Checkpoint

In the beginning you can write whatever you want, you know? If it sounds good, fuck it. Let those words fly. Don't worry about what's commercial or interesting to other people, just write for you. It doesn't matter because nobody's buying this anyway.

But then you get tired of writing stuff that sucks so you say to yourself, "Self, write something good," and then you do. And so what if it's not the most original idea? And so what if the budget is ridiculously huge in a genre such as zombie films with their tiny little budgets? This script shows what you can do as a writer. Everybody says so.

But people sort of wish you had something a little more original. So you say to yourself, "Self, write something really original. But still good." And you go off an put together such genre twisting elements you're just pleased as punch at the glorious piece you've concocted. Nobody has ever written anything this bold and daring in the action genre, surely the world will be clamoring for your marvelous new script.

Then your manager points out that you have written a martial arts period piece starring a woman in an inter-racial relationship who fights on the side of the Confederacy. Not what the boys are clamoring for on the studio lots. Do you pull it off? Heck yeah. Will anybody buy it? Only if they're super duper awesome. But do you really need a second writing sample? Not really.

So then you say to yourself, "Self, perhaps it's time to write something someone will want to make," and you set to work on that modern-day chase story that can be made for a low budget and a high star power and appeals to everybody. And you hope your manager doesn't give up on you before you finish.