Today was the day, if you entered the Red Planet Prize, you found out if you were successful or not. If you were, congratulations, I got through last year and it feels great but this year I am one of bitter people rejected.
It's tough, After January which must be the years toughest months, dark mornings and evenings and it seems to go on forever until your post Xmas pay day, on top of that the annual cold usually strikes, then February starts and this. Sigh.
Makes you feel like you want to give in, right?
Well, here's how to pick yourself up. You ready for this starling piece of advice.
KEEP WRITING.
You have to concentrate on what you've got, it could be another script, just go for what ignites you in this moment.
Usually for me after a rejection I work on something other than the rejected script, fearing that if I look at the script too soon I'll resent it. Not sure if that would happen, but what that opens up for me is that I instantly work on another script, or if I don't have something else I can turn to it's a great time to write a new script.
Something to really fire you up would be to write a short film script that YOU could film. Then you know you're writing something that WILL be made. There are plenty of film festivals to send it too and you're cutting out someone making a decision on your script. That doesn't mean you be careless about it. You still have to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. No getting out of that.
If you're writing a lot you should have plenty of scripts to send off places. If you've just had a rejection, make sure you fire something else off.
Use the rejection as fuel to keep you going. Every time you get one send something out, then if that comes back as a rejection send another. Keep ticking over.
Finally, and this is what I find hardest about rejection, let's confront the bewilderment about being rejected. This year I submitted a script I believed in more than any other I've written. Even more than my script which made the 2nd round last year, but it was rejected. As I said I've not revisited it, but I am bewildered by its rejection. Aptly it is a detective script, because I really want to get to the bottom of this. So maybe I should get this script read by someone, get some professional feedback. There’s loads of great people on the blogosphere and twitter who could help with that and it's only going to make the script better. So that's something else you could be doing.
After this initial burst of creativity this rejection gives you, go back to the rejected script work it up and send it out other places. Red Planet Prize only comes around once every year to 18 months, so get sending everywhere else you can.
My main point is FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE. If you're writing a lot you'll have other scripts that could be doing something for you. Don't waste time sulking about your rejection (or writing a long blog about it) because that’s time you could be writing.
If you read this thanks, it was partially to myself as well. So I'm off to break someone's neck, but fortunately for the world it's in a script.
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