end of October, just in time to submit to several different contests. I told myself I’d finish another screenplay by Christmas, in time to pitch the concept to a potential investor. Problem is, the words aren’t flowing the way…

  • gotta have a LinkedIn

    I hate social media. For many, many reasons. I think by this point, most of us do. But of every social network though, I think LinkedIn is the most hilarious. Because let’s be honest — it’s useless. I built a LinkedIn page in college. I was told I had to.…

  • show your work

    I’ve always been a believe in Austin Kleon’s idea that you should show your work. Don’t just share the finished product, share the process of making it. Document every step. Invite people into the process. Have conversations. Therefore, that’s what I’m doing… I just started writing a screenplay for a…

  • peripheral opponents

    Every so often, I stumble into a show to live in, a story so powerful and immersive, it touches every corner of my life. Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty is the latest show I’ve let swallow my life whole. Let me begin by expressing tremendous gratitude for…

  • where’s the utopian vision?

    There’s something wholly human about Jennifer Egan. She’s a master of her craft, but humble. Well-spoken, but soft. Curious, but afraid. Any and every chance I get to hear speak, I listen with wrapt attention. She recently spoke with Dan Harris on his podcast, Ten Percent Happier. Their conversation covered…

  • “do your early stuff”

    I’ve been writing stories since I was a little kid. It’s a popular myth in my family that at six-years-old, after seeing a behind-the-scenes special about James Cameron, I decided to make my own version of Titanic. I made storyboards, asked my dad to be the camera man, and shot…

  • fascination with adaptation

    I’m currently enraptured listening to Andy Serkis narrate JRR Tolkien’s The Fellowship of The Ring. It’s my first time through The Lord of The Rings and also my first foray into audiobooks. While my thoughts on the act of listening to a book is a separate blog post, the biggest…

  • “We All Say God”

    Last year, I wrote and directed a short film called We All Say God, which is currently available on YouTube. The film was also recently accepted into the Marina del Rey Film Festival and placed at a finalist in the Malibu Film Festival. A special shoutout to the entire cast…

  • cut your teeth

    Malcolm Gladwell’s Principle of 10,000 hours is well documented, but for those of you who aren’t familiar, the idea goes like this: achieving mastery of a specific skill require an estimated ten-thousand hours of practice. Backed by research studies and social experiments, Gladwell asserts that “ten thousand hours is the…