That screenwriting seminar I took today from the UCLA professor was fantastic! It was definitely worth every penny. The guy is a tenured professor and has taught at UCLA for over 25 years. He knows George Lucas and helped write "American Graffiti". The Wall Street Journal calls him one of Hollywood's powerbrokers in the world of screenwriting. The works of his students include recent movies like Spiderman, Panic Room, The Road to Perdition, Repo Man, Real Women Have Curves and Highlander.

I loved the guy. He is so spiritual. In fact, he's the most spiritual writing teacher I've ever come across, which is so shocking and ironic since Hollywood is considered by some one of the most unspiritual industries on earth. Here's some things that he said, and I'm using my own words.

Don't afraid to put God in your work. I recently discovered God myself in the last few years. Why should God only belong to the right wing conservatives?

I was in Washington DC and heard Martin Luther King Jr. give his famous "I have a dream speech."

A movie is a romanticization and idealization of the human experience.

Writers get paid to daydream, and the writer's job is to get the daydream into the head of your reader/audience.

The beautiful thing about being a writer is you can be anybody. (He didn't spout the political correctness drivel that you can only write personal experiences that you've had, like if you're white you can't write about the african american experience, or if you're a woman you can't write about the male experience.)

Art is the lie that tells the bigger truth. Writers get in trouble when they try to be too truthful to the data. Play fast and loose with the experience. Lie about the data, but be completely truthful about the feeling. (This is why you don't have to always base your writing on personal experience. Writing fiction like a screenplay is a lie. The "real" truth only applies if you're writing a documentary."

Art is about reaching as many people as possible. Film is a populist art. The great works like the Greek dramas and Shakespeare were all popular in their day in the lifetime of the writer, and were commercially successful. A successful screenwriter reaches as many people as possible. Your script has to raise enough money to support the enterprise. (He debunked the whole myth of art having to be obscure and commercially unsuccessful to be good.)

Kramer vs Kramer is about how commitment to love can make your career soar. Love and commitment is not a trap, lt will not limit you; it will expand you.

To be a successful writer, you need a litte bit of talent, a lot of discipline and a ton of courage.

I loved it when he said "Don't be afraid to put God in your work." Wow, what he said is so refreshing. My screenwriting teacher in SF told me my screenplay is my take on the Prodigal son story from the bible. She even reads the book of Proverbs to get story ideas.

But in a recent screenwriting group meeting, someone said that a film was "too christian" for them, and said it was such disdain and disgust. That person totally freaked me out. I started to get discouraged about the way I write, because I can't help be influenced by my christian upbringing and christian beliefs. I was afraid to be part of that group, and have my screenplay critiqued by that person. I let her remark make me feel ashamed of my work, which I know is bad and wrong, but that's what happened.

And now here comes this guy, who is intimately connected with the Hollywood film industry, saying that "it's okay to put God in your work." That person from the screenwriting group has never sold a script to Hollywood, but did write and produce a self financed independent film. This guy from UCLA has influenced Hollywood screenwriters with successful films for over 25 years, and has helped write successful commercial films himself. I think I believe the UCLA guy more than I believe the person from my screenwriting group. The UCLA professor totally validated me and my way of writing, and that validation was so worth the money I paid for the seminar and them some. In fact, what he said was "priceless" to me.