Who cares how many other people are writing screenplays?

I joined a new TV writing group recently. Great group of women. Yes, it's also an all-women writing group, which I'm digging. Nothing against men. But it's fun surrounding yourself by other talented female writers. So a couple are kind of new to the TV world. You could say younger than me. No, I won't tell you by how much! More than one year and less than 100. But what I can tell you, is these gals tend to go to a lot of writing events. Something I've stopped going to because I feel it just takes away from actual writing. But they're single, no kids, unlike me, so have much more time on their hands. But part of the other problem with going to these kinds of events is you see how many other people are out there trying to do what you're trying to do; Attempting to make a career out of something you want to do. Something you've been told could be hard to actually become a paid one of.

So one of the gals said she got really intimidated by seeing how many other writers were there. The others didn't speak up but had that "Oh yes, I was panicking" look on their faces. Luckily, I've been down this path before her and reminded her/them, "Don't worry, most of these people won't finish a first script. And out of those, most won't do a rewrite. And guess how many won't write script #2. Won't keep at it after a year. Won't keep at it after two!" The thing is, most people that are trying to be real, paid writers, are few and far between. Okay yes, many are very talented and hard-working writers and for some reason their careers don't take off. But many of them, most of them, just don't have what it takes to really become a paid writer. So you can either let the amount of people that are also trying to get their writing career launched intimidate you, or you can remember that most of them are just pretending to be writers. That's how I see it. Because if you really love writing, really want a career in this, nothing like too many other writers, should get in your way. Because I also preach "our thoughts create reality". And if you believe it, it will happen. And that's something most other writers don't have either.