CT: Rejection

Hello dear readers, 

By now Little C and I have had the chance to recover from Comic Con and return to our normally scheduled lives. We had an incredible time but we're so happy to be home and back to the grind. We're almost done with one script, rounding third on another, and starting development on a whole new project. It's an exciting time for us creatively! 

However, I've been doing a lot of thinking this week about rejection, one of the hardest aspects of our lives as artists. It's no secret that rejection is part of the package for an artist. Shoot, it's part of the package for a human of any sort. People get told "no" every day for a variety of things that they'd like to be told "yes" about. But I think that for artists, it can be particularly difficult. 

Part of the reason is that artists get rejected all the time. My actor friends will be the first to tell you that their lives are made up of auditions for roles they might not get, or opportunities that might not actually come together. And bless the actors, because that kind of daily emotional roller coaster would send me crying to a cabin in the middle of nowhere faster than you could say "Shia LeBoeuf". But it's just as true for any other artist. Because our work is so often tied to the very heart of who we are as people, as humans, it's terrifying to put it out knowing that anyone could tell you "no". Anyone could simply pass on it without another thought. 

Now if you're a regular around these parts you're familiar with how crazy competitive Cait and I can be, and you're probably thinking "But what could possibly make you two think being professional writers is a good idea? This sounds like a nervous breakdown waiting to happen!" And you're probably right. You're very intuitive about these things. So here's the strategy we use to cope with rejection: 

1) This is going to sound like cheating, but actually we get to avoid a little bit of the nastiness of rejection altogether. You see, because we write together, we handle rejection all the time. Every four seconds while we're writing one of us shoots down the other's idea. Not in a mean way (most of the time), but it's a refining process. We toss out ideas, some we genuinely love, but piece through them together to find the best possible option for the story. So maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I do think that process does a little to innoculate us against real rejection in the outside world. 

2) We let ourselves feel it. My instincts are firmly in the camp of just saying everything's fine, no problems here, whenever something goes wrong. I'm the Mayor of Compartmentalization Town. But Little C and I have worked hard at learning to let ourselves be disappointed or sad when we get negative feedback. We really love what we put out, and when it gets turned down we get to be upset. But just for a moment because... 

3) We get back to work. Believe me, the urge to hide under your bed until everyone forgets that you've ever written anything is strong. I was a storm off and slam the door and pout forever kind of kid and the struggle against that is real. But nothing, nothing, takes the sting out of a "no" like four or five brand new pages or a new character outline. Writing is our happy place and the sooner we can get back in the saddle the better. 

And so, fresh from a new rejection (a small one, no big worries) here we are. We took a night off to pout and watch Dominion and eat sushi, and we're dusting ourselves off. And we're picking up the next script. Onwards and upwards! 

Happy writing! 

CT