Confidence
Well, I finished the Preston Sturges tonight. In the process, during a couple of breaks from reading, I tinkered with my own magnum opus, making some needed changes to the passage about an emotional meltdown the hero suffers just before the end of the book.
The Sturges book was fascinating, even if it does give short shrift to the very classic films one wants to hear the most about. (I imagine that Sturges, while directing, had a lot less time to journal.) One interesting thing about Sturges is his blithe self-confidence, and how he used it to establish himself as a playwright, and then a screenwriter, and then (after many setbacks) fulfilled what has now become a cliche: “But what I really want to do is direct.” Meanwhile, he’s trying to run a restaurant and an industrial concern to sell a diesel engine of his own invention! Sturges had plenty of financial setbacks in his life, going, if not from rags to riches, than at least from the prospect of rags to riches and back, several times. But he always believed in his own potential.
I think I may need to summon up a little of Sturges’ hubris to bring this book to completion and see it published.
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