Sitting down with Carlos Anderson, screenwriter and novelist from Los Angeles, I got a glimpse into the world of which Carlos was a part of and one that I am so far removed from.
Hollywood.
But the story isn’t about making it in Hollywood. Instead, it’s about the journey that took him from his island home of Guam with 170,000 people to Los Angeles, the show-biz capital of the world.
Since our youthful days as high schoolers, I’ve always been amazed by Carlos’s aptitude for writing. His dreams were even humble as a seventeen-year-old; fame and fortune were far removed from the center of it. Instead, it was to make a living as a writer using his clever wit and artistry, channeling it into producing shows and movies he solely believed in.
Shortly after high school, he found himself enrolled at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. A southern state where he felt very much excluded and isolated – where his colleagues had a path readily paved out for them. They were to work toward taking over the family business or pursue traditional high-paying jobs, while he was to create worlds and storylines curated from his imagination.
I proceeded to ask him why he had made such a bold move. Most of our peers had chosen western or eastern states to go to college – from the coastal tips of Seattle and California to New York and DC. So, why North Carolina?
“I wanted to try something different”
This has always stayed true to Carlos’s north – presenting him with unpaved paths and roads, which I believed to have lesser footprints. After graduating with a degree in Philosophy, he moved to South Carolina and picked up a job as a server.
“One day, I woke up with a hangover, and I thought to myself – what the hell am I doing here? So I told myself, however much money I have in the bank, I’m going to drive to LA, and I’m going to make it work.”
Two weeks later, he set off solo to LA with no permanent place to stay. For about a year, Carlos lived in his car, jumped in and out of gym showers, and worked as a door-to-door salesman while attending a screenwriting fellowship which he was accepted to.
Despite the overly competitive industry and “almost pilots” and “maybes” he’s received from producers, he has completed three full-length novels and written over 20 scripts.
As a writer, rejection is nothing new. Our skin becomes callus from the streamline of rejections, but it takes someone with a deeply ingrained why to be able to continue creating.
With any dream, perseverance plays a huge role, while trust comes to a close second. To make anything work, one must keep going – even if it means driving at night without headlights knowing you’ll eventually reach your destination.
“So even through all of that, you still want to be a writer?” I ask him.
“Yeah, I do. I’ve had hard years writing where I had very powerful self-doubt. Then I eventually thought, well, I’m going to keep writing. For better or for worse. We’ll see what happens.”