You WILL Get A Shot

I had a buddy back when I was an actor who booked a big guest starring role…strike that, a HUGE, recurring guest spot on a giant show at the time. And his character was instrumental to the show and to one of the series regulars’ life.

He pulled the role off beautifully and NBC called him in for a general meeting. Beyond the fact that the role was great, he shot it in November – which is *perfect* timing. Pilot season kicked into gear six weeks later with tons of roles for guys just like him. So the meeting with NBC was to discuss “finding a show for him”.

And what does my buddy do to leverage this momentum? He took a role in a low budget film shooting in China. In Chinese. For three months. That paid him next to nothing.

And indisputably slammed the momentum he had at NBC into a brick wall.

Now I’m all about flexing artistic muscles, but my buddy (let’s call him “Frasier”) had a giant opportunity, this was his “shot”, and he chose to let it slide by.

This post isn’t about recognizing and optimizing opportunities. What I always get out of this story is the fact that Frasier actually got his shot.

Which is my point: if you bust your ass and work on your craft consistently, you will be ready when the opportunity finally presents itself. I like to tell Frasier’s story because it’s startling how bad his choice was but there are also tons of positive stories, about artists seeing a chance and going for it.

And, of course, the most important thing is to be ready when it goes down. For writers, that means having some killer samples on the shelf when you inevitably hear “What do you have?” (or its close cousin, “What else do you have?”)

So even if you don’t see any opportunity on the horizon, take care of your future by working hard today. You never know when someone will decide it’s time to find a dream job for you.