Let’s take a moment to think about how much that looks like a Behind.

Okay.

So last week, while home, I was eating Chinese with my big Bro Pete. My post-msg fortune read: Chill out while you Can: a Big Project is on it’s Way. I was pretty stoked about this. I felt like my choice to freak out and fly home into Mommy and Daddy’s arms was totally validated, because something huge and important was about to happen. I decided, then that this important thing would be the P73 Playwright’s Grant, a Grant in the amount of $8,000 that supports you in the research and development in your play of choice.

But when I returned home – le rejection letter poked irksomely out of the mailbox. Poke; You totally suck. p73 Did indeed NOT choose to fund The Arbitrary Adventures of White Crayon Women, A half-bakedish idea I came up with about a Depressed girl on the Oregon Trail. A comedy, mind you.

I humph-ed about it for a good minute. This what I usually do with my rejection letters (which I get rather frequently): Allow a nice HUMPH, count to ten, then throw the thing in the trash.

But then, the wonderful happened. And this seems to keep occurring: rejections are following suite by good news. They tend to balance each other out.

I am horn-tootin’ proud to announce that my 10 min play Arms, about the sad seperation of Sis and Sam, Siamese twins, is a finalist for the Heideman Award at the 2007 Humana Festival , the Actors Theater of Louisville, KY. This is a pretty sweet deal, and Arms could potentially be produced at the festival, and then published, which looks like this:

In other cookie sweet news, the agent who represents Sara Ruhl, my favorite FAVORITE playwright EVER who I am so consistently gay for – whose words and liberties inspire me to no end – whose characters turn into almonds – FINALLY got back to me, really like You May Go Now, and is interested in my work.

In finally, I just got a voicemail from Lou Moreno at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. He wants to talk about the plays I sent him eons ago. Rattlestick has developed some AMAZING work including but not limited to the stellar drama plays of Adam Rapp. , another hero person of mine.

Je die – je revell in sweet validation, however I can get it, large or small. It makes rejection so much sweeter. I diatribe here on this: if you are any sort of artist, it is so hard to keep up one’s moral. A rejection is more than just a No, it’s like someone laughing at you in your skivey’s. You are just that naked when you put your work out into the world. Or at least, this is how it feels. So I say: rejections: give them a Humph, a baby one, then into the stinkpot they go. Submit and Forget, I say. The watched career never boils.