Hey, Stage 32! During my writing career, I came into contact with MANY producers, writers, directors, etc., and the two pieces of advice that I received stuck with me the most are:
NO simply means New Opportunities. Not every script is a fit with a producer or manager, but it's a fit somewhere and with someone. Keep pitching your script and do your homework to pick which executive to pitch to.
The only script that can be a failure is one never finished and never read. Use other writers that you trust to READ your script, then YOU read someone else's, and give notes to one another, helping each other simultaneously. Also, make time to write! It's critical to an ending of a project, and keeping the forward progress moving along.
Hope it helped. Be true to that voice inside each of you that tells you..."you are a writer."
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I certainly agree that it's all about alignment. Too many writers think a script is less than perfect when really it's just not yet found the ideal person.
One of the most powerful things about reading the books about your heroes is learning about just how much they were rejected and even ridiculed before they found an audience and became validated (i.e cool to like).
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Great pieces of advice, John Mezes! "Also, make time to write!" That's right. Sometimes I'm just too busy to write that day, but I'll still squeeze in a few paragraphs or a page, and that adds up over time.
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John Mezes thanks for posting this, John. We judge ourselves too harshly, if we think that one rejection of your screenplay is actually a rejection of you. Like you said, 'no simply means new opportunities.'