let's start with the brutal truth...
And if you still want to use a pen for something besides poking your eyes out, you're ready to battle the blank page.
Okay, so you want to be a writer.
First of all, take away the want. You either are — or not. Writers write. So, if you want to know if you are a writer or not? Let me help. Have you written today? If so, then, by definition, you are a writer. 1
Everything that might define your writing practice besides this simple formula, both positive or negative, is a front and a lie. Do not believe it.
It is a lie because it is determined by what is perceived as external success which must be distinguished from personal accomplishment or you’re f'ucked. The work that goes into achieving those accomplishments is often thankless, not very sexy, certainly not linear, and most assuredly — unpaid.
Along the way, it is crucial to never let a lack of external success blind you from celebrating your many personal accomplishments.
Success is out of our control, but accomplishments are always within reach because they are within our hool-i-hoop of influence. If we tend to that area fully and not allow ourselves to be distracted by bells and whistles, our right efforts can lead to what is mistaken as success; but there is no guarantee it ever will, even if yours or my accomplishments are many. And to continue itself is the ultimate success.
I learned this language of discernment from a mentor2 who had endured his own period of exile. At the time, I couldn’t imagine how long my own journey would take through the unknown wilderness all creatives must enter (at their own peril) if they are to cut their teeth and have something to say. What I learned along the way was that it always takes a day longer than you can possibly stomach it. And when you get “there” it is never what you thought it would be …
Yes, the horror stories of Hollywood, publishing, and American theater are well documented and I don’t need to add my own slings and arrows from a vast stockpile of experiences with the incompetent, criminally insane, or both. Instead, I would rather zero in on the worst pain you will ever feel first as a way to gauge how serious you are.
The thing about writing is that, by nature, it wants to be shared, published, recorded, and experienced by another. It needs a platform. To get any good at it takes time and time is money, so unless you come from piles of it - it is nice to be compensated. Since traditional revenue streams have either vanished or consolidated, if you have ambitions to write as a career, you have to either become a creative entrepreneur or get really good at waiting.
(me on closing day of the world premiere production of BROTHERS PLAY after receiving this incredible gift from Rob Nagle)
The wait.
Let Peter O’Toole define how to endure agony as he does at the start of Lawrence of Arabia when asked if holding a flame to his forearm hurts: “Well of course it hurts! The secret is to not mind that it hurts.”
Writing is the easy part; even if it often feels impossible. (More on that to come in just about every other incantation of this thing.)
What is most exhausting is chasing down someone to add their weight to help you stand out from the endless static so you can find funding, followers, a good editor you can afford, or simply consideration. In short, if you still don’t have endless capital, you need a made guy, to use a mafia term, to put their reputation on the line and vouch for you, and then, like that, you are — an overnight success. (If you are prepared and got a story to tell, but again, more on that later).
Lets not kid ourselves. The mafia runs every aspect of this business. I don’t care if you are a poet or a screenwriter. If your stories are read on a Wednesday night open mike at a Lion’s Club after the fish fry, or Jesus Christ himself is chanting your conceptual tone poem Sundays at the Lincoln Center.
We are all still in the lunch room and there are the cool kids, and if you’re reading this, chances are you are not one of them.
If you have ambition to stand out at any marketplace, know - before you begin - that marketplace is under the domain of some kind of mafia that occupies (at the minimum) four-fifths of the available slots in institutional programing. Their unspoken loyalty membership clause to one another leaves about one open slot a season for outsiders to compete for.
That competition often takes the form a creative royal-rumble, pay-to-play gladiatorial scam. And thousands, like myself, line up to pony up the entry fee.
It is mafia extortion 101.
Now, that mafia can either be the Yale grad school peeps who are the only “true playwrights” in this country allowed to make a living, or they can be the second cousins twice removed of Francis Coppola who get four of five slots at a coveted incubator program. But wherever there is an open platform - you know the mafia will be there to claim it.
Unfortunately, access is not determined by merit.
The fast tracks will always go to mobsters hailing from Iowa Writers Workshop, or who play basketball at the Hollywood YMCA, etc etc.
It is these mafia goons who call the shots at festivals, for fellowships, grants, and who get the gigs inside TV writing rooms. Getting access is based on favors and leverage and likeability and often, not talent. I know this comes as no surprise to many of you, but it needs to be stated.
There used to be a saying: you need to be born into it, a hundred thousand dollars, or ten years. The length of that orbit and time lock at every gate closed to entry is based on the choke points created by mafia control.
Even if we now have inclusion riders and content advisories, it is still a turf war based on fragile alliances and well-defined historical territories between these mafia families as they battle for creative survival, asses in seats, or click bait.
In between the fiefdoms the various mafias control, there is a vast wasteland / wilderness filled with bottom-feeders and pirates who broker between the families (you know, do their landscaping, teach them yoga, or balance their books). Everyone else who cannot be categorized are simply — targets.
So what are you?
The trick.
If you are fortunate enough to somehow have a relative with influence, you can skip this next part, but for those of you, like me, who have to let their work stand out, you need ONE PERSON with access to say:
“Hey, this dude is good. Give them a shot.”
And let me tell you… those people are busy.
I mean, busy. You should see their fridges, unless they have personal chefs, which many of them do.
You can wait for a decade trying to align with your gateway smuggler. Venus and Mercury can slap high five several times before that happens.
So my advice that you didn’t ask for?
Get a scheduling app and make a note when they say they have time nine months from now on the way back from their pilgrimage to Peru. Oh — and expect that date to change, once you check back in. Because you are going to have to check back in —- multiple times — and when you do — expect to be rescheduled. Or as they say, ‘pushed.’
It’s a violent term, isn’t it? Pushed.
In whatever end of the industry you interact with, things are either on the front burner or do not exist. And you and your masterpiece are not on anyone’s front burner.
Here is where the paradox really begins. To get something done that requires sizable investment demands the attention of someone with the mafia ring and they have their lives planned to the second, years in advance.
And believe me, this is not just a TV problem, or a problem with development at what not. It is pervasive and the more artsy something is, the more it is squeezed by financials.
For example, publishing comes in last place in terms of speed. And theater thinks five years out. And when you are a seller, and what you are selling is not trending - trust me, you are not time sensitive and, therefore, do not exist.
Finding the right kind of advocacy is an endurance sport and demands you to be flexible because you will have to keep pivoting. If you want to create something, have strong fucking ankles because it’s an obstacle course — inside a marathon — at the end of which is an uphill sprint to a false summit where you get to chug some elctrolytes and finally — begin.
You have to constantly be ready to chase after moving trains holding samples, query letters, and look books with your elevator pitch tuned and ready to go - at a moment’s notice. Enduring this trial requires a grit and patience that you probably don’t currently possess. It is also one no one teaches at any college, even the best. But don’t worry, you will get the callous needed quick or burn out.
the only real trouble
This business is fraught with comparison and expectation. Both of these occupational hazards will harsh your buzz and have even been known to cause many an artist to tap out with a story untold. But that story doesn’t go anywhere. It is pure Newtonian physics, man. It will stay there and rot within you. And there is a cost in not telling it. To me, there is nothing more damaging to a writer than the un-lived life of a story untold.
Sometimes the dream we have that drives us to write gets differed so long it mutates into the untold story because chasing people down can wear you out and make you forget your accomplishments and believe the lie again.
And believe me, friends, that is a lonely place.
However, I have never met a Creative worth their salt who has escaped this phase unscathed. Even Hercules had trials and it was only by enduring those trials that he became Hercules. So, I found my way out of that feedback loop by remembering to enjoy the errand, no matter how small. And finally — by sidestepping it altogether.
Try it yourself. Take a look at someone’s career trajectory who you respect and look at those missing years when there are no credits and dig deep to learn what sustained them. Believe me, it is most likely spiritual in nature. Because you are going to have years like that. I’ve had years like that. Many years. Whole presidencies. The dividend of this creative purgatory is you learn who your real friends are.
But let me be crystal clear. Keeping your story alive throughout that time of endless apprenticeship when no one wants what you are selling is vital. But it is also impossible without — community.
So, find your people and hang on to them. There is no family like creative family. Together, you might learn what we all do. We cannot catch up to a moving train. We must do it ourselves.
And you cannot do it all yourself, you must do it together.
Don’t let your writing yellow in a desk drawer. It is not enough to have done it, you must share it. Don’t wait on a train that might never come when you can build your own track.
this works for really any artistic discipline, ya know? I learned the fundamental idea from Lou Antonio who used to hear Elia Kazan use it to reference actors and acting.
Mark Kemble