They call it a “big break,” but it is, in truth, more the culmination of a million tiny cracks that finally give way.

When I was nine years old, I handed my parents the synopsis of a then-unwritten book scrawled in my chaotic handwriting. I announced that I was going to write a novel and get it published. My parents believed me. I got to work.

Yet here she was, about to make the biggest pitch of her life: requesting a promotion to staff writer on the sixth and final season of a show some call the best on television.

I felt like a different person. I had grown as a writer. I had grown as an artist.

We all have the same $25, so why is my film not receiving accolades? It must be because I’m a failure as an artist and not because I didn’t get $20,000 worth of in-kind loans or volunteer labor offered by a cast and crew with expensive training and access to equipment.

After college, I worked as a freelance writer and editor, along with several other side gigs, including an ill-fated stint as a Hollywood apartment manager.

You may not have heard Brian Lynch’s name, but you definitely know his work. He’s one of the writers behind Hop, Puss in Boots, and Minions—the eleventh highest grossing animated movie of all time.

“There’s a specific flavor of darkness that only comes from an inner scream ..."

I asked if they would show me that this was in­deed real by do­ing a chore­o­graphed dance of some sort. Im­me­di­ate­ly, I was treat­ed to an in­cred­i­ble version of the Broad­way Hit Chica­go. The play was nev­er crisper or tighter or more brazen.

Only the bravest writers dare to share their difficulties, embarrassments, and addictions with their audiences. Charlene deGuzman is just such a brave writer.

That’s when she says she had her Slumdog Millionaire moment: the moment her training in the arts, animation, theater, film, and television all came together.

Life is just too damn short to prevent yourself from enjoying something as an adult that you as a kid would have gone crazy over, merely because it didn’t have a screening in Cannes.

I’ve learned I’m really stubborn about my work. I just can’t bring myself to give up on something once I’ve started.

LA Screenwriter’s John Bucher interviews director Ron Howard on "Hillbilly Elegy."

It’s long overdue we stopped pretending that media representation has no influence over how people are treated in the real world.