Is It Too Hard?

The Alan Loeb interview in the previous entry is on my mind...

He talks about writing in Hollywood and how it's too hard. I like how he discusses it. For him, it wasn't an issue of questioning his own talent. He knew he was good. But he couldn't make a living. He couldn't get paid. His specs wouldn't sell. He said he should've given up in 2002/2004 when his agent dropped him and he hit his mid/late 30s and it was clear the career was going nowhere. He decided not to give up because of fear and laziness (of doing something else) and ended up getting lucky. But all signs for him pointed to changing careers and making money in some other field.

What can possibly justify working hard for 6-10 years with uncertain benefit? You can't make a living writing good spec scripts. Why should a talented person stick with writing specs? That same talented person could go do something much easier, like sell real estate, operate a small business, work with computers, be a teacher, whatever...and make a decent living and be happy. Instead, they opt to struggle, be broke, and depend on others in case of financial emergency. It makes it especially stupid/impossible if one has a family. Why shoud it be so hard?

Pundits sometimes talk about how our political system generates crappy candidates because only ambitious, shallow, cynical, manipulative types could possibly navigate through election after election to rise to the top. Does this also apply to writing (and more broadly, Hollywood?) What type of people are willing to take the enormous financial risk and uncertainty to work creatively? Are they the most talented? Do they generate the most interesting and commercial work?

From an economic standpoint, the entertainment industry is run like the jewel business...enormous amount of money is made on perceived value...the same script can one day sell for 1 mil, the next day be worth nothing...it's all hit and miss. This creates a ton of uncertainty. Most businesses don't work this way, most purchase products from vendors at a predictable price and then craft into another product with more value and then sell that product. Grocery stores buy food from farmers and then retail it at a higher cost. Simple, predictable, easy.

I don't even know where I'm going with this. I guess I'm thinking of applying for a managerial job at a grocery store.