Tuesday, December 23, 2008

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

-- Thomas Edison

Certainly, my career was in very poor shape in 1999. My parents kept banging away at me to go to law school, part time if necessary, or go back into computer science, and I always took the point of view that I would either continue hammering away at showbiz, or dump it and go full force into something else. No point in doing things halfsies.

Rather than do that, I got my permanent residence in Canada. And then I split up with my first wife. Either might have been responsible for putting me over the top. Emotionally I was in a rut. That couldn't have helped my writing. And I just wasn't making a dent in LA. I made the move out of logic and desperation. I wound up on a TV show within weeks of landing in Toronto, and it wasn't long before I was supporting myself writing.

I think the flip side of Mr. Edison's lovely sentiment is that you must give it everything you've got. You shouldn't quit before you've given it everything you've got. (Unless of course you decide you don't really want to do it that badly after all.) If you're holding anything back, then it's practically a guarantee that what you're holding back, is what's holding you back. 85% gets you nowhere in showbiz. 90% gets you treading water. You need to be at 95%+ to put you over the top. People see that commitment and they want to be part of it.

Hope you had a good year. Hope you have a better year next year.

Labels: perserverence makes honour bright

11:12 AM

3 Comments:

What a nice sentiment.

I'll never come up with anything that nice.

I give up.

By  DMc, at 1:29 PM  

I needed that.

By  THE FLEMINIST, at 3:33 PM  

Good timing

By  Monsterbeard, at 10:53 PM  

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