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Showing posts with label college degrees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college degrees. Show all posts

Thursday, July 18, 2019

Humility is A Dying Breed: Social Media Is Ruining Screenwriting

Only a Film Degree--We must work to be screenwriters
We all know humble. We all know braggers. We all know action. We all know inaction...

Social media has casted a negative light on the writing world. On social media platforms, more people talk about the act of writing instead of waking every day to be proactive go-getters. In hindsight, writers once got work done; they completed scripts to option. Unfortunately, social media has turned screenwriting into a dream that is viewed as unreachable.

Screenwriting is an art form. It is also a discipline that requires time, energy and effort. Truth is, finished scripts are appealing to producers. There is little demand for unfinished scripts because they can't be produced. What separates professional screenwriters from aspiring screenwriters: Discipline.

Think about these comparisons: I am working on my degree versus I earned my degree. Any person can be working on a degree; however, only a select few will actually satisfy all the requirements to complete their degree programs.

Screenwriting is made out to be difficult. The real truth is that anything in life can be difficult if we fear the next step. We can make waking up on time to reach work a major challenge. We can make exercising daily an insurmountable task. We can postpone talking to someone we like over the lack of confidence. Placing constraints on our screenwriting will create fear. A large number of people worry about criticism. They automatically assume that receiving criticism is a precursor to failure. Their dream is better shared in forums, on discussion boards, on social media and in real life conversations.

Braggers need to draw attention to themselves. They need this attention to feel worth. The problem with sharing our dreams without doing the work is that we can block access to production. We spend way too much time trying to impress people with our creative ideas. We may post images about what we are supposedly doing, even if we are not actually working hard perfecting our craft. We will ask other writers/people what they think about our ideas so they can praise us. Condescending, bitter and petty attitudes can rule our emotions. We need to prove people wrong all the time. We fake being successful to create that adrenaline rush, that pure excitement of what it's like to accomplish a dream. Nevertheless, we can get carried away with all the attention that our dreams bring us.

Humble writers make movie magic happen. They wake up motivated and inspired to write. They write at their most vulnerable moments. They revise their previous projects. They don't crave attention. They already know their value as human beings choosing to be writers. There is no internal motivation to trick people, unless these themes are injected into characters.

Know the difference between being humble and bragging. If you are working hard, you earned the right to talk about your success. On the flip side, talking about the dream and not taking action to make it happen will delay the inevitable. Don't waste time. Your screenwriting dream will only come true if you do.

Happy screenwriting!