Use Your Fears to Propel Your Writing and Your Screenwriting Career
My name is Jeanne Veillette Bowerman, and I’m a recovered insecureaholic. Sure, I’m also Script Mag’s editor, but I wasn’t always the confidant woman who brings you “Balls of Steel” each week. In truth, I spent the beginning of my screenwriting career fearful of change. Fearful of failure. Fearful of rejection. Maybe even a little fearful of success. The fear I felt as I stepped onto a plane for my first trip to L.A. and my very first pitching event was nothing short of paralyzing.
Every screenplay writer has an insecure side to them, wondering if our work is good enough or if we have what it takes to get screenwriting jobs. Believe me, I have met many pro writers who admit to me still having moments of doubting themselves. It’s human nature, especially for artists.
You are no different than any other screenwriter. If they did it, why can’t you?
Want to know a secret? When I was at Cornell, I wasn’t studying to be a screenwriter. I was at the School of Hotel Administration, mastering the art of running a restaurant and hotel. While taking one of my two required writing classes, my professor took me aside and told me, under no uncertain terms, he believed I was born to write and insisted I change my major. Know what I said to him? “Who would ever want to read anything I wrote?” And I promptly went back to my life as a Hotelie, even though I knew in my heart I was making the biggest mistake of my life.It took me twenty years to find the confidence to write; twenty years I can never get back. Ever. I let fear take over and keep me from pursuing a career I was drawn to. If I could only go back and show that insecure, 19-year-old girl a crystal ball, she’d see how much she could, and would, accomplish once she learned to believe in herself.
I don’t want you to waste one more minute sitting in fear.
I could write column after column about my path to becoming a scriptwriter, but I feel nothing could speak more to you than a personal video of my own journey giving up fear. Just me and you. Sitting together in my living room, talking about script writing and pursuing a screenwriting career by overcoming insecurities. I don’t want you to waste one more minute sitting in fear. Please allow me eight minutes of your time and see if I can help you get to the next level in your dream of being a successful screenwriter. Your career is worth eight minutes, isn’t it? I’m thinking it is.
Watch our free Control Fear; Just Write video on how I learned to manage my writing fears. I’ll share with you the life-changing experience that propelled me past fear and onto a path of personal growth, acceptance, and conviction in finding screenwriting success. I want to share with you how simple it is to master fear. Maybe I’ll even find that professor and send him the link too.