Believe it or not, I feel this way all the time, then I read some of my work, published or not and am like, “wait a minute, that was pretty good”, but you know how it is when there is no paycheck (YET) to back it up? The ego takes a beating, and or when someone whose stuff you actually think sucks, gets a job you want? Yeah, that can do a number on the strongest of writers.
I try to always stay positive and just write because I love to write. Honestly I NEVER think about money when I am writing, yeah, fair enough I would never put in a dinner scene with 15 people and ironically the guests at the WGA panel last night were saying just that. I wouldn’t do it because I know it would get cut. I know about production, so in the case of thinking about money, I do only if I really don’t want something to get cut. I used to be an actress and so I know all about how long certain things are going to take. I also don’t put huge complicated FX scenes with explosives and crashes, action scenes are easy to write and can be added later after the budget is worked out.
I concentrate on characters and story, the rest will come. I fully believe that if you keep your eye on the prize instead of the bullseye, you will miss forever. That said, I want to just write!!!!
I write because I love to write and I hope that I am decent enough that people will want to read my work, and I do get great responses sometimes and I always get the most wanted reply in Hollywood, “What else you got?”, but every time I get a rejection letter, it is like a knife in my gut and I feel defeated. “What the hell am I doing?” Then I remember, it is just like acting and even animation, there are a million different reasons that I could be getting that letter and most likely none of them had anything to do with my actual writing.
The point of this, I guess I am just saying to suck it up, you don’t suck, I don’t suck and hey even if you do suck, bad films and TV shows get made all the time!!
Today I am on my way to meet the head writer on one of my fav soaps and my dream job. Will anything come out of it? Not sure, but I am hopeful today and then inspired to work on my novel.