One of my favorite biographies I’ve read so far is George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones.
There’s a tremendous amount of useful insights and life lessons (as well as high being a highly entertaining read).
For example.
As a young, fresh, recently graduated filmmaker, George Lucas had the golden opportunity to “protegé” under Francis Ford Coppola—famous for films such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now—who was eager to take Lucas under his wing.
The two seemed to connect excellently.
Sure, they had their fair share of drama across the years, but George Lucas wouldn’t be the same—and we probably wouldn’t have gotten the Star Wars that exists today—if it weren’t for the support and teachings of Coppola.
One of Coppola’s teachings, which had an immense influence on Lucas—he often stated he had to be chained to his desk to get any work of writing done at all, and that still wouldn’t be without blood, sweat, and tears, if that tells you anything—went as follows:
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“Don’t ever read what you’ve written. Try to get it done in a week or two, then go back and fix it… you just keep fixing it.”
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Now if that ain’t the truth.
And it’s the same for every type of writing. Whether it’s film scripts, novels, biographies, non-fiction business books, sales letters, email sequences, entire promotions, paid advertisements, and whatever else you can imagine.
It’s all the same.
You start writing it. You try to get it done as fast as possible—no re-reading allowed. And only once you’re done with the entire first draft do you go back to the beginning and start fixing the damn thing.
After all, it’s only after god-knows-how-many revisions that the project starts to resemble a finished product.
Just look at the early drafts of Star Wars.
Some of the scenes are hardly recognizable or non-existent to begin with.
Anyway.
I’ve learned a lot—and still do every time I pick it up again—from Jones’ biography George Lucas.
More.
I’d recommend everyone in business, especially in creative fields, to check out the book for themselves.
Simply the way George Lucas approached his projects, and why he made the decisions he did, is worth its weight in gold.
But enough rambling.
Check out the book here and see for yourself: https://alexvandromme.com/lucas