I'll never be like Lawrence Kasdan

There comes a moment in everyone’s career trajectory when they throw down their pencil or tennis racket and say: I’ll never be like Martina Navratilova, or I’ll never be like Lawrence Kasdan.

Well, that may be true, even if you are successful: those two have hit the pinnacle of stardom in their respective fields. Sure, they’re very good as reference points – waypoints through the stars at night. But the fact that you might not make those dizzy heights shouldn’t make you feel bad.

When I was training as an operatic tenor, my teacher used to say to me: you’ll never be as good as Carreras or Domingo or Pavarotti (let's be honest, who's ever going to be as good as Pavarotti?) because you don’t have a Top C. I had a lovely, resonant Top B, but that wouldn’t cut the mustard singing Verdi or Puccini. It was very frustrating. But, she said, there are other levels and other repertoires. I could have sung early Wagner or Britten or heavy Mozart. The point is, shit happens that is beyond your control and you have to cut the cloth to fit the garment.

If you are ever in the doldrums about being unlikely to reach the dizzy heights of your heroes, The Successity Blog asks you to bear the following in mind in the context of screenwriting:

· 100% of successful screenwriters at one point had never written a word

· 100% of successful screenwriters at one point hadn’t earned a penny from their writing.

So don’t be disheartened; cut your cloth but keep your dream.

Work your 10,000 apprenticeship and eventually magic may happen.