For the Pragmatic F*cking Dreamers
Say Goodbye to Hollywood clearly struck a chord, and I’m grateful for that. It’s extremely validating when 50k+ strangers have the same feeling you’re also having. In fact, that’s a big reason we create in the first place, isn’t it?
I think that what resonated is the elegiac sentiment. And something I’ve said to more than one reader sliding into my DMs is: “It’s important to name it so we can grieve it. There is no moving forward without feeling that grief.”
So what does the path ahead look like? I think the Old Hollywood, for all its flaws, offered a few roads to follow and a present community. When creativity isn’t anchored geographically, it can feel extremely unmooring.
I’m going to talk about how I’ve been handling it, because thanks to several decades of therapy, some strategy, and a lot of luck, I’ve managed to keep the lights on over here. I think it’s important to begin with this: a lot of us are still here. And we still have stories to tell and collaborative art to make. There is still a community. The industry contracted, the lots have emptied, many of the jobs moved — and yet. A shitton of talent remains, along with their hunger to create. And the audience isn’t going anywhere.
I’ve basically constructed a three-track life for myself in the last few years as I saw the dominoes falling in this direction. I’m still a real, actual working writer and producer who has run two shows, but I like to think of my creative life now as divided between:
The job (writing pilots/screenplays)
The hustle (pitching)
The work I own (making MY shit)
Most people in this industry are already doing at least two of these and feeling like that means they’ve somehow failed. I need you to know that it’s not just okay, it’s the strategy now. Here’s what it actually looks like to live inside this moment without either pretending it’s fine or giving up.
#1 — THE DAY JOB
The day job, even when it’s in the industry, isn’t glamorous right now. It’s writing broader pilots than I’ve ever written before because that’s what the streamers have determined the wider audience is currently demanding and therefore what’s selling. It’s doing more rounds of notes with a patient smile on my face because it’s now extra-important that executives who still currently have their jobs (and are terrified of losing them) really enjoy working with me and want to do so again. It’s even writing some pilots on spec because the staffing landscape has changed. If you’d told me 25 years ago when I started that I’d have been on a dozen shows and run two of them, but still be specing? I’d have said that you were out of your mind. But that’s the level of grind the business is calling for right now. And I’m fortunate to still have a house to pay for and a kid to feed. I’m also aware of the tremendous luck it’s taken to hold onto my career this long. I do believe that luck = opportunity + preparation. The more prepared you are, the harder you work, the more likely it will be that the right opportunity presents itself to complete the equation and keep the lights on.
And as Aaron Sorkin used to say on the rough days at Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, “It beats digging ditches.” I still do this because it’s fun, even when I’m writing scripts that don’t get the greenlight. I try to remember that doing a great job on a pilot that doesn’t get made keeps me in the conversation, because I’m still really good at this and I’m not ready to walk away.
(Side note: There is NO SHAME in walking away. The whole point of getting into this business instead of selling real estate or pharmaceuticals is that it’s supposed to bring us some joy. If it’s no longer bringing you joy, look for something that does and get the hell out. That’s not failure. That’s sanity. Your mental health matters.)
#2 — THE HUSTLE
I’m pitching my fucking face off. In addition to the paid pilot I’m writing for a streamer, I have FIVE pitches of varying degrees of readiness in the works. It used to be that you could take a minute to breathe while you were writing a pilot. You just can’t anymore. We’re pitching to an industry that’s contracting, so we have to throw like a dozen pitches a year at the wall right now to sell just one. On my end, each is at least 10 pages single-spaced, each goes through multiple rounds of producer notes (while smiling!), each means another 50+ page deck. That’s the deal right now. Is it “fair?” Probably not. But it’s the market demand. It’s reality.
I’m also taking every general meeting that comes my way, and I’m following up with the executives in ways I haven’t since I was rookie. I’m constantly reaching out to old colleagues and checking in. I’m working with lots of partners too, because that increases the number of projects that have a chance of going.
I also consult and teach in several places on the side, which isn’t really how I’m paying the bills, but does keep me connected to the greater creative community, and to people who keep my neuropathways alive.
#3 — THE WORK I OWN
In addition to writing poetry and a novel (which isn’t done), I decided it was time to, as they used to say, “own the negative.”
Two years ago, my partner (in love and work) James Takata and I decided we had a story we wanted to tell — two single parents, descendants of concentration camp survivors, reckon with inherited trauma and bring their children to Isamu Noguchi’s sculpture garden in Costa Mesa, to reckon with their past. We didn’t have a studio. We didn’t have a greenlight. We had each other, a network of colleagues who believed in the project, and a crowdfunding campaign.
We crowdfunded $150,000. We shot in 10 days.
I want to be honest about what that actually means. $150K might sound like real money, but it basically covered food, some transportation, and putting the crew up in hotels for four days in Costa Mesa because we didn’t want them to be exhausted and crash into a divider on the freeway. The film only happened because of every favor we’ve ever been owed, every actor who showed up for low budget scale because they believed in the story. It also cost us in ways that don’t show up on a budget — in sleep, in anxiety, in the specific terror of being responsible for other people’s time and energy when the margin for error is essentially zero.
California Scenario premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. It received an ADL nomination, a Human Rights Watch designation, and we are partnered with The Mental Health Storytelling Initiative. Brooklynn Prince just won Best Supporting Actress at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. And we are talking to distributors. Holy crap.
Here’s what it proved to me, viscerally, in a way that no amount of college-level econ, or industry analysis could: so much talent is still here. When that crew actually showed up on day one, working for points and a sandwich, I understood something I’d known intellectually but hadn’t felt in my bones. The contraction hasn’t touched the passion. That passion produced a truly lovely movie owned entirely by the people who made it. Nobody gave any of us permission and nobody can take it away. I truly believe that’s our future. This movie, and that future, belongs to all of us.
IN ANY CASE…
Holding all three of these simultaneously is not a balanced, zen, “portfolio career” situation. I’m also a single mom of a very strong-willed 14-year-old young woman. It’s exhausting. Some days I don’t know which version of myself I even am anymore. I do it anyway, because the alternative is waiting for the industry to stabilize and hand me something, which is wishful thinking. I’m dreamer, but I’m a pragmatic fucking dreamer. And pragmatic fucking dreamers are gonna own this next chapter.