Legends of the Underwood #19: John Hughes

"Writing was, for Hughes, not so much a profession as a condition of life. The thoughts that germinated in his brain took a direct path to his hands, which filled notebooks, floppy disks, and hard drives with screenplays, stories, sketches, and jokes. When he wasn't writing creatively, he was writing about how much writing he was doing. A spiral-bound logbook from 1985 finds Hughes keeping track of his progress on Ferris Bueller. The basic story line, he notes, was developed on February 25. It was successfully pitched the following day. And then he was off: '2-26 Night only 10 pages... 2-27 26 pages... 2-28 19 pages... 3-1 9 pages... 3-2 20 pages... 3-3 24 pages.' Wham-bam, script done. All in one week."

--from David Kamp's "Sweet Bard of Youth," his piece on late director John Hughes in the current Vanity Fair (February 2010).

(Nineteenth in a series.)