“The Good News and The Bad News”
Satire by Mort Laitner— Written at the behest of Valerie Penny
Most writers and many people with a book buried deep beneath their gut have a least these three long-shot dreams.
For those of you interested in knowing if you are one of these gut people just ask yourself, “Have you ever said,
‘I am going to write my story and it is going to sell a million copies.'” If you are, keep reading.
Well, here’s my author’s dream list:
- Seeing your written artistry made into a film;
- Going to the film festival in which your film is competing;
- Holding an award in front of a large audience, including those you love, for having written the book that became the movie.
Most writers know that the odds of these dreams becoming a reality are close to zero.
That for their fantasy to happen, the writer must be very lucky, or the very rich or the very talented. If by chance you have all three of these qualities, read no more, this article does not apply to you.
Reality check: You have a better shot of winning the lottery (14,000,000 to 1) than having your book being made into a movie and walking home with a trophy.
You may ask, how did he derive these numbers?
Well, this scientific calculation is based on the person who still hasn’t written the first word of his or her book and I think Donald Trump mentioned it during one of the Republican debates.
For the truly interested, you multiply: all adult Americans that are not illiterate (Google it) by the number of books published each year by the number of film festivals held yearly by the number of awards given and low and behold it turns out the number is 14,000,000 to 1.
Now for the encouraging news.
There are many low-budget film production crews and casts begging for work.
There are film festivals for almost every subject known to mankind.
For a low or no fee you can enter the festival and somebody has to be selected to compete and somebody has to win.
Why not you.
