Submissions

Today, PreGame received a rejection from a big festival today, and for some reason although it had no chance of getting in, this rejection hurt me more than the others did. During this whole process, it’s like my entire self-worth is distilled down to this one moment of “no”, which completely eclipses everything else I am and that I’ve done in my life. That’s not a good way to look at things, but instead of letting this rejection roll off my back, I was bummed about it all day.

A friend texted me to tell me she was a quarterfinalist in a Stage 32 contest, which is amazing, and if she hadn’t texted me, I don’t know if I would have been motivated to go through Swing Away today and ready it for the ScreenCraft competition. I went through the entire draft, making sure the sluglines and character headings were consistent, cutting out extraneous words in the action lines, adding details in certain scenes my writer’s group said they needed (and I agreed).

Do I think this draft is good? Yes. Do I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written? Yes. Do I think this screenplay is going to stand out from the thousands of entries that are going to be submitted? Probably not. The storytelling in the screenplay makes sense, but I’m not sure anything about it pops off the page to a reader that’s looked at ten other screenplays that same day. That thought makes me cold. But am I going to keep writing, filming, and submitting to contests and festivals anyway? Yes.