IndieWire had a great little piece on Guillermo del Toro yesterday, about the fact that he has written 33 feature screenplays in his lifetime. If that sounds like a lot more than he has filmed, you are correct. "Two to three made by others," he said, "11 made by me (Pinocchio in progress) so- about 20 screenplays not filmed. Each takes 6-10 months of work, so, roughly 16 years gone."
If you've been at this work very long, you probably have your own stack of unproduced--and likely never going to be produced--material. Which is often brutal to think about. I have fallen in love with so many characters that no one but my manager and some industry readers (most of whom let's be honest are going to be either kids in college or right out of college) are ever going to meet.
That's the business.
But the quote from del Toro doesn't end there. Yes, it's 16 years gone. But, he goes on: "Just experience and skill improvement.”
And that's not nothing. Your 20th script is going to be better than your 10th. Almost certainly way better. So is your 11th, or maybe your 12th. We learn by doing.
Also--and this is something that people outside the business often don't understand--failure is often the path to success. I sold a pilot to AMC and spent 18 months developing it with them. In the end, they passed--but the work I did on it led them to suggest me to the team developing PREACHER into a series, which led to my first job as a staff writer.
There's that old saw, When God closes a door he opens a window--which if you think of it is really not that helpful, because what the hell am I supposed to do with a window? In Hollywood it's more like where producers close a door they push you out a window, but then unexpectedly that throws you into the path of someone else who is looking for someone just like you (who I guess is Spider-Man?, because otherwise how do you stop plummeting, argh metaphors are hard).
The point is, don't give up. Don't Give Up Don't Give Up Don't Give Up.
(I feel like if you say Don't Give Up five times Candyman shows up, but instead of murdering you he gives you a job. It turns out on the side he's got a very cool production company.)
Keep writing. Keep learning. Keep working. And by the way, I'm right there with you.
