What's striking about this list is how none of it came from a random bolt of lightning as you strolled down the street. It seems more as if you did the Benjamin Franklin thing and through study, calculation and work, sent a key up into the dark clouds. It was still kind of a lightning strike, but one that was almost inevitable after the preparation you put in ("inevitable" beign relative, in this case applying to writers imbued with talent).

Still, it's oddly exciting in a strictly non-sexual way. Any rough guess how many promising ideas you ditched because they didn't develop after further scrutiny?

Oh, I guess I've worked my way through hundreds of ideas. And I don't know if there's any set 'guidelines' to help a screenwriter know which ones to develop or write, and which ones to set aside. The older I get, the one thing that does become increasingly important is make sure that you resonate with the subject matter. What I mean by that is you feel emotionally enough connected to it that you believe you will have the will, energy, and drive to write the hell out of the story. If not, even if you finish the script, it's likely not to be a good reflection on your talent.

Like here's one I came up with the other day, reading a New Yorker article about revenge killings. I had the thought: what if someone in some third-world country lost their family -- killed -- due to what they believed was the actions of the U.S. government. And the surviving member vowed to get revenge. His target? The author of the foreign policy -- let's say the Secretary of State. So this person has to somehow find their way to the U.S., use his native skills to 'track' this government official, the official's family, and so on. Could be a nice taut action-thriller.

But apart from its merits, good or bad, in terms of the current Hwood marketplace, it didn't take me but a few minutes to realize, I just don't have it in me to write that story.

Re "lightning strikes": There's that saying, "Luck happens to those who prepare." I suppose a writer can't really say that there is a direct correlation between hard work and good ideas, and maybe for some writers, good ideas just flow like wine, but I do tend to think that you can, through discipline, get your mind into a 'place' where it thinks about ideas on a consistent basis. Still, there's no real explaining it, sometimes ideas just pop up. And a lot of the time, there's nothing but white noise generated by your brain.

Perhaps in 100 years, after scientists have had the opportunity to plumb the depths of what the brain is about, we will know how / where that spark of creative illumination comes from. But for now, it's a combination of work and luck. And perhaps a nice pinot grigio!

Got it. The secret to great writing is booze.

What did Mark Twain say? "Write drunk, edit sober."