How To Put Yourself Out There Again, Despite of Past Failures.

How to Put Yourself Out There Again, Despite Past Failures

Confession: Being a struggling artist was easier when I was a little younger. Everyone I knew was doing creative work. Everyone I knew thought they’d be successful. Immediately. At least, I did. Now, with each year that passes by, I start to notice it’s less and less glamorous to be a struggling (read: unrecognized) artist. Artists who have already had some success don’t have to answer the questions that those still struggling do: ‘Didn’t you already make film that went nowhere? Didn’t you try to start another one and that didn’t work? Aren’t you living in a fantasy world to think that you’ll be able to make a film…never mind get into Sundance? I’m trying to help you: I’m just being realistic.’

Last week, I got a rejection form email again. I got no love from the Sundance Screenwriters Lab…

My own negativity feeds on this and I get dragged down…Unworthiness is a well. You need to get to the source of that well or it will drown you. Or at best, you will be knee-deep in a flood of murky water for most of your days. My shadow side lives in this well and lives off of old, unprocessed, past pain. My dark side is like a parasite, or a predator, disguised as a dear pal. It slides about in between my thoughts emitting poisons, eating away at the kinder parts of me, and it all happens at brush-fire speed, until suddenly, my rage’s flames completely surround me. The dark side lives inside of me so it can reach into the drawers of my heart and the files of mind, and borrow examples, and dip them in darker dyes, and then point at them, ‘You will never have any success!’ The shadow side is crafty and wears many disguises; laziness, jealousy, insecurity, it can use any prop at hand. I’ve a hunch that my darkness wants to corner me, isolate me so then, all alone, I start to consider doing more destructive things. Impossible standards that I could never meet dance before me eyes, and their fantastical dance makes me want to be like them and then I feel inadequate. The dark side knows how to conjure up a black gravity to bring me to my knees, then while I am down, whispers obscenely mean thoughts.

How to Put Yourself Out There Again, Despite of Past Failures

I woke up in a dark mood. I had a dream where I was running down different streets only to find a wall at the end of each one. That’s how I feel right now. And I have been here before! I wrote a screenplay of which I am proud, excited to make, and yet I don’t know how to make it a success. I have completed films before, but I have not successfully sold one or had one go to a big festival. So, my film career feels dead in the water. My friends and family are not interested in crowd-funding a film of mine, plus I have already tried to do that in the past when I had a bigger network, and I did not raise a budget at all. See, hear, the negativity? I think of the hundreds of rejection letters that I have received of every kind: publishers, production companies, agents, producers, magazines…etc. I think of the book that I wrote that publishers didn’t want.

When you have experienced what seems like only failure, it is really hard to keep going.

This is when I have to PERFORM THE TURNAROUND.

Submitting a script to Sundance is a feat in itself. I congratulate myself and all the writers out there who have done so. There’s a whole bunch of artists who are struggling to write. Or, struggling to allow themselves; to give themselves permission to write at all. Or, the artists who put themselves out there, faced rejection, and now have quit.

Here’s the deal: I’m willing to be disappointed, rejected again. And I’m willing to write about it honestly. I acknowledge folks like me who persist through the years. I feel better knowing that I put myself out there for what I want. It’s better to risk than not even try — and I have learned that from all the risks that I didn’t take.

I make the effort. I can’t control the results. Perhaps, I’m learning to care less about the results.

I recall that JK Rowling was sent a lot more rejection slips than me. I bring to mind Edison making his thousands of light-bulbs that didn’t work.

I believe that there’s a determination and an ill will that’s born only from rejection. Sometimes, I can’t believe how strong I am. I have become so darn resilient that it almost brings tear to my eyes. Also, one learns to be flexible. I learn what works and what doesn’t. And isn’t the whole point: to keep learning?

I am grateful that I enjoy the process of creating. Yes, recognition helps an artist because it opens doors, but, that’s not the point. I respect the creative journey. Who really knows their true destination, anyhow? Here’s how I feel: I already ‘won,’ was already ‘picked, ‘ and ‘chosen’ a long, long time.

{A few lines of this are excerpted from my upcoming book: Your Soul’s Missing Manual.}

I’d love to hear from you. How have you dealt with rejection? How do you keep on keeping on?

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To learn more about me or get in touch:

twitter.com/cybillake

www.centralparkdark.com

www.yoursoulsmissingmanual.com

This is a simple trailer that I shot and edited by myself to suggest a possible tone for my screenplay.

I shot this video to introduce myself to Sundance so that I felt like I did all that could to get into their Screenplay Lab. I posted it to their twitter and I emailed it to the website. Who knows if anyone there saw it? I shot and edited this so that I felt like I did all I could to put myself out there. Since Sundance is about film I thought making a film introduction made sense.