Cynicism is Creativity's Poison

Most newbie writers take their first steps on their career path brimming with optimism and ready to distill their experiences and perspectives into fine art. If a writer is successful and breaks into the industry, they believe it’s due to their prodigious talent. If they don’t, it obviously has nothing to do with them. It’s the broken industry filled with gatekeepers, tasteless hacks, and nepo babies who have blocked their rise to the top! This is where cynicism typically rears its ugly head.

Cynicism snuck up on me a few years ago. I was coming off an unsuccessful attempt to pitch a TV series and I heard about an acquaintance who won a coveted spot in a screenwriting fellowship. An acquaintance who, by my estimation, was less skilled and less experienced than I was. I wasn’t necessarily surprised at myself for having this thought. Envy and competitiveness practically come bundled with screenwriting software. But before, these thoughts were fleeting and quickly gave way to pride. I was always the loudest cheerleader for my writer friends. Except when this stopped being true. The years of fruitless meetings, coming up short in contests, and the weighty letters of the phrase “aspiring writer” on my back opened me up to feelings of cynicism and jealousy. It felt terrible. It was a heaviness in my body and a sluggishness in my brain. It came with its own brand of anxiety – cynicism masking feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy. It nearly snuffed out the flame of my creativity. 

I knew that I was at a pivotal moment in my writing journey.  Maybe it was inevitable for the glamor to wear off and for bitter feelings to occupy the heart of the beleaguered writer. But cynicism is a choice, not an inevitably. There’s an outcome beyond success or failure, but it requires a mindset shift. 

I’ve been writing for long enough that I’ve gone through several mindset changes about what I do and why I do it. Being successful is no longer my goal. That’s not to say that I don’t want to be successful or that I wouldn’t be thrilled to see something I wrote on screen; only that it’s not my raison d'être. The goal is simply to write a little every day because I love to do it. I want to improve, not to be better than anybody except myself from yesterday. I want to dream up incredible stories, not to entertain others but to delight the artist within me. I write because I enjoy doing it, and the enjoyment in the act is reason enough. Anything else that comes of it would be great, and I still pursue any worthwhile opportunity, but I’m good either way. It’s this detached, pseudo-mindful approach that’s allowed me to survive in this industry for so long, and it’s what, hopefully, will keep my fingers dancing across the keys for decades to come.