Reader Question: How do you deal with disappointment?

Question via the blog from Eric Harris:

How do you deal with disappointment?

Eric went on to elaborate:

Since you seem to always have a healthy attitude towards the craft, I thought you’d be a perfect person to ask.

Of course, there are different scenarios a writer can face:

A writer’s script is not as good as they thought it was and gets brutalized in coverage. And it’s painful to face this realization.

Or they had their hopes up, but the rug gets pulled out from under them in the 11th hour…

Desperation about the ticking clock…. life’s passing the writer by, while their friends are moving up in non-entertainment fields which have a more step-by-step path.

Family and friend pressure, subtle or not so subtle.

Getting replaced on a job; calls back become less frequent from agents, producers who were hot to return phone calls initially…..

Eric, I fear you have just scratched the surface. For as a writer winding their way into the business…

You can fall under the influence of lousy agents.

You can get lost in the malaise of writing Act Two.

You will have to come to grips with surviving script notes meetings.

You will confront sweepstakes pitching, prewrites, and one-step deals.

You will take meetings with shitty executives.

You will deal with a bunch of industry people who are weather vanes.

You will get rewritten.

You will suffer the recurring indignity of ‘hurry up and wait’.

You will inevitably have someone beat you to the punch on a script you are writing.

You will get your hopes up, then not land the gig.

You will have to learn sometimes to say yes to a crap project.

You will get a movie made only it will suck.

You will almost assuredly sometimes just get it wrong.

You will experience the highs and more often lows of living and writing in Los Angeles.

You will meet head-on the stark reality that movies are primarily a director’s medium.

You will possibly get screwed out of money because of stupid legal issues.

You will go on strike and not be able to work for a living.

You will run the risk of losing hope when faced with the enormous odds against success.

You will live with the constant knowledge that movies don’t owe anybody a living.

And you know that at some point, you will fuck up.

In other words, if you choose a writer’s life, you will confront disappointment. You will confront it routinely… deeply… often.

Disappointment will impact you so much, it will become your blood type. The name of your softball team. The type of car you drive. Your astrological sign.

As screenwriter Audrey Wells said, “One day, you will sell your screenplay, and then your problems will begin.”

Which is to say you absolutely must come up with some coping skills in dealing with disappointment… and that leads me to the point of your question.

The first thing I will say is to ask a question: Do you love the act of writing? I mean really love it? That doesn’t mean you can’t actually loathe it from time to time, days or even weeks where the very act of dragging your derriere onto chair to write is an actual physically debilitating effort.

Yes, there are those times. However if a majority of your experience is to delight in the hard work combined with the magic which comes with the craft… where a sudden turn of phrase brings you joy… when a character speaks up and unloads the perfect line of dialogue for you… when a scene you are writing so catches you up, you can’t help but laugh or gasp or cry… where you look up and discover it is hours later than you thought, your story having swallowed you for a morning, afternoon, or night…

If you have those type of moments with your writing and they truly enliven you, then there is always that. You can always write.

You cannot control the Hollywood Powers That Be. But you can control your simple day-to-day existence as a writer.

The second thing I will suggest: Find a writers group. Nobody understands the ups, downs, ins, and outs of being a writer than other writers. So when your script gets a great review on the Black List website or you finally finish a script after the 11th draft… you celebrate with your peers and they with you. You celebrate their successes as well. When things go South, you are there to support each other, even if it’s just to listen to someone’s tale of woe, and offer them a pat on the back, and a consoling, “Ain’t that the shits.” One thing I always do in the classes I teach is encourage the participants to keep the thing going as a writers group. I’m happy to say dozens of them are ongoing, including three women who took a class with me in 2003 and still support each other as a collective!

The third thing is to find your spiritual center. Religious or otherwise, realize that our time on this planet is but a nanosecond in comparison to the universe. Fame and fortune are fleeting. But who we are as human beings and how we are with others, through acts of charity and kindness, honesty and courage, and always seeking the path of love and respect, that is the way that brings us into harmony with the Real World. Disappointments come and go, but who we are at the Core Of Our Being…. no one can take that away if we don’t let them. A life dedicated to the Greater Good and Authentic Living is far more powerful and fulfilling than anything so ephemeral as a spec script sale or TV pilot deal. Sure, we can strive for that and celebrate those victories, but those other ultimately other-dependent. How we choose to live our lives and the qualities we bring to our interchanges with our fellow creatures here on Earth… we can control that and find great meaning there.

Bottom line know thyself. If you have an iron stomach and steel backbone, capable of handling disappointments, small and large, knowing they will wash over you like the daily tides, combined with the joy of writing, the companionship of fellow writers, and a spiritual sense of self, that should be enough to sustain you through times of trials and tribulations…

In which case, go for it! What can compare to giving voice to Creativity? Tapping into your unique perspective of the world and seeing where the characters of your imagination take you and your words? It offers an incomparable experience of life, this path we choose to…

Go into the story… and find the animals!

How about you, reader? How do you deal with disappointment as a writer? I’d love to read your thoughts.

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