LinkedIn Post: The Chain of Dominoes

Source: NSFW Podcast S1E130 — Julius Milanes (s1e130-episode-130-julius-milanes.txt; the "chain of dominoes" opening and the writer's-room discussion)

Topic: Momentum, accountability, and the people who show up for free

A few years ago a guy named Julius came on the podcast. I don't remember treating it as a big deal at the time. It was just another episode.

Since then I introduced him to Kennedy, the two of them ran a whole Power Rangers review show together, and now Julius has written a feature film. It took him about a year. He's casting it and shooting a trailer out of Albuquerque. He calls the whole thing a chain of dominoes. One conversation tips the next one, and none of us could have predicted any of it at the start.

The part of his process I keep thinking about isn't the film. It's the writer's room. Every week he'd meet with a friend named Chris, and later a friend named Sarah, and they'd read pages and tell him what didn't work. Nobody got paid. He said something about that I can't shake: if a person is taking time out of their day to hear out your project and they're not getting paid, that's cold, and you can't replace it.

But the arrangement did something else. Knowing Chris was showing up meant Julius had to have pages. Not ten. A couple of scenes. Just enough that it wasn't a waste of anybody's time.

Most of us wait to feel motivated. The people who actually finish things schedule a reason they can't show up empty-handed.

If you've got a project you keep not finishing, stop trying to muscle through it alone. Find one person who'll read it on a regular schedule and hand them the next piece whether you feel like it or not.

draft from corpus — based on NSFW Podcast S1E130