James Cameron was convinced he had found his Terminator when he met Arnold Schwarzenegger. Unfortunately, the latter was not available for nine months, because he was already committed to the sequel to Conan the Barbarian: Conan the Destroyer . We would have to wait…
With the filming of Terminator being postponed, and not having enough time to squeeze another film in the meantime, Cameron decided to take advantage of his forced unemployment to write two films: Aliens (a personal project) and Rambo II (a order). In addition to this, he wanted to rewrite several parts of Terminator , which he was not fully satisfied with.
To achieve the feat of completing the three scenarios in 9 months, Cameron followed draconian discipline and an original method.
To begin, he divided the number of pages to be written by the number of work hours available. He thus had a daily objective to achieve in order to be on target. And he had to stick to it.
Then, he changed his pace of life, choosing to write at night, so as not to be disturbed.
Finally, he set up three different workstations in his home, with three different desks. This allowed him to differentiate projects and move more quickly from one subject to another each time he changed offices.
The method worked, since he managed to come up with two original scenarios and correct one in the space of 9 months.