Stallone's Blacked-Out Writing

A story about how Sylvester Stallone wrote the first draft of Rocky in just 3 days by creating extreme focus conditions.

"Stallone wanted to be an actor but couldn't get cast anywhere. Nobody wanted to cast him - he didn't look the part, his mouth moved funny because of a problem at birth. He wasn't the classic Hollywood face. He didn't give up and decided to take matters into his own hands. He said 'If I can't get cast in a movie, I will make a movie and give myself the role.'

The problem was he hated writing. But he decided to sprint through it and brute force his way to finishing it. He wrote the first draft of Rocky in 3 days.

His daughter asked him, 'Did you really paint your windows black to focus?' He said 'Yeah, I painted them black because I didn't want to know what time it was. It didn't matter what time it was - it was time to write. Otherwise I would tell myself 'oh it's time for breakfast' and immediately derail myself.

I wanted to eliminate all possible excuses and distractions because I knew how hard it was for me to write. I was begging when I was writing 'please someone just call the phone, just please get me to do anything else besides this.' But instead I unplugged the phone so nobody could call. I painted the windows 100% black, no phone. That was my approach.'"