Three things a good writer needs

It's writers group time again. The topic for tomorrow night's meeting is:

"What are three things you think a good screenwriter needs?"

A deliberately broad topic that allows people to take it as seriously or as lightly as they like. What I'm hoping is to get a wide spectrum of ideas by asking people not to repeat the previous ideas if possible. So if we get 10 people along to the meeting, we might even get 30 ideas.

I'll start it off with these three things that I think a good screenwriter needs:

1) Joy in what they're doing.

The first point I thought of was 'perseverance' (which was funnily enough the first response from someone else attending tomorrow's meeting).

Thinking about it further though, I revised this point to a writer's joy in the act of writing. I totally think a writer needs perseverance in order to stick out writing long enough to become a good writer. But I think enjoying what you're doing will help you stick with it and give you resilience for the bad times. And hey, if you're not enjoying something, you've got to really ask why you're doing it in the first place...

2) An audience

The audience doesn't need to be big, but I think every writer needs someone. Someone needs to read and appreciate your work. Sometimes I'm my only audience for a project, but even then, I'm acting the role of the audience!

3) A life

After all, what else is there to write about?

I've got quite a few other points, but I want to keep it to three for now. I'll be interested to hear what people bring up at the meeting, and I'll aim to post a list of them here on the blog.

How about you? What are your three points? No repeating!