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As if to illustrate yesterday's blog about the knock backs you get in this job, I got an email today. Back in March I'd gone somewhere for a secret meeting with someone looking for ideas. It turned out that he was a big fan of my work and even of my play "I Killed Rasputin" (which sank without trace and lost me £45,000) and we had a chat about what he was looking for now and I left the meeting inspired and hopeful. It wasn't going to be a project that would make me lots of money, but it might mean something I had written got workshopped and made. It felt like it might be a turning point.
I sent him three ideas, all needing some work, but that was part of the deal with this. Were they any good? I didn't know, but fingers crossed.
Today he emailed me to tell me that he didn't feel any of the ideas were what they were looking for. It wasn't a total rejection and there were compliments amongst the bad news plus the potential of trying again, but of course it was disappointing. I thanked him for his time and for considering my stuff and he in turn remarked about how gracious I was. Of course. I have a lot of experience of rejection (professional and personal) and it's water off a duck's back. Though some of the water is the duck's own tears.
I can't imagine a writer not being used to rejection - it seems such a huge part of the job. It's a painful rejection. Creativity involves fully opening your heart, putting yourself out there in a very one-sided way and waiting to see if you get hugged or punched.
It makes you wonder how other writers react to being told their stuff isn't suitable if just being basically polite is seen as being gracious. I suspect some of them act like dicks who can't believe their genius has been rebuffed. I can believe it. And don't think I am a genius.
It's likely that people who think they are geniuses are not actual geniuses, but it doesn't follow that people who don't think they are geniuses are geniuses. But they might be. That's what I'm holding on to. Too much of a genius to be recognised by the foolish people of my own time. But Shakespeare to the mutants who rule this planet in 2324.
It's not the end of the road and I hadn't been pinning a lot on this opportunity, but I was surprised how much the knock-back got me down. It's a positive that this guy, who I respect and like, backed me as much as he did. I guess that's also why it feels like more of a negative.
I realise now that I didn't brush my hair before the meeting. This explains so much about my career it turns out.
On the other hand, the editor I met yesterday seems to be making positive moods and we worked on a document explaining one of the ideas today. So that's a project that is one step closer. But what is it one step closer to?
Success or failure or seeming success followed by failure or seeming success followed by death making all earthly achievements meaningless.
Dull blog but the duck joke was good and that's all a writer can hope for.
