I’m intrigued by the scene in the movie, Finding Forrester, where novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner, William Forrester [Sean Connery], is mentoring 16 year old Jamal Wallace [Rob Brown]. Forrester says “Go ahead, write.” Clacking away at an old “Royal,” Forrester looks up and says to Jamal, who’s sitting directly across from him at a second typewriter, doing nothing and looking lost. “What are you doing?” Jamal answers, “I’m thinking.”
Forrester says, “No. Don’t think. Thinking comes later. You write the first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head.”
Another line has to do with Forrester who says, You know what the best moment is? When you’re alone with the freshly finished first draft—savoring that first read-through before the world reads it and tries to tell you what you really meant in your writing.
It has to be great to have a mentor who can help you by bringing out your best and by helping you to avoid the mistakes that he made.
Those scenes inspire me. I’m not sure why, but they connect with me at a level I’m not entirely in touch with. I couldn’t help but desire to write. Write from the heart. So I am, and do.
