Always a bridesmaid....
Do I dare?
Everytime I think I'm out - they pull me back in....
If you read books on writing - and I do - every one I can get my hands on - they usually say something along the lines of - "the best thing to do when you finish one project is to move on to the next one" - and that way you don't have to sit there dealing with the stress and anxiety of the one you just finished.
Ron Bass - a scriptwriting machine - usually works on a couple scripts at a time. He writes 14 hours a day - the first seven hours on the one he is typing - and the next seven preping his next script. So that the day he finishes the one he is doing - he just goes straight into the next one...
I have a couple problems with that.... the main one being... discipline....
Beyond that - I suffer from a different curse. I got so insanely lucky that people actually went a little nuts over my first script. Now granted - between you and me - I am not that great of a writer. You probably already knew that if you have come here more than once. So having to follow up on that can be intimidating because people might find out the truth... not to mention the fact that I never really wanted to be a writer in the first place...
And I was incredibly naive as to the Hollywood machine. So, as stated before, we are waiting and waiting...So recently, I have tried to be good. I have finished another script. And now - I am close to broke. So I begin the process of looking for another job.
But each time a great post comes up for a producer position or a director position or even a writer position - I get a call or an email telling me we might go.
Now you would think that after the 10th time this happened, I would know better... but dammit if I am not a sucker for thinking that this is the time... I am like a dog that still goes wagging and panting to the guy that beats the crap out of him.
I told a friend - all I need is a half melted ice cube in a ocean of despair - and I'm smiling like a jack-in-the-box...
So we might be on again. Or not...
You guessed it...
"we should know something this week..."
posted by greg at 7:19 AM
2 Comments:
Ah, "knowing something." It's like a line in an annoying song from the 80s that somehow still has the power to make you sing along.
10:32 AM
Hang in there. The bad news is, it doesn't get any better. It will always be this frustrating well into a successful career. The upside is, you'll drive a nicer car. This said to me by an academy award winning writer. Oddly, I found it honest and somewhat freeing. If you can stand it, it's an extremely dramatic and exciting ride, filled with unbearable disappointment and min numbing elation. Often in the same day. How's that for a pitch? (Like the day I was told that New Line was going to greenlight a script of mine, and then told on almost the same day actually they weren't, there's a film just like it already in pre-production so it's been scrapped. I hadn't even landed from my first jump of happiness). HOLLYWOOD! Don't take it too seriously and you have a better chance of no-stroke. Email me directly what has happened to you, by the way.
3:03 AM
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