Successes and Failures That Are Successes

It dawned on me that it’s October, and it’s been about a year since I had a story published in Boudin Literary Magazine. It was actually published on Halloween, as it was a special Halloween issue. I was excited to have gotten published in this publication which is one of a few affiliated with McNeese State University. And it felt pretty special to get published on Halloween. A holiday publication?? What’s that, like extra bonus points or something? (It was basically on Halloween, anyway.)

For the almost-one-year anniversary, I figured I’d re-share my story, “The Box on West 129th Street.”

This was a past success. Those are always fun to revisit. Current successes are always great too. But what about failures that are successes? I had one of those… just now.

So, I had written a script titled, “Son of a Gun.” I came up with the idea and loved it… LOVED it. It was one of my favorite and most original ideas I had ever had for a script. But there was one caveat to it… the idea hinged on it being crude. Really crude. Beyond my normal crude. I write plenty of scripts that would be Rated R… usually comedies. That’s one of my favorite kinds of movies.

I write stuff where people don’t hold back, because in life, people don’t hold back. I’m no stranger to cursing, I’m not frightened by violence in movies, I don’t clutch my pearls at the mention of sex or drugs or anything of the like (not even rock n’ roll). But this idea hinged on going way past that. Most of it was just beyond the type of stuff I’d write. But some of it was even so much that I became uncomfortable with it. That was kind of the point. It’s all humor in the crudeness, in the crass language, in the crazy fucking moments that I wrote. But it’s way out there.

Like, "Maybe the dingo ate your baby" out there.

I found it hilarious. And I honestly thought people would also find it hilarious. But I also thought that there’d be plenty of people, and not prude-anti-cursing people, just regular people, who would read/see this and think, “What in the ever-living Hell?” But my hope was that they’d see the humor in it, even if some parts caught them completely off guard.

I didn’t want it to seem like I was going solely for shock value. I wasn’t trying to offend without trying to be funny. I wanted to be funny, to make people laugh, but to also catch them in a part of their stomach that they weren’t ready to feel something in. Give them a laugh they weren’t ready for.

But I had a feeling I’d submit this to script competitions, and there was an excellent chance that it would find a reader that wouldn’t like it, a reader that would think it went too far, a reader that might hate it. Maybe I’d reach a reader who this particular script wasn’t for. It might not have mass appeal, but I feel there is appeal. I kept thinking, “Am I going to send this somewhere, and people are going to read it and be offended and be disgusted by this?”

And then I thought, “That would be so damn funny. I kind of want that to happen. That would kind of be like a medal of honor.”

But I didn’t really want that to happen. I wanted to enter script competitions so my scripts would do well, maybe place, maybe win, maybe garner attention, maybe get me meetings like I had had in the past… but then maybe these meetings would go somewhere. That’s what I wanted from entering the script competitions.

I entered “Son of a Gun” into a couple competitions. In one competition, The Shore Scripts Competition, they just announced the Quarterfinalists. Me and my script were not among them. I did get some notes that were written by one of the readers.

I won’t restate everything here, but I’ll tell you that this person did not like it. There were a few notes in there that made me wonder if I could do some edits and fix up some minor things. But most of it had me thinking that this person just fucking hated my script. Crude expletives were mentioned. Crass was used. Shallow and casual tone was another mention. They even thought this script, if it were made into a movie, would get an NC-17 rating.

Whoa! Really?

They did liken it to the Naked Gun movies… which was something I was semi-aiming for… but then went on to say how they didn’t find it had enough to save it.

This person… HATED IT.

So fucking funny.

I suppose this was kind of the point of the script all along. I wrote something that I think is funny for the people it’s intended for. It might need some more work in certain areas, but the points this person brought up, most of them, they don’t need fixing… this script was just not for this person. They read it and hated it, maybe they were offended, or shocked, or disgusted… and that’s so funny to me. Again, sort of the point. I want people to love it, the people who it’s for. It’s not for everyone. There’s people who will hate it, and I won’t change a thing for them.

It’s not for them.

Maybe this person missed the point a little.

Maybe they completely got the point, and just plain hated it. Their words were so strong, it makes me think, I delivered.

I wished I moved on in this competition, but this wasn’t the competition for this script… if such a competition even exists. I wished someone read it and loved it. But almost as exciting, someone read it and hated it, not because I did a poor job, but they hated it for exactly what it was supposed to be.

Isn’t there some belief out there, something along the lines of, you’re not a real artist until your work has upset someone? Aren’t you not a real artist until someone has looked at your work and hated it? You aren’t a real artist if you try to make something that offends no one.

I absolutely offended someone here.

I failed. And in failing, I succeeded. I was kind of happy that this happened, in a way.

Now, if I could just also get someone to like it. That would be cool too.