Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential.

...said Jessamyn West (Quaker writer) or Jessamyn West (librarian). Take your pick.

I go through these phases of sending my novels and stories out to potential agents, going on the premise...

...and then mostly I don't hear back, or I do hear back and it's a kindly rejection, or I do hear back and it's a peremptory rejection, and I go into the phase of thinking that trying to become a published writer is about...

( I AM a published writer - but not for my creative work)

So then I give up for a while. Rest. Regroup.Summon up the passion and enthusiasm again. I mostly always have that for the writing...less so for the getting the writing out there...

I was thinking to myself this morning...are there any other jobs like this where you are constantly putting your heart and soul on the line (if you have the guts) and getting rejected and doing it again and again and again and sometimes feeling philosophical about it and sometimes feeling crushed. Acting! Attending auditions. I'm sure that must be the same. I suppose too, searching for any job, filling in application forms, attending interviews, being turned down...

I try to explain it to Peter and he says 'I don't know why you bother.'

I bother because it's my dream.

Bluebirdie the dream writer

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.

Newt Gingrich said this.

(This is obviously his cousin, Toad Gingrich. Someone is not bad at Photoshop but abysmal at identifying amphibians)

Today is going to call for perseverance. For most of yesterday and a bit of the day before I was occupied with The Most Mind-Numbing Job In The World which is to reduce by half a fifty-five page (tedious) corporate document - but 'keep the important points.'

www.savagechickens.com/

 It's going to take a lot of today too.

I have come up with a number of ways to speed up the process:

1. Tear the document in half
2. Reduce the size of the font to Point 8
3. Omit every other word
4. Make the margins much smaller

Sadly, my client didn't think that any of these were very good ideas.

So...

I'm just going to have to get busy...

Throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks

This is what I do - at least, when I'm feeling feisty.

 
I throw mud at walls...in a metaphorical sense, not a literal sense, though ACTUALLY throwing mud at walls would be more fun, I suspect. I could try it with horse manure in the mornings, if I felt so inclined.

This is not entirely unrelated to my ponderings about success or rather, reappraising what success means to me, of yesterday. I'd love to relate to you chapter and verse the contents of the seminar I attended, but:

1. It would be very tedious
2. I undertook not to as the material is deemed copyright

So...metaphorical mud. I try for EVERYTHING I can - 'Director looking for script'...'Screenplay contest'...'Collaborator wanted'...'Apply for funding here'...'Film company will commission short films'...

Sometimes, it's the very last thing I feel like doing.

No way, never!

image by Jordebot

...but I do it. And I put up, often, with  not even receiving the courtesy of a response. Or, slightly better, a 'thanks, but no thanks.' But SOMETIMES...

...I hook up with great people who like my work and make my screenplays into films.

The success rate? I don't know...probably one positive for every fifty negatives. It can be soul-destroying but when something great happens, I know it's all worth it. The more I do it, the easier it becomes because I've thrown so much mud that my hopes aren't ever pinned to one project. Sometimes, I even forget I've gone for some particular thing and get a surprise, months later, when the person gets back to me.

So that's a part of success...to keep on throwing mud at walls to see what sticks.

Something always does in the end.