It’s not the years, honey…

Alex Epstein, answering a question posed by a 38-year-old aspiring screenwriter, makes a good point:

Talent will make its way in, but it takes time. You have to be willing to give yourself the time and effort to work your way in. That’s a combination of craft, talent, perserverence and being ready for your break. So long as you’re willing to be treated the same as a 23-year-old baby writer, there shouldn’t be a problem. I think most of Hollywood’s so-called “ageism” is really inside the writers who claim to be discriminated against — they don’t want to suck up the disrespect Ho’wood dishes out, or they don’t want to write what 18-year-olds want to watch. 

 As Indiana Jones once said, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage. ”

Author: Web full of amateurs

The author of a new book called “The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture” is taking aim at bloggers. According to a Reuters report, Andrew Keen, founder of Audiocafe, asserts that the Web is populated by “exuberant monkeys” who are “creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity.”

I don’t entirely agree with Keen’s assessment, but he is certainly right about the mediocrity. There are many bloggers out there spinning lies and spreading juvenile gossip. I believe, however, that the blogosphere is able to weed out the crap and uncover the good stuff. Just as there are awful movies, awful books, and awful TV shows, there will be awful blogs.

But what exactly makes a good blog? It’s debatable. Popular gossip rags like defamer.com and perezhilton.com are clearly spun by amateurs with sub-par writing skills, yet thousands of users click on them each day. It’s doubtful that Keen’s own blog has as much readership as those two sites.

What bothers me isn’t his opinion that the blogosophere is full of amateurs. It’s that he seems to believe he’s some sort of superior intellectual. Still, there’s no denying that his concerns are worthy of discussion. Who knows if it will change Web media in any significant way. If you think about it, Keen is simply taking action towards what every blogger really wants: lots of attention.

The Beginning

This blog will chronicle my adventures in writing, but mostly it will be about what it takes to succeed in this world: hard work, talent, and perseverance. I can’t deny that it has been a constant struggle. So, essentially, this is also sort of my own “self-help” blog, a way for me to overcome my fears and weaknesses, as well as a way to connect with other people who are dealing with similar issues.

I also want this blog to be about more than that. Many of us in our twenties are still trying to figure who we are and what we want to do with our lives — and that’s okay. This is a time for discovery. But I have witnessed friends and acquaintances being oppressed by the weight of their own self-created agonies. I’ve been one of those people. Sometimes I think I still I am. But we have to learn from our failures and not repeat the same mistakes.

Alice W. Flaherty, author of “The Midnight Disease,” said that “the goal should not be to protect ourselves from suffering, but to be strong enough to bear it.” I agree.