My Screenwriting Career: Day 4

So I've got this script (among others) finished and pared down. It's my masterpiece I think, my Citizen Kane, my Chinatown. It's exciting, dramatic, heartbreaking, and epic. I can't imagine anyone not wanting to make it into a major motion picture...

...and then I post it to the screenwriting forums.

The feedback I get basically tells me that in no uncertain terms, my opus is garbage. A proper agent or producer wouldn't touch it with a twenty foot pole and latex gloves. I should quit writing and go back to scraping the lichen off of rotting trees in the Yucatan.

I am shattered. I am utterly and completely broken both as a man and as an artist. What do I do now?

I start over. I drive all the way back to where the road diverged in the wood and I choose the other path. I re-think and completely re-write the story from a completely different angle, using all the story elements I've created and the characters thus far. I burrow in and drive all night if I have to, to get the story moving in the right direction.

It's the plight of the writer nowadays. Everyone IS a critic, and like it or not, their opinion matters. Maybe not to you, maybe not to an agent or producer or actors or anyone but themselves, but it still matters. Over the past few weeks I've come to the staggering realization that when you find the guy that actually hates what you've written, you've found solid gold. He's the guy that won't pat you on the back and say "nice try". He's the guy that WILL tell you when your shit stinks and how to un-stinkify it. He's the guy that just saved your ass from making a fool of yourself and the only guy that even knows which way IS the right way. Or at least he thinks so.. and he's often right.

Listen to that guy.