getting through as many no's as possible
Slept in. It was 99 degrees when we got off the plane at 9pm last night. I have the feeling I have to get up really early in the morning to go running.
I do, you know. I don't always answer it, but I love reading it.
Those are the kind of messages I read over and over again, particularly when I'm feeling a bit blue. Like I was after we returned home and I went out to get the mail and discovered that not one but both of my scripts had been dinked in the Nicholl Fellowship contest. I did not get anywhere near the Quarterfinals, let alone the Semifinals, let alone anything else.
Darin hugged me and said that everything was all right, it wasn't the end of the world. You know, it's just one reader's opinion and there are going to be other scripts and...et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
He says this to make me feel better, I know that. Because it doesn't make me feel better. In fact, I burst into tears.
One production company that requested my script from the Script List has already sent it back to me, a week later. Via messenger, no less. The letter that came with it said, "This is not for us right now."
The secret around these here parts is that all rejection letters read, "This is not for us right now." What they mean is, "We didn't like it." No, really: talk to anyone who's worked out here, that's what it means. Yes, it could have been the reader having a bad day. Or it's not the kind of thing they're looking for--except everyone says the same thing: what they're looking for are good scripts.
Or...maybe I'm just a bad writer.
I don't think I am. But maybe I am.
Last week the calls from the Script List stopped--I still have several scripts to send out, but for right now I've heard from everyone I'm going to hear from, I think. Which means I'll have to start calling up producers myself and getting rejection over the phone, over and over and over again. Whee. Maybe it'll toughen me up some. (I'm not known for my Toughness Quotient.)
The Chick At ICM has not, to the best of my knowledge, read the Rewrite Script. Or she has and doesn't want to say anything.
I always knew that this was going to be the hardest part of getting into screenwriting: the rejection. I'm not real good at it. I have to keep banging on doors and saying, "Read this! Read this!" Even when I'm not getting any positive feedback from the universe.
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On the up side, my degree from USC has finally arrived.
I am unable to stop myself from saying, "For all the good it will do me."
Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com