“Freelance Hack and Literary Mechanic”

Early in my career, I was doing a book signing at Dangerous Visions book store. A writer in his 50’s but prematurely aged came in, and gave me his card. It read “freelance hack and literary mechanic.” He was dead of alcoholism within a year.

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Someone questioned whether there is any measure of success in Hollywood other than money. The answer is: “yes.” One might say it is the most common measure. I think an excellent argument can be made for that. But it is NOT the only measure, nor does everyone agree it is the most important.

For an accountant? Sure. In fact, the more “Left brained” you are, the more likely you might be to seek out some such objective measure. So the executive class would likely lean in that direction. But even then, there are plenty of Hollywood executives who LOVE making movies, and would refuse a larger paycheck doing something else. This is their bliss.

But artists? Actors, directors, composers, art directors, costumers and so forth? Well, how did THEY end up in Hollywood? I have a suspicion that you could diagram the two groups in a manner similar to this:

Left-Brained: Executives, Accountants, Producers. They looked for “where can I earn $$? And out of those arenas, which one would be the most fun/satisfying?”

Right-Brained: Artists, writers, actors, musicians, etc. They looked for “what is the most satisfying emotional expression? How can I monetize it?”