Yes!!! Honored to be pointed at!

Scarred me as an adult!

Listen to this ep for my hot take on Michel Gondry that he’s “Too French.”

This week on @podcastlikeits The 2000s @emilystjams.bsky.social and I start a brand new miniseries on Spike Jonze & Charlie Kaufman’s 2000s by talking Human Nature with In The Blink of an Eye screenwriter @colbyday.com! We discuss Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman’s transgender metaphors and Bjork!

1000%

ha actually yes this is a VERY common No unfortunately. A cousin of the "silent No."

1000% it's like a self-created paradox we all must live within

we've all been thinking it...

oh the silence comes for us all! I totally feel you. And would much rather hear a concrete "pass" than nothing at all

Writers, creatives, anyone who’s ever heard No:

What actually helps you when a project dies?

Not what people tell you should help — what actually works for you?

Drop it below. I’m genuinely collecting data on this.

The second most important skill to make it in Hollywood?

Learning how to handle rejection. Over and over and over again.

(The first is putting yourself out there in the first place — but that’s another thread.)

Full piece in my newsletter 👇

hollyweird.colbyday.com/p/it-never-r...

I’d never say “toughen up.” Or “get over it.”

Instead: be pissed. Be hurt. Be annoyed.

Set a timer on it.

Then start the next thing. And get back out there.

There are plenty more No’s waiting — I have a million in a Google doc somewhere, you can have some of mine.

Here’s the thing:

Most rejections are not in category 3.

Most of them are not about you at all.

The slate was full. The executive got fired. The budget evaporated. The market shifted.

You are not the variable in most of these equations.

The “Work Isn’t Ready” No — the hardest to receive, the most valuable if you can actually hear it.

When someone takes the time to tell you specifically why they passed? That’s a gift.

Notes from someone with no stake in flattering you are sometimes the most honest feedback you’ll ever get.

The “It’s Not For Me” No — taste mismatch. Completely valid on both sides. You sent the right thing to the wrong person.

The goal is to find your people. Your people are not everyone. That’s not a flaw. That’s just math.

There are 3 kinds of No:

The Timing No — slate’s full, budget shifted, a similar show just sold. Has nothing to do with your work. Also the most common. You will almost never know this is the reason.

So what actually helps?

Remembering that not all No’s are the same.

Most people jump straight to: “they hate it, they hate me, I should become an Alaskan crab fisherman.”

That’s probably not true. And it’s probably not a great career pivot.

The brutal tension of this career:

To make good art, you have to care deeply. You put in hundreds of hours.

But to survive the business, you need non-attachment. “I hear Yes, I take more chances. I hear No, I take more chances.”

These two things are in direct conflict. Every day.

That kind of rejection — the long, slow, attenuated No — is somehow worse than a clean one.

You can’t even point to what went wrong. Because nothing went wrong. It just… evaporated.

And here’s the honest truth I had to sit with after:

It never really gets easier to hear. And maybe it shouldn’t.

Early in my career, I co-developed a show with a Very Important Writer

We sold it right away. A dream! Then the roadblocks began. I revised, re-revised, re-re-revised outlines.

Until: “We’re going in a different direction.”

A direction we never even started going in. I never wrote the pilot!

“It never really gets easier to hear No.”

I’ve been working in Hollywood for years. I’ve sold shows, written pilots, even made movies.

And I still feel it every single time.

Here’s what I’ve learned about what “No” actually means — and what it doesn’t. 🧵

This is my #1 piece of advice to screenwriters.

Don't work with one giant document, put the date in the name of the file and then "Save As" today's date every day.

Not only do you now have a Wayback Machine to your whole script, you now have the freedom to completely fuck up and only lose a day.

Colby Day (In the Blink of an Eye) Plus: some live shows!

I got to talk to @benblacker.bsky.social, very smart writer and very smart writing in writing, about In the Blink of an Eye, making movies with your friends, and of course how crazy it is to get anything made in this business at all. benblacker.substack.com/p/colby-day-...

Colby Day (In the Blink of an Eye) Plus: some live shows!

In today's Writers Panel, @colbyday.com discusses assurance in writing and business, learning by making, writing impossible-to-execute ideas, receiving notes + more.
Plus, some fun live shows coming up!
benblacker.substack.com/p/colby-day-...

right there with you bud!

“The difficulty is the friction of actually caring” is going to stick with me for a while

Absolutely! A nice long drive with nothing to do except accidentally think up the solution

The Rewrite Suck is not a sign that something is wrong.

It's a sign that you're in it.

Keep going.

(Full piece on surviving the rewrite — at the link in bio)

If the rewrite feels hard — good. That means you're probably doing it right.

An easy rewrite is usually a polish in disguise. The difficulty is the friction of actually caring.

Every writer you admire has sat exactly where you are right now.

Cut more than you think you need to.

First drafts accumulate. Characters, subplots, scenes that were interesting to write but don't serve the story.

Clarity of vision is the whole job in a rewrite.

Nobody will miss what's not there. Not even you.