As a Screenwriter Today You Must Diversify to Be Successful in This Economy

If you are reading the trades (Daily Variety, The Hollywood Reporter) I am sure you are reading about studios making less and less pictures and spending less and less money on those pictures.

So what can you do?

The only way to survive in this town is to diversify, diversify, diversify. Think of it like stocks — you want to be in as many businesses as possible because, in case something happens in one field, you have others to fall back on.

What this means as a writer is that you should be in as many different fields as possible (while still endeavoring to be great in all of them). Whether this is books, tv — half hour and hour, film, games, comic books, etc., the more fields you are in, the more stocks you have in different arenas that could pay off.

The other great thing about being in as many fields as possible is that  it will stretch your creative muscles.  You will be forced to be creative in ways that you might have not thought possible.

And that new creativity will flow through to all your other arenas.  It will make you a stronger writer in every other field you are in.