If "can" and "worms" were the words to describe events last week, then "rejection" and "self-doubt" are this week's theme.
Sorry to kick things off on such a downer but when you sell up, move to another country to follow your dream and it doesn't happen as quickly as you like, if indeed ever, (and you also happen to be turning 40 in a very short five months time), I suppose it's reasonable to expect moments of "What am I doing here?" and "Am I good enough?"
The dark cloud was ushered in by three rejections of my work. Ouch. Not a great sentence to write knowing it's going to be read by the public at large.
The first was a letter telling me that my short film Maconie's List had failed to make it into the Cleveland film festival - no biggie but nevertheless, a no. The second was an email from a Beverly Hills film agency telling me that they were "going to pass, but good luck for the future".
The third was, if it's possible, even more personal; it was the rejection of a book spec I'd been working on for ten months. The writing of those five chapters and synopsis was a long and painful process, and the mistake I made was to write what I thought was expected of me - the end result being that it came across as unauthentic (or so I was told). Lesson learned I suppose but even so, in the style of Carrie Bradshaw, I'm going to pose a question (not sex related, you'll be happy to hear), and that is, should I carry on?
(Or should I just throw an enormous pity party for one?)
I hate to dwell as it's such a waste of energy (particularly when the sun's shining and there are so many ghastly things happening in the world). I fully realise that I'm privileged to be in a position where I can even have a go. But this town is full of people like me, all trying to land a deal or come up with the next big idea, and the enormity of what I'm trying to do seems to have finally hit home. Consequently, I've been somewhat adrift.
Yesterday, I found myself starring at a picture of JJ Abrams for ten whole minutes thinking "How did he do it? If he can do it, so can I?" And lastly, "Those glasses make him look like Nana Mouskouri", (ask an elderly relative or someone nearly 40).
I keep thinking, if it's not going to happen now, will it ever? And what is this thing I'm chasing anyway?
Fortunately, pre-production on my next short starts this week so I'm going to have to pull myself together for that. And Maconie's List is still in the running for the Sony Shorts Contest. I was in the infamous laundry room a couple of days before the writer's strike was resolved and got talking to a neighbour I'd seen around but never actually spoken to before. Turns out she was a costumier and her husband was a writer on Scrubs. She was explaining that they and the 91 other below-the-liners were really starting to struggle. I'm happy that that dispute has been resolved but it made me realise that getting there is only half the battle. Question is, am I really cut out for this fight?
