Hi everyone,

Last week I wrote a post while I was dealing with some personal issues involving a friend of mine, and I took it out on myself and my viewpoints towards my pilot project I was in a poor headspace. The situation my friend is in took a toll on me emotionally and financially, but I really have no room to complain when he's dealing with so much worse. Regardless, that jaded my perception of why I did the project in the first place. After reading it again, I decided to take it down and offer this apology to anyone who read it, and to myself, because I think I said stupid things in retrospect.

First of all, this is a passion project. I went into this with the understanding that this might be the only thing produced with these characters and I'm ok never seeing the $10,000 ever again, and I was good with it. Over the last week or so, I was spending way too much time thinking about the future, and having unrealistic expectations of defining it as a "success". I defined other pilots I really liked as "failures" for being unable to produce anything more than that, which could be seen as insulting, and that's the last thing I'd ever want to do to those who's produced such amazing pilots.

This cannot be further from the truth, because those other pilots are indeed, successful, and it actually took me much longer than a week to comprehend what "success" means to me in this context. Success and failure was never either-or to me, "Ok" can fall inbetween those, but the last week I hammered into my skull "this must be a huge hit, otherwise you've failed, period."

I understand the definition of "success" could be subjective, but just getting your project finished and out there for everyone to see, that is what I and many others would consider "success". Getting my pilot done to me, will mean its a "success". I suppose I've always felt this way until last week, but now I think I understand, if that makes any sense. It's not easy producing projects, even if it's out of a labor of love like this one. Many things go wrong, it's easy to get discouraged, and real life gets in the way, and I'm no stranger to any of those. The only way I could consider it a failure, is if I abandon it, which isn't going to happen. 

Additionally, I was way too harsh on myself. I went into this understanding that I had a lot to learn, and there would be mistakes made (and have been made), but I've learned from them. I've been working with so many incredibly talented people who've also helped guide me through this fun, fulfilling experience. 

If I'm able to produce more episodes, that's great. I have contingencies to keep the "franchise" going in smaller ways if I can't. However, I can't overthink about what happens after the pilot. I need to keep my mind focused on working with the team to make the episode great. When the time comes and the episode's out (and you hopefully enjoy it!), I'll see what kind of next steps I can take.

That's all I really wanted to say. It was never a "do or die" situation like I implied, just looking at it the wrong way from outside stress. I hope whatever project you're working on now, you'll feel its successful just by getting it out the door for all to see. I hope if you're feeling uncertain about your work, that maybe my words could help you out a bit.

You made something that you're proud of, and you are successful for doing so, regardless of what others (or even what I) think of it.

Just keep trucking along!