Quentin Tarantino on choosing which project to focus on:
“Before I settle in on what I’m gonna do, I’m contemplating a lot of different things.
Oh, there’s that book that I’ve always wanted to turn into a movie, maybe I start reading that again and go over my old notes.
I explore some different ideas and see what stage of the incubator they are at any given time – especially when I’m looking for inspiration.
I’m always working on some film book project to some degree or another that moves along by a couple of inches between each movie.
That usually breeds what I’m going to do next.
I love that type of writing and I like the research that goes into that type of writing.
It brings me a lot of joy, but it’s not as easy for me as screenplay story writing is – it’s much more difficult.
So I’m working harder at it and at some point I’ve invested a lot in it and it’s hard.
And I go, ‘What am I doing? This is so difficult. Nobody is waiting for this. This is just for me and I’m working so hard.’
And then I start trying to write a script or a story and by comparison it’s SO easy.
It’s so easy that I’m off and running from that point on.
I flirt – it’s kind of a metaphor for falling in love – you date a lot of people and you flirt with a lot of people and everything’s going great…
But then you meet the right one.
Once I realize that this has grabbed me and this is genuinely legit and now maybe I’m thinking about music choices for it, and web spinning about it, and maybe it gets me to actually start writing a little bit.
Pretty shortly into that process, I’ll probably end up writing something that’s like…ok, I’m doing this now.
Usually because I think whatever I’ve written is so good that it deserves to be explored.”
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