(Note that I'm defining 'making it' as 'being able to just about pay the mortgage eleven months out of twelve AND THAT'S NOT BAD)
Loved this bit of advice from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for parents whose kids have come home to roost:
"Yes, some people will make it as actors and scriptwriters, but many just waste away the years."
Full article here
Thing is, of course, sitting about on your arse all day is perfect training for career in writing scripts (less so for acting, sadly). Further useful skills you could learn in this valuable period:
1. Sighing heavily.
2. Looking things up on Wikipedia, getting distracted, finding yourself spending an entire afternoon on the history of Transformers.
3. Trying various condiment combinations for toast (peanut butter plus brown sauce = yes, cheese, marmite and sliced raw onion also = yes, but with repercussions).
4. Watching a lot of Lady Gaga videos, and starting to think she really might be a lot smarter than that Poker Face song initially suggested.
5. More sighing.
6. Buying stationery, until you have an entire shelf of A4 notebooks, all of which have only the first three pages written in, but which can't be thrown out, because there's also some AMAZING D&D maps scribbled in one, can't remember which.
7. Looking for spare change down the back of the sofa.
8 comments:
And claiming "no, I can't get a proper job until that person gets back to me about that scriptwriting work he said he'd give me. Decorum states I can only email him once a month". I like the idea that waiting for time to pass is actually an efficient way to pass the... the time.
Sitting about on your arse all day is good training for acting if your ambition is to land a major role in the Royle Family.
So all I need is the mortgage and a liking for marmite and I too can write for Shaun The Sheep?
There has to be more to it than that. Hmmm.
I don't live in the UK but I too have just moved back to the parental home, where they now have to spend money to redecorate my room because I can no longer fit into the kiddy loft bed I used to have. I have more or less already mastered #1, #2 and #6, so I think I am on a good start.
It occurs to me that if a generation aspiring young scriptwriters *are* deterred by HM Government, all it would take is a series of "there can be only one" Highlander-style swordfights among all the remaining scriptwriters then you (assuming you would win - this is your blog, after all) could usher in a brave new era of Eighteenth century set, fantasy-inflected zombie comedy.
Hmm?
Nanga, please sign this piece of paper affirming that the "Eighteenth century set fantasy-inflected zombie comedy" was not originated by you nor do you have any legal rights pertaining to or obtaining in its development and will have no profit share or ongoing involvement when it sells to HBO/Fox/NBC (OR ANY OTHER MEDIA NOT YET DEVISED IN THE UNIVERSE SPACE HISTORY ANYWHERE) for $1,000,000,000,000,000,000.00
Kthxbai.
Unfortunately I seem to have mislaid my pen.
wv = mingsho; Chinese ceramics exhibition
Curses! Foiled again!
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