Today, my goal was to spend a nice, leisurely day rereading the book, in one sitting, from beginning to end. I wanted to update all my sections and make sure the whole piece flowed. I turned on the instrumental movie score station on Pandora to allow Hans Zimmer the opportunity to give me some auditory company, and my furry supervisors soon took up their various posts.

I made it to the second to last chapter of the 168 pages before I had to leave for rehearsal. I have to say, more often than not, I was actually very satisfied with the content. It’s now been nearly fourteen months since I finished the final draft, and while the distance had been good for some real clarity and perspective, my memory of it wasn’t as positive as the content actually ended up being.

A few times, I had to double check the initial at the beginning of the section, thinking, “Did I write that? That’s really good! Did I actually say that??” I had dreaded completing this step, because I feared (there’s that word again) that I would be unhappy with the bulk of the content and want to rewrite a bunch of things.

While part of the book is a memoir, the other part is pure encouragement to others who have a dream. I worried (there’s that word again) that our advice wouldn’t be as strong as I had originally felt it was. What a relief to be wrong! (Really, shouldn’t I be used to that by now?)

Listening to the strains of the entire soundtrack of “The Dark Knight” was actually a pretty cool juxtaposition of emotion while reading our motivational book. Playing all the scenes of the film on the screen of my subconscious really sent some adrenaline pumping.

I understood how Batman felt fighting the Joker. I knew his desperation, his frustration, and his final triumph, for it was mine. At one point, I felt certain I could have run around a Gotham city block, shouting in victory, “YES! We did things!! YES! YOU CAN DO THINGS TOO! WE CAN ALL DO THINGS!!”

K.M. Weiland is where I first heard the advice to listen to battle music while writing a scene or chapter that calls for tenderness, and sweet love songs while writing a battle or action sequence. She felt that having the music on in the background would activate a different area of your brain and allow for a richer experience. I have to agree.

Turns out, Batman is a great motivational speaker, even if he’s not the one doing the talking.

Tomorrow, I’m hoping to finish up reading up the book and then by Wednesday, hand it off to our final reader before we send it to be printed.

While it’s in the hands of the copyeditor, I’ll tackle that pesky cover again.

The end is in sight!!

Right at 35 days before my 35th birthday, Rachael and I found out that a book we wrote about our experience making our first film “No Lost Cause,” was being returned to us by the publisher after a year of waiting for it to be printed. Instead of wallowing in our collective misery, I committed to blogging every day while I searched for ways to overcome this perceived rejection and obstacle to our goal. I currently also have about three other projects brewing at the same time, and write about the progress of each of them. This is part of that series.

Read the first entry here: https://ashleyraymerbrown.com/2015/01/23/35-days-to-35-dealing-with-rejection/