By Tom Vaughan — May 19, 2026

Dealing with disappointment.

"This is the business we've chosen."

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A few weeks back, I wrote about going out with a new spec screenplay.

It’s over a month later, and I am sorry to say, this first round did not go as we had hoped.

It does not look like we’re going to set this baby up with no attachments. Going out without attachments (a director or actor) is sometimes called “naked.” It is faster to do it this way, but it’s harder. And this one didn’t pan out.

This is the expected outcome for most specs.

But the hope is still real, as is the disappointment. Even when you know the odds, it still breaks your heart a little.

Nothing is really over for a good script.

I’ve sold 14-year-old screenplays before. An attachment changes everything. A director or an actor, and suddenly you’re back in business.

But still. You know your odds have dropped. It’s like one of those “winning probability” graphs on ESPN. It was 50% when the game started, and now in the second quarter it has dropped to 5%.

Sure, it could be anywhere in the fourth, but it’s not looking good.

This business is a mental battle.

This is one of the things I wish I had fully understood before I started my professional career.

This is true for most occupations, I think, with each having its own unique aspects.

Other jobs have higher stakes, higher stress, more rigid schedules, and some include higher physical tolls.

But in screenwriting, and with much of the arts, the battle is most often with failure.

It happens. It happens to the best of us. Most scripts don’t sell. Or the script does sell, but they replace you. Maybe you want to be the guy who does the replacing, but someone beats you out for the job.

Or, say, you GET the job! But then you get fired. Or the movie doesn’t get made. But maybe the movie DOES get made! And it’s terrible.

Every time there is an opportunity for a win, there is an opportunity for failure. And failure is much more common.

Any working actor will tell you that as well. It’s mostly rejection. Actors and even some of our very best directors have been fired from movies that were in production!

Executives are fired. Agents lose clients or are shown the door.

But, as Hyman Roth once said, “This is the business we’ve chosen.”

You want the good? You have to take the bad.

Fight to keep perspective.

Your reaction is everything. Disappointment is normal. The pain is real, and it should be acknowledged.

But bitterness helps you none.

It does not push you forward, and no one wants to be around it.

Many of our very normal reactions are counterproductive. When you identify them, try to recognize them and realize it’s just your mind deflecting the pain of being denied what you wanted.

Don’t indulge them or they may stick around. And yes, this is me reminding myself of all of these things just as much as I am sharing them with you.

Avoid recriminations.

It’s easy to distract yourself from the uncomfortable by pointing fingers. Whether it’s indignation, self-righteousness, or martyrdom.

I can think of so many times blaming someone else, something else, or fixating on some perceived slight. Just ridiculousness.

Even this go-around, I asked myself, “Do I have the right agents?” before rolling my eyes and realizing what I was doing.

There is a time to assess, and I’ll talk about that in a bit.

But I am not talking about sober thought here.

This is the very natural, yet very unhelpful line of thinking that, “I have been wronged. This is someone else’s fault, and the system is rigged.”

It takes away your own agency, distracts you from your actual goals, and leaves you stagnant.

Avoid self-doubt.

The foundations of what I teach are built on 1) the values of story and emotion, 2) simplifying, and 3) confidence.

I teach this because I discovered that whenever I have had trouble, it was because one of these had broken down.

Needless to say, self-doubt is a direct attack on confidence. If that goes, you’re unlikely to do very good work until it changes.

“I can learn and do better” is very different than “I am no good at this.”

It’s a simple reframing that leads to two entirely different paths. Again, there will be time for sober assessment. This ain’t that.

“This too shall pass.”

As is often said, it is a marathon, not a sprint. How your career is now is not where it will always be. Both good and bad. How you feel now is not how you will always feel.

Do not get stuck in this moment and make decisions as if this moment will never change.

Because it will.

I have always been a little emotionally indulgent. My drinking days were very much a result of my anxiety.

One of the biggest steps I ever took in my sobriety was realizing, “This is how I feel today,” rather than what I grew up thinking, “This is how life is.”

Perhaps one of the greatest truths of life: “This too shall pass.”

Do not over-correct.

In 2005, after almost ten years as a professional screenwriter, I could not get work. This was 100% my fault, but I was not ready to accept that yet.

I wrote a spec script trying to get momentum back, thinking, “This is my last shot. If this doesn’t sell, I am leaving this business.”

Those pages absolutely reeked of desperation. I just couldn’t get out of my own way to tell a story, and it went nowhere.

Whether you’re confident, enthusiastic, desperate, or insecure, that emotion has a way of seeping onto the page of your screenwriting.

Your attitude matters. You carry it with you, and it affects everything you touch.

Best to choose which one you’re going with.

And I did leave the business for over two years!

I went back and got my degree at UH. What I thought was total failure ended up being one of the best decisions and most influential periods of my life.

Go figure.

How I want to respond.

There was an interview with an NFL coach many years back that has really lingered with me. I wish I could remember who it was. But he had just been fired; it was his last press conference. He was asked how he felt or something.

He was hurt. He didn’t want to go. He liked his job! He said something to the effect that he will be okay. But his next words I remember clearly.

“I can take a punch in the gut.”

And I thought to myself, “That’s how I want to handle something like that.”

You acknowledge the hurt and disappointment. There is no point in denying it.

You strengthen yourself up, remind yourself that you can take it.

And you move on.

Do a legitimate post-action report.

What went wrong? What choices were made that didn’t pan out? This includes some harsh questions about your own choices, too.

The very first question should be:

Was the screenplay good enough?

Now, obviously, it wasn’t good enough to overcome the resistance, but what about that could you have controlled?

Did you take it out before it was ready? Did the project align with the goal (an outright sale)? Was the concept solid enough? Did the budget and the commercial appeal align?

What worked and didn’t work about the strategy?

We went out without attachments. That didn’t work well, but we also had trouble getting a primary producer on board. That is something that has never happened to me.

Did the market and the larger environment require a different strategy? Was a more patient, incremental approach the better option?

We had some producers annoyed that the territory where their deal was at was taken by a less prominent producer. Was that smart? What can we learn from that?

My own conclusions.

I love the screenplay. My manager loves the screenplay, and my agents were behind it. It has a solid mid-level producer pushing it out there.

None of us started second-guessing the quality of the script, despite the passes. That is rarer than you think.

But it didn’t connect. Not like we wanted. And I have no complaints with how hard the team worked. They got it out there, and it got read.

Did we make every right choice? Probably not. But nothing so glaring that a screenplay connecting with people couldn’t overcome.

Final call:

This is a filmmaker-driven project. It’s a dense, sci-fi film noir. It’s moody, and it has mysteries inside mysteries. It needs that attachment for folks to feel comfortable that there is a true vision there.

The focal point should have been to get a director on board first.

Why didn’t we do that?

It takes a lot of time. It’s hard unless you’ve got a big dog making calls that can get reads quickly.

We thought the vision was clear enough that we didn’t need it. The market said otherwise.

Keep looking for opportunities.

Remember, if someone has not read your screenplay, it’s new to them.

This is why I advise writers to re-enter legitimate screenwriting contests every year with their best script. Even if it’s the same script. You will get new readers.

Since we all still believe in the screenplay (why I love my manager), we will keep sending this out.

The downside is that since it’s not a “hot” screenplay, there is even less urgency to read it.

Now, my manager and agents have other clients, and the producer has other projects, so as much as I would like, they’re not going to focus on this screenplay 24/7.

Life has to move on, and resources (time) will be more limited.

So the focus will be on directors with production companies.

You will get faster reads there, and those directors have displayed a desire to generate their own projects rather than just wait for offers.

Celebrate the wins.

I did have SOME positive news this week. A director’s exec loves the script for the director.

I happen to love this director, and I just talked about one of his films on X this weekend.

But it’s not the director who loves it! He hasn’t even read it yet. It’s the guy running his company.

Realistically, this is not a big deal. The person who needs to say yes has not done so yet. Who cares?

But it’s still a much-needed win right now, so I am going to take it, and I am going to feel good about it.

No matter where you are in your career, take time to celebrate the wins.

Sure, some wins are better than others. Some are more real than others. But if we don’t celebrate the small steps forward, all the steps back can get pretty hard to take.

MOST WANTED took some steps this week.

We have a primary producer on that, but he has been in Australia with a movie. He finally started making those calls to the agencies for specific directors.

We’ve been waiting for this!

Celebrate the wins. Even the small ones.

As always, write the next one.

This is the single best bit of advice I can give you and give myself.

Write the next screenplay.

It is the remedy that cures all.

Your screenplay is not your worth.

There is a moment in the new Netflix documentary on Martin Short when John Mulaney relays a story of when their television show together was canceled.

Mulaney was depressed, but Short reminded him, “This is what this business is. It’s 98% failure.”

Why 98% failure and not 99%? Because he’s an optimist, and 98% is twice as much success as 99%.

It’s the nature of what we do.

This is rarely a reflection on you.

I say rarely, because sometimes it is. In 2008 or so, a young agent at CAA wanted to represent me. He brought me up to his team, and there were enough there who remembered me from when I was a client before!

They said nope. That guy ain’t worth it.

Now THAT was a reflection on me! Or at least who I was. And it was fair!

But mostly? It has nothing to do with you.

It’s just the whims of the business. The timing and the market.

I am still a great writer. I am still an even better teacher. I am still a great brother, uncle, step-dad, and friend.

My screenplay just didn’t connect with the people who read it the way I wanted it to.

That’s it. In the grand scheme of things, that is not a big deal.

This is very different from where I was in the ’90s, when, somewhere deep down, I thought the only way I was worth loving was if I was a success.

It was not a happy place. And it manifested itself in a lot of unhappy ways. And, apparently, as late as 2008, people even remembered!

But I’ll tell you something:

I still think we’re going to set this project up.

It’s a really good script.

In the immortal words of Rocky Balboa:

“It’s not about how hard you hit, but about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”