Motivation - 4

When we left off last week talking about how to become more motivated to write, I asked the question why, when you know you’re a writer, it’s so hard to tell the stories you know you were meant to tell… how you’ll find yourself doing almost anything to avoid committing to writing.

And I’m not sure there’s one easy answer for everyone. But today I’d like to focus in on a common one: fear of failure.

Let’s face it, it’s hard to get excited about something that—given the odds—has little chance at succeeding. Because that’s the reality of it. Each year the WGA [Writer’s Guild of America] registers over 65,000 screenplays. And speaking from personal experience, as soon as I became a working screenwriter, I stopped registering my screenplays because I had agents to send the screenplays around town and it was easy to document when that happened—so little chance of my screenplay being stolen. And between the people who didn’t bother to register their screenplays and those who registered the 65,000 screenplays, how many films are made each year? Around 150. Those are nearly insurmountable odds.

And if you go to publishing, the odds are just as bad. Close to 2 million books are published each year worldwide—and about half of those are self-published. And how many books make that coveted best-seller list? A handful.

But there’s an important difference between writing fiction and writing for film—if you’re writing fiction, you can self-publish. So there’s at least a chance people will read your work.

But screenwriting? You’re spending months/years creating your vision, and there’s no way for people to read it. A screenplay needs to be made before people will take time to see it. Who is going to sit and read a screenplay?

A depressing scenario. And this makes it difficult to summon up the motivation to spend all that time writing when there’s very little chance of succeeding. So if there’s such a small chance, why even try? You’re bound to fail, right?

Well, statistically speaking, that’s true. Most people won’t get their film made or their book on the bestseller list. So why bother?

The answer has to be that it’s not about succeeding. Which seems weird to say, because, of course, you want to get your film made or your book published. But if that’s the only goal and that goal is so elusive, could it be possible that that’s the wrong goal?

What if writing ISN’T about getting published or getting your script shot? What if writing’s about something else entirely? And if it is, wouldn’t that let you realign your goals and make it easier to be motivated to write?

Or have I gone ‘round the bend…

Think about the possibilities, and next week let’s talk about how that might work… if it could work…

Copyright © Diane Lake

01May22

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com