Johnny is fed up with the day job. On the way home, he thinks of a ripping satire involving his boss and coworkers that he just “knows” will win awards.
Johnny starts planning his career. This one he’ll give for free: he’ll promote the script on websites like shooting people, talent circle, and scripts for sale. Then, when he wins an award, he’ll sell a concept written on a napkin for a record amount of money and retire.
Personally, I never had that dream. To me, screenwriting is the day job, and I plan to write at least another 30 features before I retire. Many talented writers get paid far less than lawyers, agents and other work of a similar nature. Many take on “low paying” jobs in teaching because full time writing doesn’t pay them very much at all.
But Johnny doesn’t know this. He gets home, drags his muddy shoes on the carpet, opens Final Draft, and starts typing with two fingers. The stress of his job – the way his boss yells at him, the endless cutting and pasting – pushes him to the limits of despair, and suddenly it’s as if he can’t write a word.
Should Johnny quit his day job and go into writing full time? Should he take a writing course to motivate him? Probably not.
In Johnny’s case, writing block is a good thing.
Imagine if he does write that “award winning” screenplay. So Johnny beats out 50,000 other contestants and wins about a year’s salary in some screenwriting contest, and offers his script to some director who’s latest Youtube short has a million views.
That director makes Johnny’s film, and it’s a riot. Johnny’s boss’s kids see it, and they burst out laughing. Johnny’s best friend sees the first half of it, and she laughs. When the broadband connection stalls the video one too many times, she promises to watch the rest later.
In the middle of the night, Johnny gets a phone call. His best friend has now seen the whole film, and she’s appalled. He wonders why she doesn’t have a sense of humour, only to be met with a dial tone.
Johnny goes to work the next morning, and his coworkers avoid his gaze, except for the janitor who congratulates him for a film well made.
The janitor, usually quiet, suddenly becomes the biggest mouth in the whole town. He recounts the funniest parts of the story the way a child recounts a Pixar film. The janitor’s laughter is filled with such sincerity, it’s as if the whole room is suddenly filled with joy.
Johnny looks up at his boss. The boss, like Johnny’s friend, has no sense of humour.
Johnny isn’t sacked immediately. He’s just put on hold. People don’t tell him where his mail is. His contract isn’t renewed. His job description is changed so that you suddenly need a specialist degree that Johnny doesn’t have.
Down at the country club however, Johnny’s the talk of the town. Everyone encourages Johnny to write another hit, so he does.
This time, Johnny thinks he’s on form. He’s writing a real winner, and Hollywood will love it.
However, no one with money cares that Johnny had an Internet hit. Some will credit the director, the actors, the editor, or even the score with the way the film came out. The dialogue, they say, was wooden, the structure forced.
He goes back to the director, but that guy’s got a new sucker writing the next script. The “producer” doesn’t have any money, and doesn’t plan to look for any either.
Johnny’s back at square one, make that minus one. He’s got the screenplay to fill the gap in his cv, and employers are asking him what the script was about. Some have a hearty laugh when they find out, but none want to be the subject of a future satire.
Now, this is an extreme case which I just made up off of the top of my head. A much more likely scenario is that Johnny gets a great idea, stays up late writing it, and is too tired to do his day job properly. If it’s based on his real life, it ends up looking more like a rant than a screenplay.
˙ʇǝɹƃǝɹ ɹǝʇɐן p,noʎ ʇɐɥʇ ƃuıɥʇǝɯos ƃuıʇıɹʍ ɯoɹɟ noʎ sdoʇs ʇı ɟı ‘ƃuıɥʇ pooƃ ɐ ǝq uɐɔ ʞɔoןq s,ɹǝʇıɹʍ