Great first script stories are always really interesting. This one reminds me of the story about ROCKY, probably apocryphal (anyone know the real story?), that Sylvester Stallone, out-of-work as an actor, decided to write himself a job. The story goes that he locked himself in his apartment and to eliminate distraction, painted the place black, including the windows. He wrote the script in one long pull, and then, realizing it's value, decided he also wanted to direct. He got half his wishes.

And then there's the story of pulp writer, Lester Dent (again, probably apocryphal): that he was having a house built somewhere, and had a deadline and no place to write. So he set up a table and a typewriter on his site on a Friday, and as the house was framed around him, in around 48 hours he wrote an entire novel, finishing by Sunday.

Anybody else got one of these?

Paul Schrader's 'problem and metaphor' lecture changed my life and it stemmed from what he learned during this experience.
Take the problem you're dealing with in your life and come up with a metaphor that gets close enough to the problem to where sparks cross between them.