It’s hard to imagine a world without Mad Men. Even if you haven’t ever seen the show, aspects of it have certainly nudged their way into your consciousness: Peggy’s stiff bouffant, Joan’s belief-defying curves, Don’s mirror-like hair and the blue-gray smoke drifting from his ubiquitous cigarette.
Yet Mad Men almost didn’t get made. Initially, nobody wanted to touch it. In Getting There: A Book for Mentors, Matt Weiner, its creator, said:
“…I continued to pitch Mad Men everywhere. Showtime, Lionsgate, Sony, FX—all of them passed. Mad Men had been bouncing around town for about four years, and nobody wants something that has been rejected by everybody.
And yet Weiner persevered and of course, we know he eventually found success. Yet, before that, his life had been a lesson in perseverance. His first artistic efforts (poetry) were deemed to be “puerile,” and he couldn’t get into any writing classes. At one point, he was writing spec scripts, and his life seemed especially dark:
“Show business looked so impenetrable that I eventually stopped writing. I began watching TV all day and lying about it. My mother would call me to drive my brother-in-law to the airport. That’s the kind of crap I was doing instead of being a writer. I felt like the most useless, worthless person in the world.”
Weiner decided to make an independent film about a failed screenwriter. It went nowhere, but it snapped him out of his torpor. Eventually, he wrote the first Mad Men script. When he finished, he knew he had something special, and he was determined to see his project through.
Here’s a summary of his advice to creatives:
Practice patience
Success rarely happens overnight and people who put timelines on their creative activities may be giving up too quickly. (Mad Men took seven years to finally make it into America’s living rooms.)
This has been true in my own life. My bestselling novel right now is ten years old, and it’s been selling well for years. It was rejected by every editor in New York, but deep down, I knew it would find an audience. Just because everyone has shunned an idea doesn’t mean it’s dead, especially if you truly believe in it.
Reframe Rejection
When Weiner got rejected, he thought, “I’ll show you” and that was a powerful motivator for him. (And boy, did he ever show them.)
It’s important to find your own way to reframe rejection. When I get rejected, I say to myself, “Next.” Rejection is my way of eliminating the wrong people, so I find the right people.
Always be doing something in your chosen field
Weiner made a film that never sold but it lifted him out of the creative doldrums. Don’t sit around waiting to be chosen. Choose yourself and do something, anything that keeps your creativity flowing, even if it doesn’t pay, even if it doesn’t appear to lead to anywhere.
Your creative mind is always making connections, and it’s organized. You can’t always discern the big picture until later.
Keep your eye on the prize
My favorite Weiner quote is: “I lived every day with that script as if it were going to happen tomorrow.”
The best projects are often the hardest sells.
Gatekeepers say they’re looking for fresh ideas but truthfully, they’re usually resistant to them. Weiner had a lot of people tell him his Mad Men script had no chance of being made. Others recognized the genius but weren’t willing to take the risk.
I would add one piece of advice to Weiner’s: Projects may or may not find their home but they alway enrich us in one way or another.
In the end, the real prize is you and your creativity. Keep your eye on that. No project defines you. You’re too vast for that.
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