A
Hollyweird Education – Column Five
Hanging In There
By Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
I was having
a tough time this month coming up with a topic for this column. That was because
it wasn’t an easy month. I was dealing with what appeared to be crap of an
unusual order, the kind of crap that can lead a person to question their life
choices.
Specifically,
I was dealing with a producer who had told me a few months ago that they would
be sending the option payment a few months early "to help you out"
(and I was in need of the help, believe me). This promising development turned
into delay after delay, each with a "reasonable explanation," while my
personal situation felt more and more like it was circling the bowl. The final
indignity was being informed by my lawyer that the check had arrived-- with the
amount filled in but without both signatures or a date!! I wasn’t able to cash
it. This is the kind of trick one pulls when you don’t have the money but need
to make a "good faith effort" to make a payment on time: send in the
check minus some important item. The clock stops ticking while the check is sent
back and (hopefully) in that time the funds have arrived so you sign it and
return it and all is well. It’s the kind of petty thing you do with the phone
company (though not SBC-- trust me). It’s not what a production company does
with a writer.
At that
point, fear kicked in. I "knew" what was going on: they had decided
they couldn’t get the picture made and wanted out of the option, but they
didn’t want to say so and wanted me to be the bad guy when the date for
renewal came and went and I had my lawyer inform them the option had lapsed. As
a result my bills wouldn’t be paid and Life Would Get Worse.
Many years
ago, a teacher I studied with wrote the following on the blackboard:
F -
fantasized
E -
expectations
A - appearing
R - real
It’s one of
those things you remember ever after, since it’s true. And even after you know
it, no matter how many times you’ve caught yourself doing it, no matter how
many times you’ve reminded yourself of that essential truth, it’s the
easiest thing in the world to drop into that. Once you do, it’s even easier to
end up telling yourself you’re a failure, that the rest of the world has
finally made note of this fact and has decided to take action by pushing you
down the chute to end up in the gutter. Interestingly enough, that little
fantasy is one of the most common fantasy/nightmares of successful people. In
other words, everybody does it.
Which
doesn’t make avoiding it in the first place, or getting out of it once you
realize you’re in it, any easier.
I will tell
you something-- a basic truth I have observed over the past twenty-odd years of
working in this business: the difference between the people who succeed and the
people who fail is that the people who succeed learn to recognize fear for the
fantasy it is and deal with it, and those who fail remain paralyzed by it.
It comes down
to what Jim Cash said to me 20 years ago when I interviewed him about the secret
of success: "I don’t know what the secret of success is, but I know if
you consider failure a temporary condition-- no matter how long it lasts-- and
simply outlast it, you’ll find success on the other side."
If you think
about this, you’ll realize that this is an essential story point, in fact
it’s point six of the eight points of the hero’s journey as outlined by
Joseph Campbell.
Let’s
review them:
1. The hero
is taken from his ordinary life by an extraordinary event...
2. He travels
to a far country...
3. Where he
meets a wayshower...
4. Who guides
him past the guardians of the gate...
5. And into
the underworld...
6. Where he
confronts his own death...
7. And in so
doing discovers his own truth...
8. Then
returns to the world of men and-- in an act of self-sacrifice-- demonstrates
that truth.
As Joseph
Campbell pointed out, stories exist and are important to us as a species as a
way for each of us as individuals to learn the roadmap of life-- how to live our
lives, face our difficulties, and achieve our victories. Those eight points of
the hero’s journey are the roadmap of any story you are telling; they’re
also the roadmap of your day when you wake up in the morning and climb out of
bed-- and that is why they are important.
Maybe that
day your victory is that you open your mailbox and there’s a check inside in
the exact amount you need to go down and pay the phone bill before your service
is cut off. If you think that’s not an important victory, try working as a
writer without a telephone. I had a good reminder of this when I spent a week
this past month without a phone, having had service disrupted by the monsoon
that hit L.A.-- life really is difficult when you can’t communicate with the
outside world.
As my old
mentor Wendell Mayes once put it to me: "I believe the universe is a
manifestation of balance and harmony. You’re only willing to succeed to the
same degree you’re willing to fail." Facing failure successfully comes by
hanging in there, and is probably the most important lesson anyone who is going
to make their way in the world through their own talent and efforts can learn.
"Success" has nothing to do with avoiding failure, but with learning
to deal with the possibility of failure and to still continue on. Nobody can
foretell the future-- you only write "the end" when they plant you,
and I’m not sure of that.
--
Thomas McKelvey Cleaver has been (and still is) a freelance journalist; he
was a staff writer and editor at several publications prior to accidentally
becoming a screenwriter 20 years ago. In addition to writing 15 produced
movies, he has been a development executive in independent film, and a story
editor and supervising producer for three cable TV series. His credits
include the cult horror hit "The Terror Within" (though his only
connection with "TW II" is a credit "based on characters created
by..." which he was forced to take). He is currently in development
on a World War II script optioned by Greenwich Films, and has recently completed
an adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's "The Deerslayer." Reach
Thomas at tom@absolutewrite.com.
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Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
