The Overnight Illusion

GUEST POST on Tif Talks Books

Here’s a story that sounds too good to be true. Two guys write five chapters of a book with a detailed proposal, get a book agent within a month, sell the uncompleted manuscript within two days of going out to publishers, and sell the movie rights the next week. Well, it’s sort of true, and sort of a big fat lie. Because what it doesn’t mention is the 10 years of rejection and frustration before it. We started writing screenplays when we met during college, and we spent years working day jobs and writing into the wee hours of the night at various LA coffee shops, sometimes so long that we were asked to leave. We endured break-ups and miniscule paychecks all in sacrifice of living our dream. Finding our first film manager – which is kind of like a stepping stone to a film agent -- took years. When we got our very first meeting with a manager, we both got all dressed up and drove over to the manager's office, circling outside as we were early… only to receive a phone call that the meeting had been canceled. We sulked away in our khakis and button downs. Hollywood success would have to wait another day. And it did. Even when success in film and television came, it only seldom felt truly rewarding. We were constantly faced with having to reinvent ourselves, and every job felt like a miracle (which it still does). Then, about two years ago, we decided to try our hand at being novelists. And we were fortunate in that we already had a film agent who worked in the book world to help us secure a literary agent in New York. Our “overnight success” in the book world doesn’t account for the 10+ years of struggle in the Hollywood trenches. It’s as much of an illusion as one cast by Skylar, the magical blue jay in “The Familiars.”