It’s been a year since I graduated from the USC screenwriting program, and in that year I’ve learned a number of lessons: there are a number of dinner recipes out there that don’t include pasta, perfection is not attainable, decaf coffee is a cruel joke.
The most important lesson of all, however, is how to write through fear.
Fear stops us from putting pen to paper: fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of criticism. As a recent graduate working at an agency, I faced fear at work, too: fear of sending a client to the wrong meeting location, fear that something was slipping through the cracks, fear that I would never measure up and no one would help me find that next job.
Counting the possible ways you could never measure up is exhausting, and I struggled with this for the first few months after graduation. How could I still see myself as a creative human being, as a writer, if I was only scribbling sonnets or hundred word short stories that read more like cries for help than real prose?
I struggled through writing things that I deemed didn’t matter instead of jumping into something that did: I was frozen, and couldn’t start my next pilot script.
Then, I decided to no longer be afraid. I gave myself permission to fail — at work, at life, at cooking something other than boxed macaroni and cheese, at my writing.
I started waking up at 5am to work on that next thing, carving out those precious morning moments and giving them to myself as a gift. Here is your time to fail.
I didn’t fail, though. I wrote a new pilot, and then rewrote it. I showed up to my writing groups with pages in hand, I went to the people I trusted with a story to tell.
I’m a year out and I’m a step closer to my eventual reality of being a professional TV writer: every day I’m learning how to not let the space between where I am and where I want to be terrify me.
Every day I’m acknowledging the fear of failure, but not letting it consume me.
Couldn’t agree more! Found this post genuinely motivating. If you ever need a second set of eyes on any of your scripts/creative work, please connect with me here! https://scriptsister.wordpress.com/