Posts Tagged With: planning

“Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.”
― Virginia Woolf

Today was tough.  I had an interview with a perfectly nice company for a copywriter job.  I was fairly excited about the prospect, mostly of making some money after being off the regular job market for three years, but on the way home I was depressed.  Majorly, pathetically, depressed.  I worried that I was going to stick myself into another job I didn’t really want and all chance of writing creatively for a living would go flying out the high-rise window.  I also worried about not seeing my kids all day long as I had had the luxury of doing ever since the first one was born.  It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I felt that pressure in my chest I get whenever I realize that I haven’t written in over a week and that dreams aren’t built on twenty minutes twice a month.

Then I made dinner and forgot about it.

But as I sat down to watch “Face Off” on the Syfy channel after the kids were asleep, as I normally do at the end of the day, my laptop decided to challenge me to a highly judgmental staring contest.  I decided to work on a project I had been meaning to find the time for all week, then instead I did this.

Starting out in screenwriting is like this.  One minute you have three offer for options, and the next minute they’ve all disappeared.  One minute you’re telling all your friends your script is in development, then two years later they ask what happened, and you have to shrug, mumble “development hell,” and pretend you’re okay with it.  One minute you’re flying high, the next you have to start from scratch.

Now I know most of you are getting worried right about now, because on the face of it, I might seem marginally successful.  But to put it in perspective, one of my friends who has sold two scripts to major studios was only recently able to quit his day job and that was only because he was able to get two more work-for-hire jobs.  And he would be the first to admit he might need to go back to answering telephones if his phone doesn’t continue to ring.

That didn’t make you feel better, did it?  Never fear, perseverance is the name of this game.  You (and I) might have to take that random office job while waiting for your first six-figure sale, but at least we’ll be in good company.