Wooden is another hero. He never taught his players a single thing about winning, just those things that build character and challenging themselves to do their personal best. And everything he taught was Bible based, he just didn't quote scripture. And kudos to you for asking the commenter if you could use a quote agreeing with you before using it as a jump off point for a rant.

John Wooden was amazing. People sometimes diminish his accomplishments at UCLA, claiming he nabbed all the best recruits, but there were some teams that did not have the best players on the court and they still won. Plus knowing how to handle all those big egos, that takes a certain kind of coach. I think the thing that most impressed me was how Wooden dealt with Bill Walton who went through a pretty political period of his life while at UCLA, joining student protests and so forth. To this day, Walton speaks of Wooden in the highest regard, and I believe much of that comes down to that trying period for both of them, how Wooden reached out and really tried to understand what Walton was about.

Before the announcement, I made a list: The perks of being selected and the perks of NOT being selected. This allowed me to see the bright side, the positives of both outcomes. While I DO view it as rejection (I think it's sometimes dangerous to sugarcoat it), I DON'T view it as failure. I haven't failed. The scripts aren't even written yet. If I let the rejection get the best of me and NEVER write them, then THAT'S failure. But I am CHOOSING to allow the rejection to fuel the stories to completion ... Maybe it's simply the wisdom of my years, but rejection = motivation in my book ... As far as quotes, one of my favorite bits of prose is Our Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson. The whole thing is gold, but the first few lines get me every time. "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?" Who are you NOT to be the best damn screenwriter out there? Go get it.

I'm still hoping one of the 10 finalists drops out and I get the email I so badly wanted to get yesterday... In this industry you have go through a lot of "No's" to get a "Yes". Every "No" is one step closer to the "Yes" you need to get your story made. Better to get the "No's" out of the way as fast as you can. If you don't write it then it can't get rejected before it gets made. So write that story. And if you can get a first draft done by the end of Dec 2013 then ask Scott if he'll do you the honour of reading it. Hell, the worst he can do is say "No". Again. But you'll be well on your way to getting that magical "Yes". "Adversity is the mother of progress." (Mahatma Gandhi)

Failure is never an option, but redefining success is perfectly acceptable.

The thing is, at some point, you just have to concede that you are a failure. At least whatever it is you cannot succeed with. It's then -- after hundreds of failed attempts -- that you should probably seek different avocations for success.

ADS, that is true. There is always the possibility that whatever it is you are pursuing and not succeeding at is, in fact, not where you should be focusing your energies. I'm reminded of two things. First when Tommy shows up in Shawshank Redemption, he reveals how he's been busted numerous times and served time in prisons all over. Andy says to him, "Perhaps it's time you considered a new profession. What I mean is, you don't seem to be a very good thief. Maybe you should try something else." Then there is a quote from Joseph Campbell: "There is perhaps nothing worse than reaching the top of the ladder and discovering that you’re on the wrong wall." That's a damn hard thing to figure out sometimes: How to know if this or that is what you're supposed to be doing? I guess as a default, I'd go back to Campbell again: "Follow your bliss." If you're doing something you find to be truly meaningful and in line with your core essence, then follow that. You may be rejected 50 times, 100 times, 200 times. But if it inspires you and makes you happy, the very act of creation, that should be 'success' enough. And maybe, it will be that 201st time where someone says 'yes.'

Welp, I can honestly say: I love my rejections - all of them! I don't go looking for them, but I accept them as they come. I've collected a bulging folder of them - from film festivals, labs, contests, and whatnot, which now includes The Quest. I no longer lose momentum in my work when one comes - my screenwriting career moves forward either way, and the rejections simply guide me (as much as the yeses do) as to where to place my energy. Rejection - not the right opportunity for me - or my project - at that particular moment in time. Yes - keep going in this direction! I doubt I'd work as hard if I hadn't had so many rejections. They're a great motivator for excellence. :)

It's seems like Scott post this words at the exact perfect time!!! I'm sitting at my desk at work right because I had to come back to work and deal with some inmates, and the fact that I didn't make the cut gave me the a new energy to get the ACME kit out and get back to work! someone wrote in thier post that "The script isnt even written yet" TRUE POINT! Listen people don't get down on your self before you even write the script, scott would want us to plow through and finish. I love that we had this chance-hell I love that I got a cut in a way, because it sets of that Jordan effect on me, when he was forced to go to the jump shot when teams where not allowing him to dunk anymore. He had to switch his game up, when he did he became one of the best shooters in the NBA...I plan to do the same, I plan to be the best african-american MAIN STREAM screenwriter out there-period-point blank. Thank you Scott for lighting my fire. Dame Rebuilddabox@gmail.com

If you don't plan for failure, you can't plan for success. I submitted just to submit, but being accepted or rejected didn't truly impact my plans for the year. I'm still writing and drawing and I'm still taking the Core classes. I'll have the Quest schedule by my side to work through it myself. If I had only one idea, then I'd feel down, but that is never the case in my head. Screenwriting is an exploration for me, something to keep in mind to help with my overall immersion in the craft of storytelling and writing. A few years ago, at a comic book industry panel run by editor and educator Andy Schmidt, this was pointed out: To break in, you will need two out of three things. Talent. Luck. Persistence. You don't need all three, but two of them are usually the combo that delivers. There are artists and writers who make fans question how they hell they got a gig with the big comic publishers. It probably boiled down to Luck and Persistence. Or perhaps that killer new artist just happened to have an editor catch his amazing portfolio as he ran through a hotel lobby - Talent and Luck. And of course, old fashioned Talent and Persistence. If you have the talent, and you keep working with it, you can make it, even if it takes two, five, one hundred efforts to get out there. I will leave two gems for my fellow creators: "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." - I think this came from the Disney animation studios. "If you don't like what you're doing, then don't do it." - Ray Bradbury How I choose to shade those for you, gentle reader, is that if you really want to create, keep doing it.

For a long time, I was a magazine writer, and everything I did in terms of writing was about getting published and earning money. I measured myself and my worth by how well I did in comparison to my friends and co-workers. It was all business, and it's probably no great surprise that I came to hate magazine writing. I even came to hate writing itself a little bit. I've tried to take a different tack with screenwriting, and the short version is that I try to just focus on the work. While I do hope to sell a screenplay and become a full-time writer, that's not the primary reason why I sit down every day to write. Yes, it would have been great to have won the Quest, this time or the last time. But I didn't, and that's okay -- and the reason that it's okay is because it hasn't changed anything about what I'm doing or why. Admittedly, this kind of pep talk can feel like mumbo-jumbo at times, but then I remind myself that I've written more in the last year than I had in about a decade before that. Focusing on "winning" just leads to doubt, self-loathing, procrastination, etc.

Let's just say that it's a new and all time low getting rejected by a guy whose claim to screenwriting guru-ship is writing a talking dog movie almost 25 years ago.

mkm28, that's very much the spirit. We should write because we enjoy writing. I believe it was Paddy Chayefsky who said, "I write because I like it." Follow your bliss. Boom! If we make money at it, great, and certainly okay, even advisable to be a goal to provide focus and motivation. But while it's okay to keep our head in the clouds, we also have to keep our feet on the ground. And down here in the Real World, writing of any sort is extremely competitive. In fact the only guarantee is that it is a hard path to travel. So your point -- focusing on "winning" leading to "doubt, self-loathing, procrastination" is spot on. Switch out "writing" for "winning" and almost assuredly that puts a writer in a better place. Writing we can control. Winning we can't. Thanks for your comments and best of luck in all of your creative endeavors. [That goes for anyone following this thread, by the way].

And yet you're willing to accept six months of his time and guidance for free? I really hope you're being sarcastic, or something.

ADS, That comment is bang out of order. You belittle a guy who has motivated nearly a thousand people to reach out for what feels like a once in a lifetime opportunity. Someone who devotes his day, every day, to helping people become better writers. I hope you are being cheeky. If not, then the fact that you entered a log line, despite Scott's "claim to screenwriting guru-ship" makes you look pretty damn desperate.

This is a great essay--just started reading this blog and it's quickly becoming addictive--and I had a couple of thoughts I wanted to add that kinda tie in to your last comment, Scott. This is long. I apologize. I split it into two comments. 1) Perseverance is very important, but you need to approach it in the right way. As a produced playwright/aspiring spec monkey throughout my twenties, I treated perseverance with a grim, snarling obsessiveness (muttering to self): "I'll show them. I'll show them all! You'll never make me quit! Life is hard and I'm suffering now, and writing is painful and awful, but *no one* will ever force me to quit!" Indeed, no one did force me to quit. I burned out as a result of my anger (and guilt when I would miss a day of writing) in early 2012 for 3-4 months. "Love the work while you're doing it" can sound new-agey, hippie-ish, and impossible bc it's frequently said by already externally successful people--the rich, the famous, etc. We confuse cause and effect with them. They got happy first. That gave them the desire to keep doing it longer, which gave them the chance for external success. If you learn to enjoy the work WHILE you're doing it, you are *much more likely* to persevere, because you'll be less stressed out, and if you are frustrated, it'll be for the right reasons. If you can appreciate the internal accomplishments of writing: reward yourself for the struggle it takes to get an opening scene right, or to finish a well-structured outline--then you'll have much less emotional need for *external* success--a script sale, a staff writing job, a better agent. Those things are out of our control. I used to think if my work was really, really, mind-blowingly amazingly good--that I was bound to get these external rewards. But I'm not. The industry is mind-bogglingly random. Not hostile, not rigged. But random. But there's a large supply of talented writers/actors/directors, and not enough demand to generate paying work for even 30% of them. It's supply and demand, and it's random. We confuse randomness and other people's good luck w/ hostility. You can have several brilliant screenplays that don't get produced. You can have great specs that don't get you work. Supply and demand. The more you strip away thoughts of external rewards, the more clear-headed you can become about your own work, and the likelier it is that you can not only persevere, but persevere in a headspace that doesn't drain your energy dry and leave you feeling miserable. Persevere for the right reasons, and you increase the amount of time you can do this, and increase the number of people you can meet and submissions you can make. Increasing your chances of external success, which you remain aware of. But you enjoy what you're doing now, bc it's the only thing you've got control over.

frack it that's so long i ain't even posting a second comment jesus christ machlin get your own blog