Every time I’m left without a job I make the few calls or send the customary messages to let people know that yours truly is available for screenwriting comissions, staff writing or, actually, any other related task involving pecuniary return. I can’t say it is a heavy enterprise, particularly to those who, like me, possess the social agenda of a Moai. As a matter of fact,the fact that it is a short task explains its being sounrewarding. Indeed, those who know you and wants to hire you will call you no matter if you’re available or not. However, one tends to apply the player’s logic for buying a lottery ticket: “What if it’s the winning number?”

When this is done, there is only one thing left to do, and it is no other than starting to write. Write what? A personal project or a project that might attract producer’s attention? Beep! Trick question. They always end up being the same.

The thing is, periodically, our media culture praises entrepeneurship in an unconditional manner. It is a side effect to capitalism, which in meager periods finds an example to follow in that selfmade  businessperson who achieves success because he takes risks and invests in his revolutionary idea. Now, in a country like Spain, where that spirit has always been embodied by your typical opportunist that makes a fortune in a real state scam, or the relative who sets up a café or restaurant, I can’t deny that a young person who creates their own startup and makes it to Sillicon Valley deserves admiration. That we also grasp that there is no place in the market for everyone, and for a few to have success many have to slam their heads against the wall of failure -and sometimes even mockery-, doesn’t mean that this isn’t a recurrent deed.

But when it comes to talk about entrepreneurs there is something that is never or very rarely mentioned. There are already some professions made up almost entirely by entrepreneurs. Screenwriters belong to this group. All of us who write for the media have to recreate and sell ourselves without any guarantees. Evidence of this are the thousands of projects in drawers that are never going to see the light, and the invested hours that are never going to get payback.

This is why I have decided to pay hommage to myself and declare the Entrepreneurial Screenwriter’s Day. That’s me and the all the other screenwriters who whenever, willing or unwillingly, come across some time, they write away, one eye on the screen and the other on the phone.

So happy Entrepreneurial Screenwriter’s Day! Tomorrow I’m celebrating it again.