The state of the entertainment industry could drive even the most passionate writer to hang up the quill.
Of the tens of thousands of spec scripts written every year, only a handful are ever optioned or financed. Even fewer end up on the big screen. Of those, most are written by established writers, not unestablished or new writers.
So, why bother?
Well, here’s the brutal truth — if writing is your passion, you should quit. But that’s just it, isn’t it?
Writing ISN’T a passion.
It’s a compulsion.
I don’t write because I love writing. Truth is, I hate the act of writing. It keeps me up at night. Tortures me. Makes me feel like shit about myself. Word after word. Arc after arc. Draft after draft. Some of my scripts have taken me years to finish.
Not complete — but finish. Because we all know that a script is never complete, but at some point, it has to be finished.
If we’re being honest, I’d say that I tend to choose projects that require copious amounts of research because doing the research is a good way of kicking the writing can down the road.
However, I’ve still managed to stack some successes over the years.
I made the semifinals in Nicholl. Made it on the Blacklist. Been repped by WME and UTA. I even sold a pitch and was paid to write the screenplay for it.
And yet, as of 2025, I’m working a full-time job as a non-writer, I’m unrepresented, and I’m still considered “unestablished”.
I SHOULD quit. But I can’t.
I’m still writing. Why? Compulsion.
The loop of despair is always the same — after I finish a screenplay, I’m crippled with anxiety for the entirety of the competition season. And as soon as Nicholl, Page, Austin, and Big Break announce their winners, the anxiety morphs into depression, and I swear I’ll never write another
script for the rest of my life. I tell myself, and anyone else who’ll listen, that the odds are simply stacked too high in favor of failure. That it’s just not worth the mental anguish.
And for a couple of weeks, I’m convinced that I’ve written my final word. But then something starts pecking away at me.
At night.
In the dark.
After everyone is asleep.
Like a really bad rip-off of a rip-off of Edgar Allan Poe.
I try to ignore it, but active avoidance only enhances the pecking.
Peck, peck, peck.
Night after sleepless night.
Until, finally, I succumb—
An idea.
And once that idea has burrowed its way into my head, I’m powerless to ignore it.
It must find its way to the page, regardless of any self-imposed retirement.
Because writing is a compulsion.
I have no power over the industry.
I have no power over the future of AI or streamers or theatrical releases or open writing assignments or whether an agent or manager is accepting new clients.
All I have is my compulsion.
So, either I can lean into it and keep creating, or I can push it away and hate myself for it. Maybe bitch and moan some more to my wife and friends about how unfair the industry is.
Fuck that!
Look, I tried my hand at acting for a while when I lived in LA, and you know what it took to call myself an actor? A headshot. That’s it. And for some reason, that was comforting. That headshot meant I was serious. I wasn’t a tourist. I was here to stay.
Acting might not have worked out, but at least I tried. And now I can pause Dodgeball on my closeup and show my kids that I was in a real-life movie. Their friends all think I’m the coolest dad in the neighborhood. And you know what — they’re right!
But writing is different.
As soon as I gave up acting for law school, I knew I was never really an actor.
But you know what I never stopped doing? In law school? Or as a professional? Or as a husband or a sleep-deprived father?
Writing.
Not because I didn’t want to. But because I couldn’t. Because it’s a compulsion.
As long as I’m creating, I’m a writer.
Industry be damned.
I’ve made my choice.
I’m leaning into the compulsion.
I hope you all do the same.
Comments
Great article, Matthew. Really enjoyed it.
I'm in kind of a similar position. I've been writing scripts for twenty years, on and off. Four options, had a few agents. Finally got a film produced - even more amazing, it turned out well - and....it still hasn't been released. Financier went bankrupt, stuck in a legal mire. But I'm still going and it's the same compulsion. I write novels too and I always go with the thing I want to do next. Like you, I have no choice!
Thanks for reading.
I’ve thought about converting some scripts into novels and self publishing on Amazon but the mediums are just too different. I’m awful at prose.
Do you self publish? Found any success in that lane?
I’m trying something else— reengineering scripts a bit and reading the aloud for my YouTube channel and as podcasts. Still recording my first— it’s harder than I thought to sit through 30 minutes of my own voice.
Matt
The mediums are indeed very different. I believe CJ has converted some of his. It's very difficult to make headway on Amazon these days; totally saturated with content.
I had six books published 'conventionally' but have also self-pubbed. You can get a good cover easily these days and formatting isn't too bad if you're techy. I'm not! I've sold fewer via that route but it's been okay. Audiobooks do well also.
Good call with Youtube.
Best of luck.
I also like your article, and I get the compulsion part. For me, it’s about catharsis. Scripts are where I dump my trash, my dreams and nightmares, my visions and the comedy of my existence. Whether they sell or get made and sit in a drawer doesn’t matter to me. It's the enema-type purge that counts. I don’t need Hollywood or any other validation to write; I write for sanity and entertainment. The page isn’t a prison; it’s a pressure valve, where I pop my cork!.
Everytime I drive past a convenience store, I wonder if I should stop and buy a Lotto ticket? Much like the lotto, writting spec is like throwing your time (and money) into an open slit trench.
Until someone comes up with a 12 step program, I'll likely type FADE IN one more time, when and if a pretty good idea pops into my head. Gawd help me.
"Hello, my name is so-and-so and I'm a spec writer..."
See— that’s what bothers me. Living with these ideas for years and then tucking them away in a drawer forever after the competition season passes.
Do any of you ever go back and revisit your old scripts? Ever consider reengineering them? My goal this year is to find a way to give all my old scripts a second life, which is why I’m trying this read aloud thing.
If I can figure out how to record them in a way that doesn’t make me fall asleep, I think that’s the answer.
What are your thoughts?
I read my scripts using the SPEECH function on my iMac. I'm dyslexic and find this useful.
Re-worked? Sure. Scripts are never finished. They all can be tweaked and polished.
I personally think everyone slams into the Why Do I Bother? wall sooner or later. I've hit it and bounced off more than once. Bottom line, if you enjoy to write, write. If your obsession, compulsion or disorder is unrewarded (remains unmonotized), why not keep on writing as a guillty pleasure...one hundred years from now, who'll notice?
I'm not really sure why I bother writing screenplays. Perhaps it's a compulsion (like Nick) or cathartic (like Anthony) I suspect it's an addiction (like John I play the lottery) but I've never considered converting them into novels (like you Matthew) because why double failure. My stuff hasn't been close to a sale or an option and rarely garners any reads so who'd want to represent me?
If all this sounds defeatist it isn't. I take it all with a grain of salt (except for the lottery bit. That I'm deadly serious about and have been for years)
Thanks for blogging y'all.
Elizabeth
I have OCD and because of this, I get worried about every detail of my scripts. Short scripts are okay but I have a compulsion to look through every word of 80 to 90 pages while at the same time, the back of my mind keeps saying something along the lines of "What's the point? Anybody who cares is unavailable and anybody who's available doesn't care".
I don't hate writing. I hate trying to sell the writing. When I'm fired up to write a story, it's a wonderful feeling. Trying to get other people to even read a story, never mind become invested in it, is a whole different problem.
Competitions in particular are terrifying. I stopped doing them altogether for years and only entered the InkTip one because I got a free entry from being a pro member. Deadlines alone make me feel incredibly anxious, never mind the extremely low chances of the script getting picked up.
I think many people suffer from the Procrastination - Perfectionism cycle. I don't have OCD (well I think I don't), but sometimes a lack of success helps perpetuate that feeling. Struggling to get started because I fear I can't hit the standard. Endless Revisionsdesparately trying to achieve perfection, and delaying finishing. Viewing the script as either perfect or a failure and leading to another disapointment. IT's all their when you choose to write. For me,
I have had several scripts close to being green-lit... But they didn't. The frustration and defeated feelings - Suck!
I've produced a few myself, not as satisfying, but at least they got made. As I wrote earlier, I realise I can't stop myself writing, despite the pain it is fun. Over the years, I have come to realise that the reason I don't hit people anymore (other than getting older) is I channel my frustrations and anger into writing.
And the Goal is to aim for 'good enough' standards instead of perfection. I often revist scripts on a wet winter afternoon and rewrite them before placing them back on the metephorical bookshelf.
All the best to you Thomas.
Anthony
Writing: File under Recreational Suffering.
There’s a difference between writing for competition and writing for pleasure.
If you’re new or unestablished, I think you have to write to advance in competition. It’s still the best way to get represented without having contacts in the industry.
Unfortunately, if you’ve had any amount of success in the past, like me— not a brag… more of a complaint— then you’re automatically ineligible for most of the big comps.
So what then?
For me, it’s only writing when I can’t convince myself not to (that’s the compulsion). Between fits of writing, I’ll keep working on adapting my older scripts into narrative podcasts.
Curious about people’s thoughts on this… I’m recording every line of my reading myself but am considering using ElevenLabs to change my voice for different characters. Still my performance, but it makes the girls sound like girls and the old men sound like old men, etc…
Do you consider that generative AI or an acceptable way to use AI as a tool?
Being a late, late bloomer, there hasn't been enough time for the writing compulsion to drive me completely nuts but having been a compulsive drinker years ago, I can see they are very much the same. After compulsive drinking came the horrendous hangovers. With writing, the hangovers start when I finish anything and start trying to sell it, compulsively. To offset this insane compulsion, I reread whatever I wrote and realize I wrote it because I really enjoyed telling myself the story. I can't say I don't get a killer hangover when I get rejected, but I tell myself those airhead readers just don't recognize talent.
William Douglas.
"I wrote it because I really enjoyed telling myself the story."
Well said and so true.
Fear Not. The way technology is going, we will soon be able to do our own animation and sound tracks for the screenplays we have already written. There will then be websites to post them on for sale. Genspark.ai already lets one generate 8 second videos with sound for free. You then use another program to splice them together (but I don't remember what it is).