The first step toward accomplishing any creative goal is always doable, and often simple. We assume that to make a movie we need to move to L.A., get an agent, attach a star, raise millions of dollars. But when we approach it this way, we are unlikely to begin at all. Each step seems impossible. We like living in Milwaukee. We don't want to leave our family and friend and go to L.A. where we don't know anyone. We don't know any agents, we don't have access to millions of dollars, and we don't have Meryl Streep's number. So we can't begin then, can we?

Of course we can. The first step is not dramatic. It is not out of our reach. If we have never made a movie, we can start by watching movies in the genre we are attracted to. We can take a filmmaking class at the local college. We can read books on the process. We can search out people in our community who have made movies before or who know someone who has. We can ask for advice. And a screenplay is written a page at a time, a word at a time, wherever we are.

A screenplay can be written on our porch in Milwaukee just as easily as--and possibly more easily than-- on a beach in L.A.

What could you begin, today, right where you are?