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And, jealousy rears its ugly head...
No, it's not a new rant on reality shows. Although I saw The Swan, I actually found it to be touching. I also found it to be lacking in the real heavy-duty reality part of the show - the reality of the aftermath regarding the plain husband whose wife left a 3 and came back an 8 and is now clearly much too good for him. These women must need a lot of counseling to adjust to this "new me" they've become.
So, what happens in Hollywood when you hit it big? Do you forget all your old "friends" or do you take them with you? Is your friend who drives a forklift going to fit in at those expensive dinner meetings with the agents, studio execs and high-priced actors you're going to be forced to deal with on a regular basis? Where's his counseling? If your best friend goes from Ralph Kramden to Stephen King, isn't your life going to change, too? It's no different than being the guy whose wife leaves the trailer park looking like a young Danny Bonaduce and comes back looking like a young Sally Struthers.
The better question is, what do you do when you're trying to make the same transformation in life, and it happens to someone close to you... but not to you?
I've seen this happen a few times, but always to someone who was sort of already on their way there. When I used to set up at comic book conventions, there were these two guys at one regular con who, even among the oddballs of fandom, stood out as exceptionally odd. What attracted everyone to them was, first of all, the mere fact that they had put out their own comic book. This was unheard of in the days when superheroes were Marvel and DC and that was it. But, here they were, unable to sell their idea to one of the two powerhouses, so they published it themselves. And, every three months, they would come to this convention at the Elks Lodge in West Haven, CT and suffer through stupid questions and sideways snickering while they sold an occasional copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I've heard that their hard work might be paying off soon.
About a month ago, I popped in on an old friend at work. I normally hold the work environment as sacred, but this is the kind of place where you can pop in. I hadn't seen him in a while, and since I'm terrible about returning phone calls and keeping in touch, I decided that there was no excuse at that particular moment for not stopping by. We all make excuses like "there's no time", but the longer we put stuff like this off, the longer the next interaction with that person is going to be... so we tend to put it off even longer. Enough was enough.
Yes, I've been at this a long time, but this friend has been at it even longer. He went to the High School of the Performing Arts in New York (yes, the Fame school), and he came out to L.A. to become one of the many unappreciated performers who never found his niche. He decided to start writing for himself, and after several years, he had a chance encounter with a more notable writer. That writer has taken an interest in his project, they've traded off on several re-writes, and now a producer is championing the script and trying to get some studio interest. It's a struggling writer's dream, and it's coming true for him.
But, what about me?
I've known two other people who became big stars, but it's not like I was around from the beginning. They were already "in the field" and I was just close enough to know their names before everyone else did. This guy, however, is someone I've known since before he decided to start writing. While I'm happy for him, I can't help but think one thing:
What am I doing wrong?
I'm not the jealous type. I can be genuinely happy for someone's success if I know it came as a result of hard work. Granted, he had a stroke of "luck" when he met this writer, but is it really luck if you're working hard and the things you're doing just happen to put you in touch with the right people? Sounds like a reward for hard work to me. It sounds like he was doing the right thing and it paid off.
So, here it is - the standard speech about "getting out there". Dr. Seuss once said that writing was a process in which you learned about yourself while sitting alone in a room. As we all know, however, Dr. Seuss is a lunatic (you've read his books), and it's not surprising that those oddities come out of the brain of someone sitting alone in a room. If you already have a writing career, you can sit in your room and write... or sit on the roof and write... or sit in the bathroom and write. If you're trying to start a career, the writing of the script is only half the work.
If someone you know has something good happen to them - and you actually LIKE that person - just be happy for him. If it has to be about you, then you be inspired by him. Get your ass in gear and put in the time and work it takes to make things happen.
People say they're looking for good scripts, but we've been to the movies - they're not looking that hard. With that in mind, you should be able to figure out that no one's looking for your script so determinedly that they're going door-to-door asking for screenplays. That's way too much work.
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