Fictional friends who I make up to move the plot of blog posts along often ask me, “How do you handle the daily rejection you have to live with as a failed writer? How do you keep going after getting kicked in the gut day after day?”
“You’re going out there an 8-foot tall mammal, but you’re coming back a star!”
When these “friends” are finished shedding their crocodile tears, I laugh a mirthless little laugh and shake my head from side to side to let them know how utterly . . . benighted they are.
“Unsuccessful? Did I hear you say . . . unsuccessful?” I ask rhetorically.
“Well, yeah. Your total earnings from writing in 2021 were less than 10% of your salary at your real job,” they say, pausing for effect, “–forty years ago!”
That’s the kind of abuse I used to get. But I’m not taking it anymore because I am thisclose to selling my screenplay for a teen romantic comedy involving a torrid affair between a Bigfoot-like creature and a head cheerleader to a major Chinese movie studio!
Thanks, really, you’re too kind.
Add a production number you say? Great idea!
And don’t think for a minute I’m not going to lord it over all the nay-sayers, the wet blankets, the sticks-in-the-mud, the Mrs. Grundys who’ve been snickering behind their hands at me for years, saying “And the funny part is . . . he calls himself a writer!” To them I say, “Same to you pal!” causing people on the street to look at me with alarm as they pass. “Sorry,” I say to one particularly startled old lady with chin hairs who I’m helping across the street. “Just having an argument with some imaginary fair-weather friends of mine.”
“I do the same thing!” she replies.
And it’s not just one studio–there are nine of them, including powerhouses such as Biggest China Film Group Ltd., Hanging Duck Carcass Films, Xiuangcho Media, and Golden Shrimp & Extra Soy Sauce Studios. My agent tells me these are the creme de la chinois creme!
I’ve got to play it cool, though. I’m in the catbird’s seat–they’re bidding for me!
The sad part is–this movie could have been made in the U.S., keeping good jobs from going overseas. I shopped this sucker all over creation, starting with the film club at my kid’s high school.
Oscar night party at Hanging Duck Carcass Films.
“What’s it about again?” the class valedictorian asked.
“It’s about a yeti who emerges from the swamps of town, befriends you . . .”
“Me?”
“Yes, you, and as captain of the school squash team you transform his primitive stick-handling ability into racquet skills that have Ivy League colleges crawling over each other’s backs to offer him scholarships!”
“Uh, I think we’ll pass,” the kid–now at Harvard through some lucky quirk of fate–replied. “We just gave the green light to a hip-hop version of Gone With the Wind.“
“Fine, no problem,” I said as I got up to go. “But don’t come crying to me when my first-day grosses make Titanic look like an air-raid safety training film from the 50′s.”
But I listen to the marketplace and the signals it gives to aspiring writers. The problem? Nobody cares about squash, the ultimate preppy pastime. No, I had to find a sport with broader appeal, and what’s broader than badminton, the most popular sport in the most populous nation on earth!
I’ll let you know when it’s released here in the U.S. If you’re real nice, I’ll invite you to the after-party on Oscar night, after I hoist that little statuette up in the air in front of millions of television viewers and say . . .
“First I’d like to thank my third grade basketball coach, who taught me the importance of never giving up. And Sister Agnesita, you believed in me when nobody else did. Timmy Hohimer–hey–I told you we’d do it! Mr. Dougherty, the mean old man who said I’d . . .”
[Cue “Hooray for Hollywood”]