Climbing Mt. Everest

What is success? When have you reached your goals?
There comes a point when you've been striving a long time.
Maybe you want to be a writer, maybe you want to be a ballerina, astronaut, whatever.
Are you an astronaut the moment you get your NASA badge, or the day you launch to the moon?
Robert Rodriguez says in his book, Rebel Without a Crew: "You want to be a director? Make yourself a business card. Now you're a director. Next!"

The same is true for writing.

But you spend so much time STRIVING.
Because at what point is a writer a writer?
The day you first pick up a pencil and copy the ABCs?
The day you write your first story?
The day your English teacher recognizes that you have skill?
The day your news article lands above the fold on the front page?
The day you're published in a magazine?
The day you win an award?
The day someone hires you to write for them?

All of those are the point at which one becomes a writer.

Sometimes you can spend so much time striving you forget to look up and realize you're actually there.

You also get used to apologizing for the fact that you aren't in the Amazon Top 100, or the New York Times Best Sellers or that your movie was a short and not a feature or an indie feature and not a Hollywood feature or it was released in theaters but was not a blockbuster, or it was a blockbuster but not an Oscar-winner. Or it was nominated but didn't win. Or it won, but...

Enough!
You are a writer.
The life is: get up, make a cup of coffee, sit down, fill screen. Repeat.
Enjoy!

Highly recommended:

This is a really great book. Walt Disney was an optimist to the core. There were days he literally had no shoes-- he was supposed to pick up a desperately needed paycheck but couldn't meet the guy because his only pair of shoes were being repaired and he couldn't get them back until he paid the cobbler. He ate beans straight out of the can. But he could sell anyone on his ideas because he was optimistic and enthusiastic and honest.

On a recent trip to Disney World the character meal at the Crystal Palace was totally booked for months. We wanted to go. We thought we'd go ahead and try it, but when we got there there were tons of people milling around. The odds didn't look good. But we really wanted to, so we went up and asked the guy at the front desk. He smiled and said, well, we don't have anything available right now. But can you wait twenty minutes?

YES, WE CAN!

http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Like-Walt-Capturing/dp/0757302319/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361926850&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+be+like+walt

The most successful people see adversity not as a stumbling block, but as a stepping stone to greatness. - Shawn Achor

Be the Brad!

"Everyone in Hollywood says they wish they could do it like Pixar, but they really don’t. There’s no secret at Pixar, but there is a belief in letting people pursue something with passion and take chances, and most of Hollywood, really, doesn’t like that. It’s too scary." -Brad Bird, writer/director of The Incredibles, seasons and seasons of The Simpsons, and Iron Giant.

Later he says, "If you worry too much about that, you’re just bound to fail. You have to kind of go into stories with a strong sort of “I’m doing this” sort of attitude, or else it comes off as sort of tiptoeing." -Brad Bird. From – Geoff Boucher in Hero Complex.latimes.com


Good advice. It obviously worked for Mr. Brad Bird!

How many times have you been rejected?

The writer of The Help was rejected sixty times before letter #61 said YES. She also lied to her husband and told him she was going on a girls' weekend when, in fact, she was going to a hotel to write.

Best pull quote, "The point is, I can’t tell you how to succeed. But I can tell you how not to: Give in to the shame of being rejected and put your manuscript—or painting, song, voice, dance moves, [insert passion here]—in the coffin that is your bedside drawer and close it for good. I guarantee you that it won’t take you anywhere. Or you could do what this writer did: Give in to your obsession instead.

And if your friends make fun of you for chasing your dream, remember—just lie." This is from Shine.Yahoo.com by MORE magazine.

Read the whole article about her experiences here.

Inconceivable!

"Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity." - Will Smith

From Slacker

"It’s like every choice or decision you make… the thing you choose not to do… fractions off and becomes its own reality, you know… and just goes on from there forever. I mean, it’s like… uh, you know, in the Wizard of Oz… when Dorothy meets the Scarecrow and they do that little dance at that crossroads… and they think about going all those directions… then they end up going in that one direction. I mean, all those other directions, just because they thought about it… became separate realities. They just went on from there and lived the rest of their life. I mean, entirely different movies, but we’ll never see it… because, you know, we’re kind of trapped in this one reality restriction type of thing. Another example would be like back there at the bus station. As I got off the bus, the thought crossed my mind… you know, just for a second, about not taking a cab at all. But, you know, like maybe walking, or bumming a ride or something like that. I’m kind of broke right now. I should’ve done that probably. But, uh, just ‘cause that thought crossed my mind… there now exists at this very second… a whole another reality where I’m at the bus station… and you’re probably giving someone else a ride, you know? I mean, and that reality thinks of itself as this - it thinks of itself as the only reality, you know. I mean, at this very second, I’m in that - I’m back at the bus station just hanging out, you know… probably thumbing through a paper. You know, probably going up to a pay phone. Say this beautiful woman just comes up to me, just starts talking to me, you know? Uh, she ends up offering me a ride, you know. We’re hitting it off. Go play a little pinball. And we go back to her apartment, I mean, she has this great apartment. I move in with her, you know. Say I have a dream some night… that I’m with some strange woman I’ve never met… or I’m living at some place I’ve never seen before. See, that’s just a momentary glimpse into this other reality… that was all created back there at the bus station. You know, shoot. And then, you know… I could have a dream from that reality into this one… that, like, this is my dream from that reality. Of course, that’s kind of like that dream I just had on the bus, you know. The whole cycle type of thing. Man, shit! I should’ve stayed at the bus station."
-Written by Richard Linklater. Opening lines of Slacker.

Excellence.

“Excellence can be obtained if you:
...care more than others think is wise;
...risk more than others think is safe;
...dream more than others think is practical;
...expect more than others think is possible.”

“Excellence is in the details. Give attention to the details and excellence will come.” -Perry Paxton

All You Need Is a Little Cash

It was not lost on me that Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook on a random night in his dorm room and the first chunk of cash was a couple thousand dollars from a friend.
That the thing that pushed it over the hurdle was about $18,000 - which they didn't even use in one fell swoop (as evidenced by the fact that his friend later froze the account.)

All you need is a little cash and - literally I mean a little cash - to get something big started.

And the other moral of the story?
You have to be first.