The Power of Yes

THIS WEEK IN PURSUIT OF A HOLLYWOOD CAREER

As an emerging writer in Hollywood, I was of course following the news of the pending writer’s strike like everyone else in town. Although I must admit I was kind of disinterested because I’m not even in the writer’s guild and I wasn’t sure if a strike would have been a good thing or a bad thing for me, an aspiring writer. Could I have been hired on some non-union job? Would Hollywood have been clamoring for fresh new writer’s because they couldn’t use the people in the guild? If there had been a strike and I was able to get a non-union gig would it have come back to bite me in the ass when I may have been eligible to become a guild member? We’ll never know the answers to these questions, fortunately there seems to have been an agreement between the writers and producers. And even though this is truly a wonderful event, it really doesn’t pertain to me, the writer on the fringe of the Hollywood skirt. 

Although I have had a few yes’s lately from people agreeing to read various scripts, I can’t help but wonder if I’ll always be the fringe or will my dream come true of becoming part of the fabric of Hollywood. I torture myself by reading in the Hollywood Reporter about all the ‘low to mid six figure’ deals that writers are getting. Are their ideas any better than mine? How did they get meetings to pitch to the studios? Even my agent faces the same discrimination I faced before I was lucky enough to sign with an agent, even if nobody’s heard of him. 

Everyone wants to know what star is attached to the project, where’s the money, where’s it set up. It’s amazing that any movies get made at all, really. There seems to be this continuous loop of rejection until hopefully your script sparks something in someone who has the power to say yes and possibly change your life forever. I guess that’s why I keep trying. I’m addicted to hope and hearing yes sets off the craving for the need to believe that one day, a powerful executive drinking a strong cappuccino will read my script and something in my story will align with their sensibilities and I’ll hear the all mighty and powerful, yes.

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