Why Do I Bother?

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.