Last week someone asked me, “If you knew you’d never sell a script, would you keep writing?”Would I?
Realistically, that is the truth for most of us. Odds are against an unknown selling a script to Hollywood.
So, would I?
What would be the point of continuing to write screenplays if I knew they would never come to anything except an expensive finger exercise?
What would be the point?
Since odds are that is the truth, why do I persist?
Hope.
Hope that in the odds, though they may be a million to one, in that one, there’s room for me.
One chance in a million.
I have always had the impression that hope was a fragile thing like soap bubbles or fine crystal, teetering precariously in a world of sharp edges and steep drops.
Today I think hope is cast iron. Hard and heavy. Ballast that keeps my dream stable over a long, rough haul.
So, would I continue to write scripts if I knew they’d never sell?
I don’t live in a hypothetical world where reality is writ in absolutes. I exist in the real world where weird stuff happens every day. Weirder than beating the odds.
And I have cast iron hope.
"Hope is cast iron." Love that.
ReplyDeleteThe notebook-making skill is impressive, and beautiful! I'll have to look for a class.
You never know (you can sell one or not) unless you try... and try... and try...
ReplyDeleteI'm new to screenwriting (having written my first spec over the past couple of years). For me, it's the thrill of the challenge -- to come up with compelling characters and a situation/conflict that rings unique (ORIGINAL). Plus it’s a lot of fun – a hobby for now.
I’ve entered my first script into three separate competitions this year – 1) Final Draft’s “Big Break”, 2) SCRIPTAPALOOZA, and 3) The Nicholl Fellowship. The second one actually announces on my birthday (I can’t help but dream about how nice a present that would be... if it were to happen for me).
I’ve always been a dreamer (as I suspect are most screenwriters). We are plagued with movies that continually run in our minds. Almost every week-or-so, a new idea for a script pops into my head. I simply can’t find enough time to rattle them out!
Se best of luck to you and I hope one of us sells a script. If not, I’ll still enjoy the process. And besides, if it doesn’t sell right away... who is there to say it won’t in five years... ten years...?
Best Regards,
~Devin
You call it hope.
ReplyDeleteI call it heroin.
Candace -- found my journal binding class at the local museum.
ReplyDeleteDevin -- good luck with your contests. The first stage of the Nicholl usually happens around my birthday -- I keep thinking that will mean something one of these days.
Pooks -- so -- we're risk addicted? Impossible dream addicted? Security averse? Deluded?
Cynthia, I just linked this post to a blog entry I just put up. It says my post was on Sunday instead of today for some reason. Anyway, thought you'd want to know.
ReplyDeleteCandace,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind words on your blog.
Sometimes this comment page works a little wonky. Don't know why.
Have you marked in that notebook yet?
:)
actually your odds are better, I think 200,000 screenplays get registered per year with the WGA? so see, things are looking up already. I am in competition with Devin in the Nicholl, 6,000 entries so we have 5 chances in 6000 to springboard our way to glory... good luck to all and just keep writing. I always make mental stop gap notes and say to myself 'just think, one day you'll be typing up a movie on your new laptop looking out at the Malibu skyline and thinking of where you were way back then'
ReplyDelete