The Cul de Sac

The Cul de Sac Held All the Answers, or So I Thought

It seems silly now, but looking back I know that I was desperate for a sign, a connection to someone or some thing. I craved attachment, to a person, a place, or a memory that would give me the green light to move forward with my writing. It wasn’t coming to me, and then I found the cul de sac.

The French cul de sac was originally an anatomical term meaning “vessel or tube with only one opening.” It literally means “bottom of a sack,” from the Latin culus, “bottom.”

This particular cul de sac had the name of someone I had worked with decades earlier. He was the supervisor in the department I’d been assigned to for a summer job at a film and television production studio in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles.

My job description was for a “Production Assistant” and I knew as soon as I entered the building for my interview it was shorthand for “gopher” – someone who ran errands and did odd jobs throughout the company. But I didn’t care; to me, this was a job in show business and hopefully, my entrée into the world of writing for TV and film. I was ecstatic about this opportunity and ready for my first day.

Greg and Fred would be supervising me. I smiled and asked what I would be doing on my first day. Without smiling or making eye contact, Fred handed me a piece of paper with some writing in all caps. LAX INTERNATIONAL – ARRIVES 2PM PARIS

“So I’m going to the airport to pick someone up?” I looked at my watch and saw that it was 10:30.

They now made eye contact. “You better leave right now. The traffic gets worse throughout the day.” said Greg. Fred nodded, then looked away before looking back at me.

I waited for more instructions, but none came. They stared me down and I gathered my things. I made no more eye contact and could feel the sweat pouring out of me in an uncomfortable way.

He and Fred went back to what they were looking at in a black notebook. I walked slowly out of the office, down the stairs, and out to my car, realizing that I wasn’t quite in show business, but closer than I had ever been before. The airport run was actually the highlight of that day.

At some point, Greg assigned me to be the person who picked up the outgoing mail from all of the offices within the company. I knew it meant I would be gone for twenty to thirty minutes each time, giving him and Fred time to speak privately.

One day, while making one of my routine rounds, I noticed a manila envelope jammed halfway into the outgoing mail slot outside an office I hadn’t stepped foot in before. I tugged gently, but it wouldn’t budge, and I didn’t want to risk tearing it. Against my better judgment—production assistants weren’t supposed to go poking around offices—I pushed the door open and slipped inside.

The room was hushed in contrast to the chaos of the area outside. Papers were stacked in uneven towers, and the faint smell of coffee lingered in the air. At the first desk, hunched over a yellow legal pad, sat a writer I recognized and had idolized for years.

For a moment I froze, envelope still in hand. It felt surreal, like stepping into the pages of a book you’ve read a dozen times only to find the author sitting there waiting for you. I’d studied his work, quoted his lines, even scribbled his name as marginalia in my own half-finished stories, as if doing so might transfer some of his genius onto me. And now, here he was—just a man at a desk, pen scratching across paper, the Brother Charger II typewriter just out of reach.

He looked up, caught my stunned expression, and smiled faintly. “Envelope stuck?” he asked, his voice calm, almost amused.

I nodded quickly, feeling like I’d been caught trespassing in a sacred space. “Yes—sorry. It wouldn’t come out of the box.”

He gestured toward the desk. “Leave it here. I’ll make sure it gets out.”

I crossed the room, every step echoing louder than it should, and placed the envelope down carefully, as if it contained something fragile. My hands itched to say something more—to tell him how much his words had meant to me, how they’d lit a fire under my own quiet dream of writing. But before I could find the courage, he leaned back in his chair and studied me with a curious tilt of his head.

“You write?” he asked.

It felt less like a question and more like a knowing. My throat tightened, but I managed to nod. “I try to,” I whispered.

That was the beginning. What could have been a fleeting encounter over a stuck envelope became the doorway into one of the most important mentorships of my life. I floated back to my office, an office that wasn’t mine but was my address while I was at work each day, and thought about my life.

While I was a production assistant—running errands, fetching coffee, hauling cables, going on airport runs, making endless copies, and sending something new called ‘facsimiles’ to Paris and Tokyo—I saw it as my first step into “show business.” From the outside, it looked glamorous: offices bustling with activity, the controlled chaos of writers and producers and an occasional actor, the whispered urgency of directors and executive producers. But on the inside, I knew my job was really being a glorified gopher.

Still, I showed up with curiosity and enthusiasm. Every day was a chance to watch how stories were being told on screen and behind the scenes. What struck me most was that the people with the most influence weren’t always the ones in front of the camera. The writers—those people tucked away in offices or crouched in folding chairs with notepads—were the ones shaping the worlds everyone else worked so hard to bring to life.

That realization lit a fire in me. Show business wasn’t ever my true calling. Writing was.

It was during this period of discovery that I allowed this new mentor to encourage and inspire me. He was the one who noticed my eagerness and occasionally slipped me a script with a casual, “Here, see what you think of this draft.”

I would take it home and devour it, not once but twice, noticing the rhythm, the turns of dialogue, the way a scene shifted with a single line. When I brought it back the next day with my tentative notes scribbled in the margins, he didn’t laugh. He listened. He even asked questions, and in that moment, I felt like I’d been invited into a circle I never knew existed.

That was the beginning of a mentorship that still shapes me to this day. He never sat me down and gave me lectures. Instead, he showed me what it meant to be a writer: to show up daily, to embrace the grind of revision, to take criticism without letting it crush you. He modeled persistence, humility, and craft in equal measure.

He wasn’t flashy or famous—at least not in the way I once thought mattered—but he had a way with words that made people lean in and listen. Having some access to him meant everything to me during that time in my life.

This mentor’s guidance went beyond giving me feedback. He modeled what it meant to be a professional writer—the discipline of showing up to the page, the humility to take criticism, and the persistence to keep rewriting until the work sang. I absorbed these lessons not because he sat down and formally taught me, but because I watched and listened and dared to ask questions when the time was right.

What I found most fascinating wasn’t the actors or the directors or the producers barking out orders. It was the writers. The quiet ones hunched over legal pads or tapping away at clunky laptops. They were the ones creating the worlds that everyone else worked so hard to bring to life. Without them, there was no story, no production, no reason for the camera to roll.

Once again, that realization stopped me in my tracks: I didn’t really want to be in show business. I wanted to write.

Looking back now, I realize that my so-called “gopher years” weren’t wasted. They were training ground. I thought I was chasing show business, but what I was really chasing was story—and through that chase, I found not only my true calling but someone willing to believe in me before I believed in myself. And that’s the kind of gift you carry forward.

Then, the summer came to an end and my job was over. It was the Friday before Labor Day and on my way out one of the other writers caught up to me and invited me to a baseball game they were having in the park down the street at the end of a cul de sac. His name was Andy and he had always been kind and respectful to me when I was making my rounds to pick up and deliver the mail.

“Do you want to come?” he asked. “I have an extra glove if you want to play. We can always use another player.”

“Yes, I’d love to. Thanks so much.”

The game would be on Saturday and I hoped my new mentor would be there as well. But he wasn’t and I almost forgot about him because I was having so much fun. The game ended with them beating the team from another production company 8 to 5. They invited me to join them for pizza, but I declined and went straight home.

Time passed. His words still echoed in my head when I hit a wall. His example reminded me that every story worth telling begins with someone willing to sit down and write the first draft. And maybe that’s the biggest lesson of all: sometimes the door you think you’re knocking on isn’t the one you’re meant to walk through—but if you’re paying attention, you’ll find the right one waiting to welcome you with open arms.

I’ll never forget what he said to me one day. I had come into his office to deliver a certified letter, and told him I had another story idea to share with him. He stopped typing and looked me square in the eyes.

“Connie, I don’t want to hear your story idea today.”

I quickly took a step back and mumbled something of an apology, telling him I was sorry and knew he was busy and…

He cut me off mid-sentence.

“Connie, listen to me. I don’t want to hear your story idea, I want to read it. Bring me your pages and I’ll read them and then tell you what I think. Okay?”

Nodding but not making eye contact, I slipped out of the office before he could say anything more.

I allowed what he said to hurt my feeling instead of taking it as he meant it. I put my notebook and pens away at home. I wouldn’t seriously write again for over twenty years.

That was when I finally took his advice. After resigning from my career as a classroom teacher during those two decades in between, I began writing daily, building the discipline needed for me to finally work towards achieving my writing goals.

I’d like to say I stayed in touch with this man, but the truth is that I allowed him to slowly be deleted from my memory. When my writing became more serious and a much bigger part of my life, I looked for a space in which I could allow my imagination to wander and the words to flow.

And so it was that in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, that I found the sacred space where I could write. No just write, but think and remember and imagine and know, that I am indeed a writer.

It was a cul de sac about a mile from where I was living. I used to take a shortcut through the neighborhood when the traffic was heavy. One day, I noticed a street name that felt familiar. It was the last name of my supervisor at the production company, Greg. I turned into the cul de sac and went all the way to the top.

Putting my car in park, I gazed down the street to get a feel of what it might be like to write here. It was the right place for me, and now I’m there at least twice a week, writing in my car and waving to the residents who have come to know me over the years. This cul de sac is a magical place, for sure.

When I published my third book, one on writing, several years later, I looked up my mentor online. I couldn’t even remember his name because I had blocked it from my memory. But eventually I found him on social media. He was hosting a writing group on Patreon and I signed up.

Mentorship is a thread that runs through our entrepreneurial and creative journey. I now pay it forward by mentoring others, remembering what it meant when someone took me seriously back when I was “just the gopher.”

Success often starts with showing up in small, humble ways, because you never know who’s watching or what opportunities will open when you’re willing to do the work.

“We plant a seedling, hoping that it will become the tree we were hoping for. Sometimes, our nuturing does much more, growing into the future we had been dreaming of all along.” ~ Connie Ragen Green

I’m bestselling USA Today and Wall Street Journal author Connie Ragen Green. My goal is to help at least a thousand people to reach six-figures and beyond with an online business for time freedom and passive income and to simplify your life. Come along with me, if you will and let us discover how we may further connect to achieve all of your dreams and goals. Perhaps my “Monthly Mentoring Program” is right for you.