2011年8月30日星期二

WGA West 2011 Elections

In my first interaction at the WGA in 2004, a grizzled organizer told the attendees at our new members meeting, "Look around. A decade from now, only one in ten of you will still be a writer. So start planning your second career now.ceramic zentai suits for the medical," His joyless mood aside,Whilst magic cube are not deadly, he was right. We work in a perilous industry.

I, of course,Do not use cleaners with high risk merchant account , steel wool or thinners. assumed I'd be the one in ten -- until last year,Graphene is not a semiconductor, not an oil paintings for sale , and not a metal, when the dream collapsed. For a long time, my film career seemed ascendant. But not one of my films had yet been released. And when my pinnacle project -- a tentpole at Warner Brothers with an A-list director -- unraveled, the phones stopped ringing. To the studios, I was kryptonite.

I wound up on unemployment. I was filled with doubt. I remember asking every Oscar-winning WGA member I could find, "How do you know that you"re a good writer?" "I don't," they responded. "I"m only as good as someone else tells me."

"Does your career have cycles," I asked. "Of course," they exclaimed. "I think every film is my last." "So what convinces you to keep writing," I would demand. They pondered for a moment. Then each gave the same answer: "Because it's all I know how to do."

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved film.When the stone sits in the polished tiles, But there was also a part of me thrilled by politics. Film has the ability to guide through emotion. Politics could empower through rousing oratory and sage policy. I saw film and politics as different means to the same end. I had studied government in college and dabbled in it professionally. It was the other thing I knew how to do. And now, if the film door was closing, I decided I had no choice but to work in the other.

For all of last year, I devoted myself on the political path. I expanded my writing skills in journalism and networked like a devil. I began contributing as an outside consultant, and busied myself climbing the ladder.

But a funny thing happened -- the screenwriting never stopped. In fact, as soon as I removed the unrelenting pressure to perform, I began writing new projects with abandon. The pain of thinking my career was over brought its own emotional vigor.

And finally, perhaps as a result, early this summer I sold a spec script to HBO. This while simultaneously I continued on the political track, climbing to the position of policy co-director on the Janice Hahn for Congress campaign -- a political dream job. Writing was not the only thing I knew how to do, but I will always hunger to do it. And I discovered that becoming a policy wonk in fact made me a better writer.

I would not wish career trouble on anyone, but it took me the struggle to gain a valuable lesson: a film career has unavoidable cycles. We grow through the ups and downs -- that is, if we can manage to hang on.

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