ScriptClass: Write through the bad times?

Searching for silver linings in these doom-and-gloom recession-ist times?

'Yeah, forget-about-it; 'gonna be hard to remain optimistic especially when...

Screenwriter Lisa Klink offers up this sobering word on the street -- 'seems like every conversation I’ve had about the TV business lately has included at least one declaration of “It’s brutal out there.” Unfortunately, this is true. Budgets have been cut and writing staffs have been reduced, resulting in more competition for jobs...'

'There’s a general tension and uncertainty in the air, which makes the people doing the hiring less inclined to take chances on unproven talent,' Klink adds.

'question for wannabee screenwriters (like myself) is -- should I start stock pilling canned goods (for the survivalist camp)??

Or, should we all be multi-story-tasking in preparation for when good times finally return? -- so, ideally, we have some scripts-in-hand that could be produced.

'There’s nothing wrong with dreaming about winning an Oscar, but chip away at it page by page and script by script. Years ago a college professor showed me a picture (that I believe was in Esquire magazine) of writers standing by the amount of work they had written before they became successful,' offers Scott W. Smith.

The idea of becoming -- 'an even better writer while you’re at it.' is sound advice, but Klink also points out the peaks of genre writing:

Summing it up this way -- 'horror movies and TV shows are extremely revealing of our culture, sometimes even more than we’d like...'

Which leaves me some hope that 'niche' writing will remain a stronghold in bad and good times...do you agree?

after all, shouldn't we all save room for genre slices of well done machine girl flicks?