Just as with any career or business, especially when you're talking about the entertainment industry, even if you're outstanding at whatever it is that you do the hardest part of getting going is actually getting going; getting people to know that you're there, and getting them to buy into what you're trying to do. The money we're offering is nothing more than a small incentive to get people moving, and get them doing what they should be doing all the time anyway if they hope to have any sort of career in this, and that's to keep working on their craft, and to keep trying to get people to know about it.
A while back when I had come out with my first book, Ross Richie of Boom Studios, one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, gave me a ton of advice (which he didn't have to do), and now that I'm right in the thick of trying to carve out my own little niche in the business, every single word that he spoke has manifested into a truth, an understanding, that's almost as visual as the comics that he publishes. That's how well I can see it in front of me. What was at the heart of his message? "Write, write, write, write, write."
You're the man now dawg!
As Sean Connery put it in the film Finding Forester, "The business of a writer is to write". You have to do it constantly. And you have to do everything you can to try to get whatever it is that you write out to as many people as you can, and then maybe, just maybe, someone may actually start paying you to do it. And that can take years. And years. And years.
You’re the best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
But us writers are an odd group. Every one of us has this arrogance, thinks we're the best around, while at the same exact time we are our own worst critics, scared to death that we're trash, that our work is garbage. We think that we should get paid for every single thing that we do, and good money, even if no one has ever heard of us before. Yet when it comes to throwing ourselves on the altar, entering contests, submitting to editors, publishers, etc..... we're terrified of that ever present horror.... REJECTION. God forbid someone doesn't like our work.
God Forbid!
And so, just as with any business just starting out, its hard to get people to sign on, hence the contest. Now, some people won't think the prize is enough, that they're above the contest, while others who want to enter are too scared that they'll somehow get embarrassed. And their entire attitude can go either way, it all depends on whether or not they think John LaSota, or any of the other members of The Mad Doser Presents, is a good writer, or if they think that the website looks cool enough, or professional enough.
Kate Upton - Sports Illustrated 2013
Shameless SEO ploy? You betcha kiddo!
In social dynamics we call that Social Proof, and any man who's ever walked into a bar with a beautiful friend and had an easier time meeting other girls because of it, or any woman who's seen some momo out in the club with a woman way out of his league and caught herself thinking "I wonder what he's got, what's so great about him, that SHE would be interested" knows exactly what I mean. Its exactly that social proof, precisely that, which makes you a star. The only evidence you need to show you this is Kim Kardasian. Exactly what is it that she does? Yet she's HUGE, and I don't just mean her backside.
Kim Kardashian's Butt
Hemingway believed that this arrogance was essential to a writer, that you believe that your ideas are the BEST ideas, and what is a writer but a person who uses words to get their ideas across? In truth, according to every principal of success, that belief that you ARE the best is essential to ANY career. After all, who's going to believe in your abilities, think you're good in anything, if you don't believe it yourself? Make no mistake, that energy comes through in your work, in every thing that you do, and the people you're trying to connect with read it every bit as much as they do the words off the page.
But what good is that confidence if you're too good to show it to anyone? How do you ever get that social proof if you never actually show off what you do? As good as you may think you are, you're not better than Shakespeare, or Hemingway, or Vonnegut, Twain, Dickens, and the list goes on and on. Maybe you're just as good, but how do I know unless you show me? The world is full of people who know so much, who feel they're so great, that they look down and put down everyone and everything else. It's easy to do while you're sitting on the sidelines, unwilling to put yourself to the very same test. Invariably, 5-10-15 years later, those people are still doing the exact same thing they're doing now; nothing. They go on to lead completely unremarkable lives, ultimately doomed to become as insignificant as they claim others work and lives to be.
Classic Author Iceberg Slim
And the same is true of those timid souls too afraid to lean themselves over the block. No one is ever going to give you anything in this world, you have to take it. Just for this very contest someone admitted to being scared of what I may think of their work, and it was brilliant. They did everything perfectly, the way a story is supposed to be told. But how would they have ever known that if they hadn't thrown themselves into the fray? They wouldn't. We read and write and fantasize about heroes and heroines all the time, but wouldn't you want to be the hero of your own story? Why would you want it any other way? As the great John Wayne once said, "Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway." And he would know. He eluded the KGB. Twice!
If you're that good of a writer, then why don't you put your mouth where your pen is? And if you'd like to be, but are afraid of the threats of the unknown, start learning to attack your fears. Either way, get up off the bench, get off the sideline, and get in the game! You don't score until you score! And you can't score from the bench. Even if it's not our contest, even if The Mad Doser Presents isn't for you, there's something out there that is.
Stifler
So spread the word and encourage people. I'm all about helping people get to where they want to go. At the end of the day, your support system is everything when it comes to success. That's the entire concept behind what we're trying to do.
Don't take my word for it though, listen to the ultimate doer, a man who knew everything there was to know about over coming obstacles, and did it so brilliantly that they carved him into the side of a mountain....
Mt. Rushmore
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt
You called down the Thunder!
Kurt Russell - Tombstone
"Get in the fight or get out of the way!"
In other words, as Ross Richie once told me, "Write, write, write, write, write.", without worrying yourself about how much or how long it will take. After all.... Stan Lee didn't come up with Spiderman until he was 40 years old.
Later People!
Stan Lee - Spiderman
In other words, as Ross Richie once told me, "Write, write, write, write, write.", without worrying yourself about how much or how long it will take. After all.... Stan Lee didn't come up with Spiderman until he was 40 years old.
Later People!
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