Keep Going
September 22nd 2006 15:26
Some of you are lucky. You have love and support, a safe place from which to struggle with the muse, whether it’s your bedroom, your college dorm, your study or office. Some of us aren’t so lucky, and they’re the people I want to send a message to tonight.
I don’t necessarily mean you’re being abused or beaten. I’m talking to the ones who, when they announce, “I’m going to be a writer”, the reply is usually a small frown, a pause and then, “Yes… but what will you do next?” Or possibly, “Yes... but what do you really want to do?” Own up, there are a LOT of you who have heard those words, aren’t there? They, whoever they are, however well meaning they are, don’t get it. They think this is some kind of passing self expression thing, like writing angsty high school poetry that you rediscover in a box twenty years later, causing you to reel in horror when you reread it.
No, I’m talking real deal. The monkey on the back. The compulsion. The hours spent alone building up a story and cutting it down again, pouring out ideas and notes and chapters and episodes again and again. Further novturnal adventures fiddling with your, er, pen. That’s how bad it can get.
I just want to say something simple to you: keep going. It’ll be hard, the road will be uneven, there will be obstacles. And probably the hardest person to get around, the most obstinate, the one who will create the most obstacles, is the one you see in the mirror every day. Acknowledge it and move on.
I’d like to close with a slightly more eloquent piece of advice from the introduction to a book that comes with a high recommendation, J Michael Straczynski’s ‘Complete Book of Scriptwriting':
“But everyone knows that people like us don’t make it in Hollywood. Your parents, your friends, your teachers, meaning only the best for you, hoping to save you from disappointment and pain, will offer that piece of advice, over and over until you either accept it or go mad. Sitting in a restaurant counter in Cincinnati, standing in a bus chugging down El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego, you, the person reading this book, glance around. The people around you will take one look at the book in your hands and shake their heads. What a dreamer. No offence, but folks like you just aren’t the type to make it in Hollywood, to see your name on the screen or the television tube in front of millions of viewers. Please. Get real. It doesn’t happen that way. Everybody knows that.
“Except… except for one little truth… the one singular and important truth you must keep close to your secret heart, the truth I learned, the truth I hope to pass on to you.
“Here it is. Ready?
“Everybody is wrong.
“Keep writing. Keep fighting. Keep dreaming. Because sometimes, every once in a while, the dream really does come true.
“Even for folks like us.”
I don’t necessarily mean you’re being abused or beaten. I’m talking to the ones who, when they announce, “I’m going to be a writer”, the reply is usually a small frown, a pause and then, “Yes… but what will you do next?” Or possibly, “Yes... but what do you really want to do?” Own up, there are a LOT of you who have heard those words, aren’t there? They, whoever they are, however well meaning they are, don’t get it. They think this is some kind of passing self expression thing, like writing angsty high school poetry that you rediscover in a box twenty years later, causing you to reel in horror when you reread it.
No, I’m talking real deal. The monkey on the back. The compulsion. The hours spent alone building up a story and cutting it down again, pouring out ideas and notes and chapters and episodes again and again. Further novturnal adventures fiddling with your, er, pen. That’s how bad it can get.
I just want to say something simple to you: keep going. It’ll be hard, the road will be uneven, there will be obstacles. And probably the hardest person to get around, the most obstinate, the one who will create the most obstacles, is the one you see in the mirror every day. Acknowledge it and move on.
I’d like to close with a slightly more eloquent piece of advice from the introduction to a book that comes with a high recommendation, J Michael Straczynski’s ‘Complete Book of Scriptwriting':
“But everyone knows that people like us don’t make it in Hollywood. Your parents, your friends, your teachers, meaning only the best for you, hoping to save you from disappointment and pain, will offer that piece of advice, over and over until you either accept it or go mad. Sitting in a restaurant counter in Cincinnati, standing in a bus chugging down El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego, you, the person reading this book, glance around. The people around you will take one look at the book in your hands and shake their heads. What a dreamer. No offence, but folks like you just aren’t the type to make it in Hollywood, to see your name on the screen or the television tube in front of millions of viewers. Please. Get real. It doesn’t happen that way. Everybody knows that.
“Except… except for one little truth… the one singular and important truth you must keep close to your secret heart, the truth I learned, the truth I hope to pass on to you.
“Here it is. Ready?
“Everybody is wrong.
“Keep writing. Keep fighting. Keep dreaming. Because sometimes, every once in a while, the dream really does come true.
“Even for folks like us.”
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