This is what I use when coming up with a cost estimate for you.

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This is what I use when coming up with a cost estimate for you.

August 1, 2017September 9, 2017 504

Believe it or not.

This really has nothing to do with writing, but today, a friend stared down at my desk and picked up my old Canon calculator. “How old is this thing?” he asked as he turned it to inspect each surface. I was taken aback. I tried to remember when I bought it but couldn’t recall. I only knew that I’ve had it for a long time. And that I still have it because it works great.

It’s solar powered and works well even in dim light. What’s not to like?

I put the model info into Google but couldn’t locate a year of manufacture. Needless to say, it’s no longer made. I poked around some more and discovered that calculators like this with low-power LCD screens (black numbers on a gray background) and solar panels came out around 1976. I gulped. Really? I’ve had that thing since around 1976?

Well, I’m keeping it. When it gets grimy I just spritz Windex on it and wipe it clean.

So when you call and ask how much to write your screenplay or book or speech, I hit its ON button and figure out the price. You know the price will be accurate because it was determined by my trusty Canon LS-81Z calculator from 1976.

It may outlast me.

Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river.

Lisa See

If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.

Stan Lee

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Stories are never too long or too short. They’re too interesting or too boring.

William Shawn

In Hollywood, the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

Will Rogers

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.

Mickey Spillane

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

Jim Morrison

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.

Douglas Adams

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E. L. Doctorow

A true author, no matter the medium, is an artist with godlike knowledge of his subject, and the proof of his authorship is that his pages smack of authority.

Robert McKee

I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

Critics are people who sit on the mountaintop and look down on the battlefield. When the fighting is finished, they take it upon themselves to come down from the mountain and shoot the survivors.

Robert Altman

I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.

John Legend

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.

Edward Albee

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Thomas Jefferson

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

Quentin Tarantino