Johnny Cash Motivates By Sam Phillips

In the bio-pic "Walk the Line", we see young Johnny Cash singing a gospel song to record producer Sam Philips. Sam stops him and says:

"I don't believe what you're singing. But if you were hit by a truck and were lying out there in the gutter dying and you had time to sing one song. One song people would remember before you're were dirt. One song that would let people know about how you felt about your time on earth. One song that would sum you up. Something real. Something you felt. What would that one song be?"

Johnny thinks, then starts singing a song he wrote, "Folsom Prison Blues".

I hear lots of writers and directors saying, "I got this one idea, and than there's another idea, and I might do this other idea......." I always reply, "Do your last book. Your last movie. Your one ultimate story."

If you can't raise the money yet, to make it into a movie, do it as a book. It just takes a PC and time. And if you want to make it a little more special, do it as an Audio-Book. It's just takes an extra thousand dollars, cheaper than a week vacation.

You can even get a professional sound mix on your PC with recording software. And if you want to make it more special, hire a famous actor to read it. That'll take a few more grand and you must record in a studio.

And then the next time you are at a party and introduce yourself as a writer or director or producer and they say, "What have you done?" You can pull your book, CD, or DVD out of your bag and give it to them. You can tell them to find it on Amazon (they'll take anything with a ISBN number and a bar code).

And that will be the one ultimate thing that will "sum you up". And I'll guarantee you, vacations are great, but there is no greater creative satisfaction than "summing yourself up", in a book and being able to give it to friends, or bought by people you don't even know.

"I hear the train a coming. It's rolling round the bend......."