This entry was posted on 10/21/2009 5:11 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
I was poking around the house earlier this afternoon, trying
to find my copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. I think it is in that book that Gladwell talks
about tenacity as one of the key elements of success.I wanted to see if I could find a pithy quote
for you because I was thinking about tenacity this afternoon.Well, I can’t find the book.I gave it to my wife many months ago.The book has disappeared into the black hole
of her stuff.It could be anywhere. If I were more tenacious, I’d keep looking, or
ask her where it is.But right now let’s
move on to talking about tenacity rather than demonstrating it.
Lest you think that I spend my days peacefully basking in my
own success, I want you to know that I spend my days writing, and I haven’t
enjoyed success in a long time.I was a
hot-shot TV writer and producer from 1976 until early in 2000.At that point, my long lucky streak ended, rather
abruptly I might add, and I went back to being the struggling writer I had been
in 1975.I’ve been struggling ever
since.In the last nine years I have
written or co-written ten spec screenplays.I have sold exactly none of them.I wrote four spec TV pilots.Again, no sales.I wrote one
book, Elephant Bucks, which, according to the publisher, has sold about
seventeen copies.I am in the process of
writing my fourth play.No productions
are yet scheduled.
With success becoming more and more a faded memory, I still spend
some part of practically every day writing.Seven days a week.(There are
vacations here and there.Last week my
wife and I went to LakeArrowhead,
a man-made body of water in the mountains about an hour and a half drive east from
Los Angeles).I do all of this work, tenaciously, not
because I am such a great writer (because I’m a pretty mediocre writer) or
because I have so many ideas that it takes me all week to jot them down (because
I struggle for ideas) or because I’m so self-disciplined. (I am self-disciplined, but that is hard-wired
in me.It has nothing to do with
character or will.My inborn
self-discipline has also caused me to miss out on all kinds of fun over the
course of my life that I could have had were I a little less self-disciplined.My personal self-discipline has a Puritan,
self-punishing quality to it that I don’t really enjoy all that much.) The bottom line is: I write because I can’t
think of anything else to do.
Is this tenacity?And
if so, is tenacity something that helps you to succeed as a writer?
Pretty much every day during the last nine years, I’ve asked
myself the same question about writing: “What in God’s name are you still doing
this for?”And the hectoring voice that
poses that question goes on to place the following argument: “You’re never
going to sell anything ever again.You
had your shot.It’s over.Move on to something else.Be like Ed Begley, Jr., and get into the
ecological household cleaning products business or Dick Van Patten and sell
organic dog food.But for heaven’s sake,
get over the writing because you’re finished at that.And frankly, you were never that good at it
to begin with.”When I’m done with the
self loathing, I go back to the writing.You may have noticed that self loathing and writing get along really
well together.
As I continue to write, day in and day out, month in and
month out, year in and year out, approaching decade in and decade out, and
continue to not succeed at writing, am I being tenacious?Am I laying the groundwork for future
success?Or am I kidding myself?Am I merely being stubborn and delusional and
mono-focused on something that isn’t ever going to go anywhere?
Dunno.
My wife found Outliers.She found it in two minutes.How
tenacious of her.
I thought I remembered a section in Outliers about a writer
who had toiled for many years without success and then suddenly found it.I paged through the book, perhaps not as
tenaciously as I might have, but I didn’t find the story about the writer.I think that story is not in the book but
rather in an article that Gladwell wrote for The New Yorker magazine when he
was promoting Outliers.I’m not going to
get on The New Yorker website to find the article about that writer.You can if you’re tenacious enough.
I did find the chapter in Outliers on "The 10,000 Hour
Rule."That rule states, basically, that
if you’re willing to work at anything for 10,000 hours, you’re bound to get
good at it.So there’s a vote from
Gladwell for tenacity.
On the other hand, here’s a quote from another part of
Outliers:“People don’t rise from
nothing.We do owe something to parentage
and patronage.The people who stand
before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries
of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that
allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others
cannot.”In other words, on the road to
success, accidents and dumb luck can also be a huge help.
So, as I sit here writing without success, am I being
tenacious, putting in the rest of my 10,000 hours, approaching a second career
as a playwright?Or am I foolishly swimming
against a tide of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities that are
destined to lift and carry someone else?
Well, here’s the thing:I don’t know what else to do.I’ve
gotten used to this writing thing.I’ve
been at it, almost non-stop, since 1972.At this point, giving up writing would be like giving up Scotch and
baseball and chocolate and sex and Mexican food and Preston Sturges movies and Hawaii
and Gershwin and my dogs. I might be
able to give up three of those, but I can’t give them all up.
10/22/2009 10:47 AM
Adrian wrote:
of course, haha, i forget. What do you think about writing fellowships like the Disney Writers Fellowship and the Warner Bros. fellowship? Is that good that they open a door for writers? Reply to this
10/22/2009 11:44 AM
Sheldon Bull wrote:
I'm no expert on these fellowships. If anyone out there has gotten one, and it proved helpful, please let us know. A number of my students at UCLA Extension have applied for them. I don't know anyone who has gotten one.
As I have said before in other blogs, here's the thing to keep in mind about fellowships and contests and anything that looks like a short cut into show business:
The studios and TV networks are NOT looking for new writers. They aren't. There are something like 5,000 people in the Writers Guild already. 5,000! Most of them are pretty talented. Ninety-five percent of WGA members are NOT working. So there is no dearth of good writers. All the studios have to do is open the gates a crack and a thousand qualified writers will pour in.
So why do the studios and networks offer these fellowships?
When I was producing TV shows, and the fellowship thing was just getting started, the networks and studios were offering fellowships and internships and other kinds of "ships" for one reason. They were catching hell from interest groups over the lack of minority and women writers working in TV and film. (They were also catching hell from interest groups for the lack of minority and women directors and executives.) So they offered these fellowships as a way to quiet down the interest groups and make it look as if they were open to more diversity.
The studios and networks are not comfortable with diversity and they never have been. That makes them very similar to every other business in America.
If these fellowships have helped even one person get a writing job or a directing job or an executive job, then I'm all for them. But the fellowships and internships exist, in my opinion, primarily as a PR tool. It's a way to look as if you are encouraging opportunity when, in fact, you don't need to.
Studios and networks are not about cultivating talent. They have no idea how to cultivate or nurture talent. They never have. Even in the old days when they had writers and directors and actors under contract they didn't know how to cultivate or nurture talent. They ruined more talent than they ever cultivated. See: Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, etc. The studios don't have to cultivate talent. The talent comes to them already cultivated. Hollywood isn't the minor leagues in baseball or some training program. If a studio or a network wrecks some promising young artistic career through stupidity or just meanness, there are a thousand other people just as talented waiting outside on the street. When you have to hire armed guards to keep the talented people away from your studio lot, you aren't going to be very interested in cultivating talent.
Even if you get a fellowship somewhere, and you succeed at it, whatever that means, you are still in competition with the hot-shot writer from outside who just published a graphic novel or won an award at Sundance. The fellowship person is going to be dropped for the hot-shot person in five seconds.
The way you break into show business is by muscling your way in. You come in with more dazzle and pop than the next person. It's up to you to figure how you are going to dazzle and pop, but that's what you need to do.
If you can get a fellowship, great. I think if you belong to an ethnic minority you have a much better chance of getting a fellowship. The studio or network can then write down on a piece of paper that they gave opportunity to someone from the outside and show that paper to the interest groups the next time they show up to complain.
Once you get a fellowship or internship, you then have to work just as hard as if you were still on the outside. You may have to work even harder. Because if the fellowship allows you to meet some producer or director or executive, that producer or director or executive is immediately going to think, "Oh. This is some token fellowship person. They probably don't have any talent. They're just here to make the studio look good and keep the NAACP away. Okay. I'll pretend to be nice to them and then forget about them as soon as they leave."
It's up to you to make yourself desirable, and there's no sure-fire plan for doing that.
10/22/2009 2:02 PM
Adrian wrote:
That's some brutally honest truth right there. So people like me who are hispanic don't have as good a chance of getting in and if I DO get in on a fellowship it's just because the studio/network has some racial quota to fill? Wow, I honestly didn't think Hollywood was THAT bad but oh well, if I don't get in on a fellowship I'll just keep trying to muscle my way in like you said. Reply to this
10/22/2009 2:47 PM
Sheldon Bull wrote:
The movie studios and the TV networks are owned by gigantic multinational corporations. Fox is owned by NewsCorp. It's founder is Australian newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch. Paramount Studios, CBS, MTV, and Nickelodeon are owned by Viacom. Their leader is Sumner Redstone. The Walt Disney Corporation owns the ABC TV network and the rest of the Disney empire. NBC and Universal Studios are owned by the General Electric Corporation. Sony Electronics Corporation of Japan owns Sony Studios in Culver City.
People who are hispanic or black are going to have a hard time with any large corporation, whether it is in the entertainment industry or anywhere else. These companies are owned publicly, largely by giant pension plans and mutual funds that are managed by firms on Wall Street. The ethnic group that runs most companies in America and everywhere else in the world except Asia is rich white men who went to fancy schools. This has been going on in America for three hundred years.
If you are black or hispanic and you want to succeed in any business you have to work harder than white people. That's a given. All hispanics and blacks know this already. As a white person myself, I can't advise blacks or hispanics about how they should feel. That's up to each individual. I would advise anybody of any ethnic group, including whites, not to look to any particular other ethnic group, especially another minority, and decide that they are the enemy. That is self defeating. Rich and privileged people come in all colors. Once people get money, they tend not to care much about the other people who don't have money.
If you are black or hispanic, it is much easier to become a success in show business as a performer. Dancing, singing, joking blacks and hispanics don't threaten white people. Nobody is afraid of George Lopez or Rhianna. Blacks and hispanics who can think and make decisions do threaten white people. Do you remember the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings last summer? Can you imagine what it must be like to be the President of the United States right now?
All of us, from every color and background, have to try to keep our heads clear and not get bitter or paranoid. We can follow the example of Justice Sotomayor and President Obama. We can work hard. We can stay cool. We can accept reality and work with it. Those are the keys to success. If you are smart and strong, nothing can stop you, as these two extraordinary Americans have proved to all of us.
