Is it always this... [hard/slow/frustrating]?

Yes, it is.

Despite the sad headline, I got good news this week! In what has to be the fastest anyone has ever read a script I’ve sent them, the male lead I wrote about in last week’s “wish me luck” newsletter did in fact read the script and wants to talk! Genuinely exciting (and a little bit nerve-racking) news. We have yet to actually connect, but over the past week I’ve been daydreaming about how that conversation will go, and wondering what would be the best way to introduce myself and my project and my vision.

I ran into a neighbor while walking the dog recently [cute dog pic in 3-2-1] and was catching up with her about her recent career pivot from art director to VR / 3D artist and have been thinking about our conversation a lot over the past few days.

Mango on couch (2025)

After a complete life overhaul and a graduating from a brand new program to learn all the software and skills required, my neighbor is now a full-fledged digital artist. She’s working on a VR project (I don’t want to give any details away!) and currently in the process of refining a work sample so that she can show it to some producers, so that they can then convince people it’s a commercial enough idea to give them more money, so that they can then go make more of this project, and I was struck by the fact that… wait a minute! This is exactly the same process as putting together an original film.

First you put together your vision: a script, a deck or lookbook, a prospectus… and then you try to find partners who’d want to work with you on it (aka producers). Then, once you have those partners, you try to find money, and then, once you’ve run the frustrating development gauntlet, you get to go make the real thing. I found myself laughing as she described how frustrating and slow the process has been because… I felt keenly seen! Yes, it is frustrating! I agree!

The thing that really stuck with me though was that as an outside observer of my experience she seemed a bit surprised that I too was frustrated by the constant jockeying for attention / permission. To her, I'm someone who has written a couple of movies and TV shows and I think I exist in the category of “they’ve already made it, so it must be easy for them.” It’s easy to project the experience we would like to be having onto others without knowing what it’s really like.

But let me assure you, dear Hollyweirdos: there is no such thing as easy!

I’m guilty of it too! Comparing my difficult time getting something done to an imagined “easy” time someone else had with their thing. This comparison trap is an easy one to fall into. From the exterior we don’t get to see the many, many, many failed attempts and aborted starts, dead-ends and wrong turns that had to be navigated and overcome along the way. We only ever get to see the outcome. And, as much as we all want good outcomes, this is not an outcome oriented business. Because yes, Hollywood is a business, but it’s “show business.” At the end of the day we’re here making art. And art is at its core… about process.

Please allow me to remind you, even for “working” writers, the vast majority of the work is still convincing other people to let you work. And there isn’t really any shortcut to getting things done. See my list of “Things About Screenwriting I Wish I’d Known Sooner” for more insight into just what the process part of this career looks like.

I mentioned it in last week’s newsletter, but it’s been really illuminating (and a bit reassuring) to be reading Dunne’s The Studio, and see that everything that’s frustrating about making movies in 2025 was just as frustrating in the 60’s. This might just be… what it’s like! And so if you don’t at least get a little bit of a kick out of the strategizing and the constant revisions and the never-ending attempts to appease (or all-together avoid) gatekeepers, I have some bad news… it’s always like this. It’s always this frustrating/slow/hard. And even the people you most admire, the people you look at and think “Well they’re just preternaturally blessed with success” are just as overcome with self-doubt and frustration and angst over how to get the thing to happen, how to make the stars align, how to will something that didn’t used to exist into existing.

It’s a Herculean task, making movies, and I actually think it’s supposed to be this hard. If it weren’t, anybody could do it.

I’d love to hear from you, dear readers! What’s frustrating you lately as a writer / director / producer. I have a feeling that if people share what their unique challenges are… they’re actually thing’s we’re all currently facing. Let me/all of us know in the comments below.