Be prepared

I will always encourage you to have a few stories ready to go—especially if you're writing screenplays.

You never know when someone is going to come looking.

There have been multiple times through the years when producers show up and ask for scripts. If you don't have them, how can you pitch them?

But there's one more benefit: if you spend the time always writing, you're honing your storytelling craft.

Each script, novel, short story, or whatever else you're working on is an opportunity to practice and improve. And the more you do, the easier it gets to show up on the page at a moment's notice and craft something special.