Working with Confidence

I heard the other day that Scott Stuber Productions recently put American Rust by Philipp Meyer into film development. Interesting. Scott gave this to me for analysis and for two days I was enveloped in one of the best written, compelling novels I've read in a long, long time. I was literally transported to another place and time.

But after much consideration, I recommended it NOT be made into a film, at least not then. My argument? With the economy the way it was, most people weren't going to want to watch a depressing story about the economy. That was about a year and a half ago. Seems like maybe he took my advice. It's so hard to tell what other people in the industry are thinking about your work because they will almost NEVER tell you. I choose to believe I made the right decision. After all, he didn't put it in development until now, when the economy is showing signs of recovery.

Another tidbit of news kind of perked me up as well. A few weeks ago I also heard that one of my favorite Christopher Buckley books has FINALLY been optioned for film development (see my previous post about Florence of Arabia). My only question here is "What took so long?". It could be because in spite of Buckley's sparkling wit and wisdom, his last film Thank You For Smoking didn't make much money at the box office. Who knows? But again, I choose to claim this as further evidence that I've still got what it takes.

Most of us artistic types spend at least some amount of time torturing ourselves about whether or not we really have anything worthwhile to share. I just want to say that you MUST believe in yourself if you want to be authentic. People aren't always going to agree with you. In fact, if your ideas are cutting edge, chances are the majority of them won't - at least not until you win an award or something.

So do your best work, from the heart, and then let the chips fall where they may. If you just stick to your guns, it'll all come around.