After copious discouraging words in many different blogs, articles and interviews today, I finally came across the site I should have spent all my time in. It's not a new site to me, but I find the navigation on this site a bit confusing for my linear mind. Anyway, I persevered, and came across this article written by a humble, good humored and very successful screenwriter. I pinky swear, it's true. He's all these things.
http://www.wordplayer.com/pros/pr04a.Petrie.Dan.Jr.html
He's my new hero. Dan Petrie, Jr. Along with Terry Rossio and John August.
Writers who are gracious. Who suggest and encourage, but in no way dictate or assume. I think there are two kinds of successful writers. The kind that enjoy the elitism of success and try to make it as hard for others to join in the fun as possible. And the kind that feel like the more the merrier, come on to the party. Sort of like high school.
My point is, that there will always be the people who are not particularly inspirational (a big shocker to me was Aaron Sorkin... NOT inspirational) and the ones who are. Just like there will always be advice you take, and the rest you bin. Some people eat raw fish for God's sake. And say I'm crazy when I dunk a fry into some ice cream. The trick is to try it all, read it all, listen and learn, and then figure out what's going stick to your ribs and go with that. There's as many different ways to sell a script as there are people who've done it.
The main thing is to keep writing, and keep the faith.
Since I've started this blog, I've learned a ton about writing. About pitching, notes, persistence and humility. Humor is mandatory to survive in this crazy ass business. And the belief that no matter what, this is what I am meant to be doing. This is my path of trying to get a "written by" screen credit.
There's so much negativity in the online world of screenwriting, people want to discourage you before you can have a chance to get anywhere, out of their own insecurities no doubt. Best just to ignore it all.
ReplyDeleteJulian W
Julian, you're soooo right! But just for grins, I had to share the latest discouragement I stumbled across in an article from a semi-successful screenwriter (thus the bitter tone)...
ReplyDelete"If you're writing to get rich, forget it, you can't. (Okay, some can, but it won't be you.)"
Imagine! I guess the only thing to do is laugh and prove the bastard wrong. Or better yet, as you said... ignore it.