THERE’S NO BOOK IF YOU CAN’T GET TO THE LAST LINE

Ben Tanzer reflects on the mortality of first drafts

Is there truly never enough time? This question certainly applies to the things one may want to create, and then life in general, but how does it apply to a book once completed, masterpiece or not?

In an interview with Deadline, Martin Scorsese told the story of Akira Kurosawa receiving his lifetime achievement Oscar. “[Kurosawa] said, ‘I’m only now beginning to see the possibility of what cinema could be, and it’s too late.’ He was 83. At the time, I said, ‘What does he mean?’ Now I know what he means… I’m old. I read stuff. I see things. I want to tell stories, and there’s no more time.”

My book After Hours: Scorsese, Grief and the Grammar of Cinema is now out in the world, and out of my hands, left to the reader to decide what it’s worth to them. I saw Scorsese’s 1985 film After Hours as offering me a chance to write about two things I tend to obsess over—grief and the act of becoming a creative person. A mix of criticism and memoir, the book is about how this movie helped me to make sense of the death of my father.

Let’s pause to note here that for those who haven’t watched After Hours—and if you haven’t, what have you been doing with your life—it’s a movie about Paul Hackett, played by Griffin Dunne, who feels trapped by his 9-to-5 office job. He chases a woman late one night to SoHo, believes himself trapped there as well and spends a manic, claustrophobic, and dread-ridden night trying to escape the neighborhood and arguably—in his mind anyway—stay alive, all of which unfolds in what feels like (near) real time.

Lately I’ve wondered if Paul Hackett truly does all he can to escape the neighborhood. He does not, but let’s un-pause to note, I’ve done what I could do, and I released the book.

Have I released myself?

Not from the desires that led to its creation, but from the hold my vision for the book had on me and my need to craft the content to meet that vision?

Yes, for sure, mostly, yes.

Before one gets to this place, one has write the first draft, and not just write it, but finish it, get to the last line, there’s no book if you can’t get to the last line—and it’s not a judgement if you can’t get there, and not intended to be ableist either, which I would hate. It’s just that the first draft must happen if anything is going to happen.

Which is why I believe I’m here today—at one point, I completed the first draft of this book, and now my understanding is I might have something to say about that.

And I do.

Wherever this ends up I want you to know the intention is to somehow channel something livewire onto the page for you, written (mostly) without edits, hoping to create some sense of real time energy.

Which was my intent with After Hours: Scorsese, Grief and the Grammar of Cinema. It seems too easy to say that every piece of work begins with a first draft, which also means we all have stories about our first drafts, and if we’re lucky enough to publish more than one book, we’ve probably found a certain rhythm that works for us and we tend to return to time and time again.

We seek consistency, a practice, a method and flow that allows us to both start and finish—both of which can involve its own challenges and the endless ways we can become stuck, unable to find our voice, the correct pace, problems with plot or characters, when all we really want to do is get to the last sentence. We really have to do that or we don’t get to finish the book, much less the first draft.

Some of us might even have rituals or needs around what time of day to write or where, the music we listen to, or what we need to have available to eat or drink. Maybe we use word counts. Or have outlines—outlines! I’ve heard those are wonderful.

I don’t do much or really any of that.

I do commit to writing thirty minutes a day, never less, sometimes more, but as for time of day, location, music, anything to do with setting, I don’t allow myself to focus on those things, and I never have, though I’m very committed to getting to the last sentence.

I’m also committed to writing my first drafts in longhand, usually in a composition notebook, and I don’t edit until I’ve written the first draft in its entirety. I barely even edit while I’m typing up the handwritten draft.

I do print that draft however, and that I edit by hand.

I heard the author Lauren Groff say she places her first drafts in a box that she never looks at again. She just begins writing the draft again from scratch, believing that whatever she leaves out doesn’t belong in the manuscript.

Wow.

I’m not sure I’m emotionally stable enough to do that. I am envious though, mostly because it sounds cool and because she’s a rock star. Who doesn’t want to be a rock star, or at least cool?

I also spend as much time as I need to brainstorm all the ideas and themes, I want to potentially include in whatever I plan to write about, and I rarely start writing until that gathering of ideas feels complete. Do I have a formula for when that list feels complete?

I do not, it’s a feeling.

With this book I also compiled a number of potential ideas that seemed like they might or should go in the book, which is to say anything I could think of that had to do with my father’s death; my parents’ love of the movies and the movies that mean something to me; New York City; Patti Smith; creativity; feeling trapped; journaling; Kafka. The Basketball Diaries, which I’ll return to.

There is one key difference though between the first draft for this book and other books I’ve written.

I decided to write the first draft in real time, journal style, daily, channeling the energy and vibe of The Basketball Diaries (not to mention the frenetic energy of After Hours itself), and trying to capture whatever I was thinking or feeling when I sat down to write that day, the ideas from my brainstorm, any associations, lists, and emotions, anything that got stuck in my brain, the movies I watched, the podcasts and interviews I listened to or encountered, the books I was reading, the music that popped-up on in my Apple music library, as long as they spoke to film, Scorsese, grief, memoir, creativity, fathers, and on and on, no editing, or tightening until the end.

Then I was done with my first draft.

There was enough time to do that.

To sit, be present, write what I felt needed to be written.

Now that book is out in the world. In After Hours I wrote:

To create.
To escape.
To live a creative life, we must live long enough to accomplish these things.
Scorsese is 80.
Kafka was 41 when he died.
My father was 59.
I’m 54 at the time of this writing.
How many masterpieces does one have to create?
The answer is there’s never enough time.

Will there be enough time to work on everything else, all the other books I want to write, even those I can’t conceive of yet?

Probably not, which will ultimately be fine, though I hope I get enough time to try.

Emmy-award winner Ben Tanzer's acclaimed work includes the short story collection UPSTATE, the science fiction novel Orphans and the essay collections Lost in Space and Be Cool. His recent novel The Missing was released in March 2024 by 7.13 Books and was a Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year finalist in the category of Traditional Fiction and his new book After Hours: Scorsese, Grief and the Grammar of Cinema, which Kirkus Reviews calls "A heartfelt if overstuffed tribute to the author’s father and the ameliorative power of art," was released from Ig Publishing in May 2025. Ben lives in Chicago with his family.