Do you ever hear horror stories of people ALMOST making it? You hear of individuals like J.K. Rowling sending her little manuscript to fifty or so publishers or Edison trying over one thousand different filaments?

Let me add one to those stories. (Make note that the outcome of the above two hasn’t happened to this author – yet).

When pitching your projects in H’wood, you get to meet a lot of people. I’m terrible with names so I won’t be able to name them here. Even if I did remember, I wouldn’t name them anyway. I do know the company and respect it immensely so I won’t name that either. Let’s call it Acme Productions.

At Acme, I met the head of development. My agent was wonderful and knew everyone so he got me right to the top. I should mention that normally, as an artist, you go through the front door and HOPE to get to the head of development. I got extremely lucky and made it to the back door. The HOD (Head of Development) was a lovely person. We hit it off instantly and yakked about kids and art and entertainment. Then I pitched my project. I tailored the project for Acme and it paid off. She was interested in seeing more art and even made some suggestions to the story.

This project then turned into something I was really behind. The suggestions made it even better. After a few weeks, I sent an email and the HOD loved the changes and wanted to get a meeting with the head of the company to see if it was something they wanted to produce.

I had made it past every step and just needed one more to go. The meeting was setup and as we were walking over to the president’s office, the HOD told me that the president is pretty straightforward. If she didn’t like what I had, she would tell me in the room.

No pressure.

After entering an office that was larger than most of my apartments I have lived in, we sat down and I began to pitch the project. To my surprise, there were a lot of questions and even suggestions. The President was definitely interested.

AND after nearly an hour, no word that she didn’t like it.

After we left, the HOD told me that she had never seen a pitch go that well and was even surprised at how into the project she was. That gave me a ton of confidence.

Then the waiting game took place.

For nearly 8 weeks, I had heard nary a peep from the President, the HOD or even my agent. This seems to happen quite a bit in H’wood. The initial meeting is easy. It’s the second and third that are nearly impossible.

To cut the story short and end the suspense, I finally did get a call. The president loved the presentation but didn’t want to move forward in production. I was told that if I had any other projects to please contact them first.

So it goes, I thought. Just another rejection. Just another worthless filament. It doesn’t mean I gave up because I didn’t. It just added another story to the pile.

So close!