The Agony of Not Winning
I've always been that guy with the Honorable Mention.
Never quite good enough to place. Never quite sucky enough to not give a shit about not placing.
That was an awkward sentence.
Here are the numbers:
This is arguably one of the top 5 major national competitions.
There were over 2000 scripts submitted.
10 places.
5 honorable mentions.
With an admittedly flawed script that I'm going to start rewriting today, I still managed to be 1 of those honorable mentions.
So I finished in the top 15. Top 1.5%.
For a young nigga who's fresh in the game (and to the craft), I'd say that's quite an achievement. Especially since the real value is not measured in placings, but exposure and whoever might request your script once the information is posted on the website for the industry to see.
Can you tell I'm trying to make myself feel good?
Getting this far and coming up short is kind of like being told, out of nowhere, that the prettiest girl in school has a crush on you. By her best friend.
You go to bed thinking about the girl. You wake up thinking about her. You're not sure what's going to happen, but you feel special. After all, who the fuck are you?
And then, on the day you muster up enough courage to ask her out, her best friend tells you she likes someone else and you get that punch-in-the-gut feeling and then the only thing you've been thinking about for the past two weeks -- the thing that's been driving you crazy and making you excited -- is gone. In a fucking flash.
And you wish you never felt it in the first place.
But do you really?
Nah. :)
Wish me luck on my rewrite. And maybe, hopefully, I'll get a few interested parties dropping me a line.
Never quite good enough to place. Never quite sucky enough to not give a shit about not placing.
That was an awkward sentence.
Here are the numbers:
This is arguably one of the top 5 major national competitions.
There were over 2000 scripts submitted.
10 places.
5 honorable mentions.
With an admittedly flawed script that I'm going to start rewriting today, I still managed to be 1 of those honorable mentions.
So I finished in the top 15. Top 1.5%.
For a young nigga who's fresh in the game (and to the craft), I'd say that's quite an achievement. Especially since the real value is not measured in placings, but exposure and whoever might request your script once the information is posted on the website for the industry to see.
Can you tell I'm trying to make myself feel good?
Getting this far and coming up short is kind of like being told, out of nowhere, that the prettiest girl in school has a crush on you. By her best friend.
You go to bed thinking about the girl. You wake up thinking about her. You're not sure what's going to happen, but you feel special. After all, who the fuck are you?
And then, on the day you muster up enough courage to ask her out, her best friend tells you she likes someone else and you get that punch-in-the-gut feeling and then the only thing you've been thinking about for the past two weeks -- the thing that's been driving you crazy and making you excited -- is gone. In a fucking flash.
And you wish you never felt it in the first place.
But do you really?
Nah. :)
Wish me luck on my rewrite. And maybe, hopefully, I'll get a few interested parties dropping me a line.
posted by Jeff at 9:35 AM
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