Operation Achieve Anything: Day Eighty-Nine, Dateline 3-30-2018
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“It took me twenty years to become an overnight success.”
Hey Crickets!!! How are things going for you on this fine Friday? It’s day number eighty-nine of Operation Achieve Anything and day number four of the Achieve Anything… book’s current eight-day collection of assignments that focus on the general concept of success while providing simple tasks to get the reader to start traveling down the right roads.
Yesterday's assignment was a super simple one with the lesson of the day being that a major step towards success is to simply show up and put in the effort while you’re there. I feel that I fulfill this assignment in the way that I’ve been committed to giving this blog my all while posting at least once a day going back almost five years, despite not getting much more out of my efforts than the learning experience and joy from doing what I love.
Even back in the day when I worked nine-to-five jobs that I couldn’t stand, I always showed up and did the best that I could. Part of this had to do with my own pride in what I do once I’ve started something, but mainly, I did my best to both reassure that I always got the maximum raise that I could while at the same time show that I’m competent enough to work without any supervision.
In fact, this is how I got into working in the film industry. While I was on the set of a short film that I wrote, one of the producers was impressed by how committed to the project I was as I hung out to watch the filming and help where ever I could, even though my part in the project was over. Because of this, she hired me on to be an assistant director in one of her short films.
Granted, this assistant director role for a first-time crew member, who only studied writing while in film school, and who had never had an interest in the movie making side of the craft, may have been a huge mistake, especially looking back and seeing how horrible I did at the job. My saving grace was that it was a nice enough crew that whenever I explained how I got the job everyone was instantly understanding and helped me fulfill my job, even though I’m sure they all called me an idiot behind my back since knowing what I know now, I would have done so as well.
The fact that I gave it my all even though I had no idea what I was doing, must have stood out to someone because it landed me other crew gigs. Granted, I didn’t do much more assistant directing in my filmmaking career, but I was then brought on as a production assistant for a film where they sent me to the lighting department because I am so tall and could adjust things without needing a ladder. My height mixed with my willingness to learn eventually allowed me to escape the nine-to-five world and work doing something I was actually proud of for a few years.
Unfortunately, even though I loved the people I met and worked with, and had a real good time helping other’s with their passion projects, I never felt like a true filmmaker at heart, so as my experience grew and I started to land bigger projects, I started to lose interest as this once collaborative venture started to feel like a job which was a realization that became super depressing to me.
Before I joined the union, everyone, including me, seemed to all love what they were doing but the bigger the projects got, and the more money got involved, the magic of working in the arts started to dissipate as more people seemed to just be in it for the paycheck. It also got rough as people who used to be very supportive when working together on microbudget films, started to get way more cutthroat in order to show their value over yours for any potential higher paying projects in the future.
To add to the struggles that led me to quit, working in the industry led me to lose my love of film. First, the decades I spent honing my screenwriting skills led me to see nothing but the generic structure of everyone Hollywood story to where everything became too predictable to truly enjoy. Then, if seeing the writer behind the curtain wasn’t bad enough, learning the filmmaking side completely killed what was left of any movie magic as I could no longer watch a scene without picturing all of the hours that go into each minute on the screen.
I never wanted to be the magician, I just wanted to be the one to suggest the tricks to be filmed. Before I ever worked in film, I always fantasized about being a screenwriter who would just hand of his scripts to people I trust and then let them run with it so that I could enjoy the collaborative interpretation of my work, kind of like an architect who’s never hit a nail. This made it easier for me to walk away from the field when I stopped getting what I needed from the life experience, but I gave it my all the whole time.
I think this more than fulfills the needs to meet yesterday’s assignment since even to this day, I always show up when it comes to working toward my goals, I just lack the ability and interest in working on tasks that make my craft more like a business to me. As I said yesterday, this is why I’m extremely patient and willing to wait while constantly trying to find the holes that would allow me to make it on my own terms.
This actually leads right into today's assignment about how success does require some time. The quote of the day above about it taking twenty years to become an overnight success, that’s supposed to be used for my reference, actually allows ten extra years before you have to find a new way to defend the fact that you’re a failure because, I’ve always lived by the adage of “It takes ten years to become an overnight success,” which I’m sure is a bastardized version of the quote from this lesson. I’m just pointing this out because, in this case, I have evidence that I’m ahead of the game since the “ten-years” quote has been on the bottom of my homepage ever since I started this blog.
I’ll go into this more as I explore today’s assignment further when I check in with tomorrow’s update. Until then, it’s now that point where I wrap this post as usual by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects!!!
Talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
The Wicker Breaker
P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.
