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This
week's answer:
Strugglers'
Alley
I’m not sure, Lori.
My first response was that maybe you haven’t
struggled enough.
Are you sure you’ve really given it your all?
Here’s a good “screenwriter struggle”
barometer: How
soon did you start worrying about what you’d find when
you got home? As
you came through the door?
On your drive or flight back?
On the beach as you were sipping tropical drinks?
In your hotel?
As you signed in?
On the drive or flight to your vacation
spot? On
the night (or day or days) before you took off for your
“vacation”?
It takes talent and ability to
struggle well, and many would-be strugglers can’t cut
the mustard. (I
never understood why anybody would want to do that.
Maybe ketchup because, as the commercials have
shown us, does come out pretty thick.
But mustard?) Most screenwriter strugglers are
amateurs and shouldn’t even be able to call themselves
"screenwriter strugglers."
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I
sense that you haven’t reached the pro leagues, Lori.
Did you worry yourself sick – literally – on
your vacation about the producer's response and have to
be admitted to a hospital?
I doubt that very much.
Did some men in white visit you and insist you
wear the latest fashion in jackets – a straight
jacket? Dare
I say no to that one, too?
When you’re a true professional
screenwriter struggler, then shoot me another e-mail.
When you’re a bona fide screenwriter struggler,
then we can talk. When,
because of a producer’s lack of response, you get so
mentally and emotionally wrapped up with yourself,
becoming your own personal straight jacket, strung so
tight that you could explode into tiny little brads,
then maybe, just maybe, you’ll recognize how such a
state isn’t all that productive.
So unproductive it be (what am I now, a
pirate?) that you actually get so tired of
struggling (also being aware that that straight jacket
gets tighter and tighter as you do) you consider the
idea of no longer doing it.
But be careful here.
Don’t make the mistake of struggling to not
struggle. That
could definitely put you in a white room with rubber
walls. Come
to think of it, that might not be so bad after all.
At least you wouldn’t keep hurting yourself.
DcH
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