“I think the most valuable resource for writing is confidence, since everything from the vagaries of publishing to writing itself can wear you down. When you are writing, you are so in your own head that it can be hard to know if the work is brilliant or a failure, but you have to put aside those doubts. One of my secrets to maintaining confidence is a yearly viewing of Tim Burton’s 1994 biopic Ed Wood. As a director in the 1950s, Ed Wood was the ultimate outsider. He made movies with zero budgets that were deeply personal, strange, and completely ignored. But his films last, even beyond camp value, because his lunatic bravery comes through every badly framed scene. Ed Wood is my Rocky and damn if the scene where Johnny Depp takes control of a film set while wearing an angora sweater isn’t more stirring than Sylvester Stallone running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Deluding yourself is part of finishing a novel and if ever you have doubt, remember Ed Wood at the premiere of Plan 9 from Outer Space: ‘This is the one. This is the one I’ll be remembered for.’”
—Emily Schultz, author of The Blondes (Thomas Dunne Books, 2015)
Photo credit: Brian Joseph Davis