Aspiring Screenwriters Make A Living?
neoma...@my-deja.com
I'm an aspiring screenwriter and like to know how others like me earn a
living that doesn't confine them to the 9 - 5 grind. It's depressing to
always hold down jobs that basically stink while presuing the real
passions of writing and story devising. Realistically, are there any
paying jobs out there that are more creative in scope till someone can
break into Hollywood (if at all)? How do others manage??? Is it really
a matter of holding waiter jobs and hustling till something sells? Isn't
there anything better? Remotely more bearable? I have a BA in English
but if I don't desire to teach, what else is there but waitering?
Terrible.
Eager to know,
Thomas
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Bob Miller
>Hi,
>
>I'm an aspiring screenwriter and like to know how others like me earn a
>living that doesn't confine them to the 9 - 5 grind. It's depressing to
>always hold down jobs that basically stink while presuing the real
>passions of writing and story devising. Realistically, are there any
>paying jobs out there that are more creative in scope till someone can
>break into Hollywood (if at all)? How do others manage??? Is it really
>a matter of holding waiter jobs and hustling till something sells? Isn't
>there anything better? Remotely more bearable? I have a BA in English
>but if I don't desire to teach, what else is there but waitering?
>Terrible.
Corporate communications writer
Technical writer
Advertising copywriter
Greeting card writer
Magazine writer
Newsletter writer/editor
Reporter
Those are a few for them w'it English degrees... check the want ads,
check the annual Writer's Digest book at your book store...
Bob
Writer9696
corporations. If you have any writing experience and samples, you could try
marketing yourself to corporations looking for people to write news release,
advertorials, brochures, etc. Of course, this is a competitive business in its
own right and took me several years of developing experience, skills and
contacts to make a go of it.
It really all depends on your skill set. Do you have computer skills? Graphic
arts? Can you sell? There are temp agencies that specialize in the
entertainment industry you might look into if you do office work.
J. Simpson
Cab driver
Dish washer
Construction worker
Gardner
and the ever popular -- Waiter
All these seem to require not only a degree in English and/or film but also
require you be an aspiring scriptwriter.
Jay :o)
Jig949
You don't have to know much about computers just have to be able to type a job
name in and hit enter. After I type the job name in and hit enter, I have 5
hours to write and work on my script until I have to type the next job name in.
My bosses always raved about how good I was at it and I get most of my writing
done at work. I would work from 6pm to 6am a few nights a week and get paid 14$
an hour. All the computer op jobs I've had have been like that. I've just moved
down to So. Cal. so I haven't hit the job listings yet but I'm sure it would be
similiar. Good luck!
-Jiggy
Jervis D.
Talk about 'good luck'! You couldn't get it much better than
Jiggy did.
Now. As to "waitering". Nothing wrong with it, in fact it
could be a great boon to a writer, a job like that, any kind
of job, looked at from the right angle is a comedy script
waiting to happen, especially when you've got an
over-qualified writer/poor schmuck for your protagonist.
When you're going through it, there's plenty of reason not
to laugh about what you're going through, or to laugh at the
people who are putting you through it. But, think of the
possibilities for a writer who makes conscious use of the
experience, even to the extent of scripting his plot by his
own real, actual activity on the "set" of that restaurant.
Think of coming home that night to set the day's action and
conversation into screenplay format; think of the glee of
looking forward to the lampoon job you're going to do on
those goons, and/or lovable co-sufferers, that absurd
tyrant of a head waiter.
I think in this context of something Machiavelli wrote in
"The Prince"..okay, if it wasn't Machiavelli, then it was
Montaigne, but whichever the case, (I'm nearly certain it
was Machiavelli) he spoke of how he would look forward
through all those hard labors of the day, to the time when
he could come home; how we would make a very particular
effort to wash up, put on clean linen, powder his hair, and
don a pair of white gloves (Raymond Chandler must have read
the same pasage) in preparation for his night's beloved
labors with quill and paper.
Hmm..think of Minnesota Fats in "The Hustler". Even when it
seems it would be quite impossible for any ordinary man; to
take another entire fresh start to the same day, and do a
right proper job of it, think of Minnesota Fats, and of
Machiavelli.
--
Jervis
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Mr. Neeek, Sr.
out of that market so now I re-chrome homeless
people's shopping carts. When the compassionate
one, G.W.Bush, Jr., is elected the homeless will
all be given good-paying jobs and the market will
fall out of this one too. At that point I'll
probably see if there are any opportunities for
putting broken balsa wood airplanes back together
for children or something else that's fulfilling
and worthwhile. I say, if you haven't got the
imagination to find something interesting and
financially rewarding to supplement the negative
financial aspects of choosing writing as a career
you probably don't have the imagination to succeed
in the writing business either.
By the way, when I was a waiter at the Victoria
Station restaurant when I first thought about
writing a script I was pulling down in excess of
$500.00 per week, cash, working four five-hour
shifts. That was in 1975.
You'd be surprised at how many interesting
opportunities open up for waiters in the right
restaurants, by the way, and the meals you don't
have to pay for either.
neoma...@my-deja.com said:
>Hi,
>
>I'm an aspiring screenwriter and like to know how others like me earn a
>living that doesn't confine them to the 9 - 5 grind. It's depressing to
>always hold down jobs that basically stink while presuing the real
>passions of writing and story devising. Realistically, are there any
>paying jobs out there that are more creative in scope till someone can
>break into Hollywood (if at all)? How do others manage??? Is it really
>a matter of holding waiter jobs and hustling till something sells? Isn't
>there anything better? Remotely more bearable? I have a BA in English
>but if I don't desire to teach, what else is there but waitering?
>Terrible.
>
>Eager to know,
>Thomas
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Warmest Regards Always,
Mr. Neeek, Sr.
writer/deadbeat
http://www.wgn.net/~neeek
For all your screenplay and comfort shoe needs,
or just to have a hellishly good time, stop by
http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewListedItems&userid=sushidog
to check out the page Mr. Neeek's familiar, SushiDog,
has established as his Ebay cyber-emporium, centrally located
where the ozone meets the web!
Jervis D.
Listen to him.
Mr. Neeek has just reminded me of my first screenplay, ever,
written on a green enamel manual Olympia typewriter about
homeless people and their shopping carts. It was written six
floors up from the corner of Wilcox and Franklin, across the
street from the Lido and one block up from Hollywood Blvd.
I have lost every copy of this screenplay, and alas, it is
my wife's favorite of all. The idea for it leaped into my
brain like an evil blue spark from the campfire we were
sitting around, one night, up about 6,000 feet in the
mountains out of Sierra City. We were talking about fairy
tales that had been read to us as kids. I remembered as my
favorite, one from a set of books my mother had bought in
order that she might have a complete battery of bedtime
stories for us kids. Remember "My Bookhouse"?
One volume contained a Norse folk tale entitled, "East of
the Sun, West of the Moon." It's the story of a young lass
who is raped (that is to say, 'taken captive') and carried
forth upon the back of an enchanted prince in the form of a
great white bear, and carried away upon the South Wind to
his castle "East of the Sun and West of the Moon".
By the time we hit Hollywood, the idea hit me to update the
story and set it in Hollywood. The 'enchanted prince' is a
rag-picker with a shopping cart by name of "Harold
Schmarold" who has a consort, the "wicked witch" by name of
"Mavis Schmavis". The whole plot revolves around the
maiden's family's attempt to find her after her
disappearance in Harold's shopping cart. At first, her two
wicked sisters, "Griselda" and "Hortense" have it figured
that their father has sold their younger sister into some
form of Hollywood white slavery, and is keeping all the
profit to himself - - but then after a few hours under the
rubber hose treatment they give him, he lets on that he was
powerless to stop her from being raped away in the night by
a big white bear with a shopping cart.
Since they do not believe a word of that 'song and dance',
they finally conclude it must have been he was drunk as
usual on cheap white port, and it was, in reality, that
well-known Hollywood rag-picker with the white fur coat and
the "Harold's Club - Reno" cap. The one everybody calls
"Harold Schmarold".
What a plot! Jesus. I can't stand it. Why won't anybody buy
it, I used to wonder. Anyway, it was, now I come to think
of it, okay, written in 1975, and it's about as fuzzy in my
memory now as it was then on paper when about half way
through, it starts to follow the story line of the Patricia
Hearst kidnapping.
At the end, which is all I can mainly remember at the
moment, Harold and Mavis with "Lassie", the kidnapped
maiden, break into a Ralph's super market in order to fill
their shopping carts, "right up to the top, for once." This
leads to the "big shootout" at the very end.
Well, it just so happens that the "Lassie's" family having
been hot on her trail have finally managed to track them all
down right to Ralph's where they discover them in the midst
of the big heist. But the Lassie doesn't want to go back
with her mean sisters and their schlamiel for a father, and
so a huge food fight ensues. When the Lassie dives into a
frozen food case to avoid being killed by a flying frozen
Cornish game hen, something goes screwy with the compressor
in the case under the deadly barrage of chickens, ducks and
steaked salmon, so that she is magically transported to a
land East of the Sun, West of the Moon, where
Harold-Scharold who has jumped in with her is magically
transformed into a charming prince. And that's the end. They
get married. and live happily ever after. And see? That's
the end, right there, where Harold-Schmarold turns out to be
this charming prince, after all. And, "..that's what I was
along, is the thing." So, Prince Harold says as the curtains
begin to close.
Just think what Hollywood missed by condemning a script like
that as "the work of some god damn acid stoned crackpot, who
from the looks of it should hurry up and take a toothbrush
and isopropyl alcohol to his p's and q's."
Kinda touches me to think I could never write anything like
that again.
Joe Myers
Jervis D. wrote in message <9327729...@www2.remarq.com>...
>Mr. Neeek has just reminded me of my first screenplay, ever,
[snipped to appease the bandwidth gods]
>Kinda touches me to think I could never write anything like
>that again.
Yeah, Jervis. It seems you just can't get decent peyote anymore, huh?
Joe Myers
"Have you tried calling Oliver Stone?"
Mr. Neeek, Sr.
>Well! There it is from Mr. Neeek, who is always wise.
>Listen to him.
>
>Mr. Neeek has just reminded me of my first screenplay, ever,
>written on a green enamel manual Olympia typewriter about
>homeless people and their shopping carts. It was written six
>floors up from the corner of Wilcox and Franklin, across the
>street from the Lido and one block up from Hollywood Blvd.
Thanks for your kind words.
Sorry about your lost screenplay but I wrote mine
on a manual Royal at my grandmother's house at the
corner of Fountain and El Centro. For fun I'd go
around the corner and watch the weirdos at the
Hollywood Ranch Market or go down El Centro to
where the black hookers were hanging out and watch
the fun.
Speaking of My Book House, I just bought a 1937
set off Ebay. I also snagged a set of Masterplots,
the single greatest set of books in the history
of, well, literature.
Aramuss
Of course, he's bonded.
He's also an excellant source of gossip and bullshit. He also bartends part
time for a caterer.
I sometimes wonder if he's a counter-agent and who he's really working for.
He's so down that if he'd ever did write a script I'd get in line to read it.
Anything that would get you close to networking might be cool. If you're not
tied down with a big monthly nut then most anything that gets you close to the
perifery in a service position, something that doesn't wear you out physically
and something you don't have to take home with you at night. Trade bucks for
positioning?
Know what I mean?
You're right, however. The right day job for a writer makes life a breeze.
But, the wong day job for a writer bottles you up and compresses your energy,
then when you do find that right day job, you take off writing like a rocket.
So, cheer-up. Keep your nose in the air and always secure a new job before you
quit you old one.
"Galling limitation must not be persevered in."
--- The Book of Changes
MwsReader
> Speaking of My Book House, I just bought a 1937
> set off Ebay. I also snagged a set of Masterplots,
> the single greatest set of books in the history
> of, well, literature.
Speaking of Masterplots, which I'll agree is second-to-none,
I somehow managed to lose the A-N volume of series #1 during
some move or other over the years. Anybody care to part with a
spare copy of that one? (Mine's the '55 edition, but I'm not picky.)
Ken
Steve Holmes
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm an aspiring screenwriter and like to know how others like me earn a
> living that doesn't confine them to the 9 - 5 grind. It's depressing to
> always hold down jobs that basically stink while presuing the real
> passions of writing and story devising. Realistically, are there any
> paying jobs out there that are more creative in scope till someone can
> break into Hollywood (if at all)? How do others manage??? Is it really
> a matter of holding waiter jobs and hustling till something sells? Isn't
> there anything better? Remotely more bearable? I have a BA in English
> but if I don't desire to teach, what else is there but waitering?
> Terrible.
Count your blessings. If you get a much more creative job, you'll
inevitably take your work home with you, where it's likely to compete
with screenwriting for your energy and creativity. I had a friend who
had creative jobs (fundraising, marketing, documentary production) that
she enjoyed, but I'm convinced that those jobs sapped her ability to
write a screenplay. She never had the time.
With a waitering job, you can leave it behind you at the end of the day,
and can even be thinking of scenes while you're on the job.
--
Steve Holmes
Executive Producer, "For Love and/or Money"
Producer, "The Whole Fam-Damily"
Iowa City, IA, USA
http://www.shpvideo.com
My address: sigerson "at" inav "dot" net (replace "" words with
symbols)