E.S. Raye

As hard as they may hit, rejections are a dime a dozen. The thing that comes far less often, and should be recognized and celebrated no matter how big or small it may be, is success!

As someone new to writing and submitting fiction, I have yet to experience a whole lot of success. I have no short stories published yet, and my yet-to-be-published debut novel has garnered zero attention from either agents or publishers. But there is one area I have found at least a modicum of success: screenwriting.

Nearly two years ago from the time I write this, I decided to enter into a ScreenCraft horror screenplay competition. (If you haven’t entered work into a competition before, I highly recommend it. I’ve never won – that’s not what this story is about – but many give fantastic feedback well worth the price of admission.)

I’d never written a screenplay, but I was eager to learn and willing to teach myself. With Save the Cat in one hand and my eyes glued to my movie library, starting with John Carpenter’s The Thing, I studied hard.

My debut screenplay, Uncanny Valley – my homage to the aforementioned The Thing – was submitted, and I waited for my feedback with no expectation of more than that. But, and to my surprise, Uncanny made it through the first round. That meant a chance to polish based on the feedback, and then a second set of critiques.

I took in what the judges had said and tried my best to apply the advice. I was shocked again when Uncanny made it through to a third round, and I was given another chance to polish and resubmit.

However, as previously implied, it was this third round that saw me eliminated.

But what did I have to complain about at that point? I had entered excited for a single set of judges to give me feedback, and ended up not only with three sets, and the knowledge that I had stood shoulder to shoulder with the top 5% of the thousands of entries.

If that’s not a success, I don’t know what is.

And yet, this story doesn’t end here.

(For context for the rest of this: my wife works in the costume department on films and TV shows, and she had mentioned to some of her coworkers what I had written.)

A few months after the contest, a coworker of my wife’s who happens to also be an independent film producer, mentioned to my wife that she had heard Uncanny Valley was being produced. My wife told her she didn’t know what she was talking about – no one had contacted me about making it. The coworker asked to see the screenplay so she could make sure it wasn’t the same, and I gladly sent a copy.

I had completely forgotten about the incident after a few weeks and was surprised when my wife’s friend reached out. It turns out, the film being produced was not Uncanny Valley, but she had read my screenplay and wanted her indie company Dead Mariachi Films to produce it!

It’s been months since that conversation, and while Dead Mariachi is still looking for all the funding they want to tell the story properly (they even took a pitch deck to Cannes!), I’ve also been asked to write one of their original ideas for another horror feature film! I can’t say much about that project, except that the first draft is complete.

And yet, with the speed (or lack thereof) that early pre-production of a film travels at, it can sometimes be difficult to remember these successes. Months may pass without news or forward motion, and it can be hard to remember that the gears are turning.

So, whether it’s getting a story published, finding an agent or producer, or even learning a new format or reaching a word count goal, remember and acknowledge your successes. They all – even and especially the little ones – are steps towards that ultimate success, whatever it may be for you.