Not so long ago I was at the London Comedy Writers Festival and as I sat near the front row of a packed auditorium awaiting keynote speaker Griff Rhys Jones to be welcomed onto the stage, I found myself questioning my faith. I know the odds of writing a script that will get optioned is slim, a script that I will get paid for slimmer and getting a script made… well you get the idea, but in my head I have faith that what I have written is gold. 300 other people in that room were probably thinking the same thing, we all had unquestionable faith in our scripts, but with the odds of success so high, as I sat there I thought either my faith is misplaced or there’s is.
This was the dilemma facing religions this week. Harold Camping and a handful of his followers (the secretary at Family Radio said she would be back at work on Monday and has continued to make appointments for even the most ardent church members) believed the rapture was going to happen on the 21st May 2011. Of course people joked, mocked and had fun with the improbability of the event happening on that date. However a Time magazine poll reveals that 59% of Americans actually believe the rapture is coming – you’re just stupid if you think it is on the 21st - even Harold Camping scoffed at people who think the world is going to in 2012 “That date has not one stitch of biblical authority. It’s like a fairy tale.“. In the lead up to the event dedicated followers sold their worldly goods to pay for billboards and travel the country spreading the word only to wake up on Sunday morning to find they had horribly misplaced their faith and instantly rejected their religion… or did they?
So let us exchange the doomsday predication for your script – the script that will make you famous and earn you millions. You have faith in the script and you just need someone to see the light. You put everything into the script, maybe quit your job, maybe spent out on Final Draft
and a script writing degree. You preached your gospel at networking events, did your mail outs to likely converts
Then the rejection letters come. You look at it and question… “I do not understand why… I do not understand why nothing has happened.” Maybe they didn’t get it, maybe they didn’t understand you vision or maybe you are wrong. Finally you give up on that script, “Obviously, I haven’t understood it correctly” you say. Then you have a choice…
Do you take the path of the followers of Samuel S. Snow, a preacher in the Millerite movement who predicted the end of the world in 1844. When it failed to happen, the followers disbanded following a slightly less risky faith instead.
Or do you go the route of Harold Camping who first predicated the end of the world would occur in 1994. When this failed to materialise, he didn’t blame God or his faith, he blamed his own errors and set a new date. On Sunday morning many of the followers of Harold Camping and Family Radio were far from giving up, the faithful regrouped and saw the rejection as a test from God.
Back at the London Comedy Writers Festival, 300 faithful sat, many prepared to throw everything at ensuring their faith was not misplaced. Rejection awaits every one of them and when it comes, will they pack up and leave or double down. It is a tough call – wannabe writers and doomsday predictors have a sad habit of dying before their faith is rewarded.
